Business transformation: this is for your startup too 💃🏽
Dear readers-friends,
My holidays break was a little bit longer than expected since I - as 50% of the world population - got Covid in early January. As Mike Tyson once said: “everyone has a plan until you get punched in the face” - my plan of returning with my weekly writing schedule fell through.
But this additional time out was beneficial for learning and rethinking topics that have been neglected in my life by just being ‘too busy’. Hopefully, I’ll be able to translate this thinking into interesting content for Openbooks. Now, without further ado, onto today’s issue:
Usually applied in big corporations in need of a major retooling, transformations are required when legacy business models are stagnant to the current reality and organizations may not be relevant with future business trends. These trends could be related to technological change, the evolving consumer tastes, or the reconfiguration of the global economic order.
The recent pandemic just added further turbulence to the current environment and a lot of businesses needed the transformation to adapt in order to survive.
Even if that is more common for large enterprises, you shouldn't treat it as something that would not be applicable for your startup or smaller-scale business.
In essence, business transformation is an umbrella term for fundamental changes on how a business runs, including personnel, processes, and technology. And the reason why they are so drastic is because they need to be. People need to be impacted by a seismic shift in order to react and go through a change in mindset from the ancient to what is new. That is why transformations usually have third-party consulting firms involved or even new hires that set the tone for the initiatives that will go beyond typical incremental advancements.
The most traditional format of transformations are the following:
Business process transformation: focuses on 'how' the business gets things done and quite often involves agile transformation. It's basically focused on optimization and automation of processes
Digital transformation: the transformation that the majority of the business had to go through during the pandemic. Either by leveraging technology and data to offer new products and services or by using it to build and distribute existing products.
Organizational transformation: restructuring departments and reallocating responsibilities is usually a key strategy to shift towards a different goal that the organization is pursuing.
Management transformation: to ensure an organization would have more agility on an ongoing and sustainable basis, it is essential to assess if the hierarchy allows the flow of information and decision making. Removing the middle man, establishing clear communication channels and overall transparency are essential aspects of an agile organization.
Cultural transformation: seen as the most challenging transformation, corporate culture is usually a product of organic evolution, driven by leadership personalities and how people are rewarded and recognized.
Applying strategies and tactics from large enterprises into smaller businesses could be pivotal for survival and thrive. Any company is interested in maximizing performance, increasing efficiency, and better serving its customers. Business transformations are for everyone.
🎧 Podcast recommendations
▶️ The Drive with Peter Attia - Paul Conti, M.D.: How to heal from trauma and break the cycle of shame: Very interesting conversation with Dr. Conti, who is trying to fix the health care problem of psychological issues that almost every single human has to go through.
▶️ Bad Blood: The Verdict: Elizabeth Holmes, from Theranos, had her veridict released early this year (news from yesterday, I know). Even if you all heard about it, this is the final chapter of a podcast-series by the same book author John Carreyrou - the man who unfolded the fraud. Have a listen.
This is Open Books - a weekly newsletter carefully curated by me, Leticia Souza. Every week I’ll be compiling relevant topics around finance and financial strategy - from choosing your first accounting system to how to successfully close a fundraising round to your business.
In a world full of noise, I aim to bring clarity and direction to your finance processes so you can manage your business in peace. If you find the content useful, do your friends a favor, and please share this newsletter with them.
See you all next week 👋🏼
Leticia
Love it. Great topic.