Polestar does not create an organization’s overall strategy. Rather, Polestar works with an organization’s executive team to align the desired business change effort to the company’s own goals and strategy. A plan for dealing with changes in overall process and resources is designed, infrastructure for governance of the overall effort is set up and communications are planned to foster acceptance and support for the organization’s business vision and goals.

Key steps in this phase are:

• Aligning the project goals to company vision.
• Establishing proper measurements.
• Developing the roadmap.

 

Investing money in a new business strategy, does not inherently make it successful. People have to want to use the system and follow the new way of doing business.

So how do you capture the hearts and minds of the people? How do you cause a paradigm shift in their way of thinking to move them into a new way of doing business? This is where the people, processes and technology meet the leadership, strategy, and governance that will ensure balance and success of the initiative. Change of this magnitude requires a top down mandate, and enterprise wide leadership that spans all segments of the organization.

Because there is usually an IT element to many business change initiatives, IT departments are often chosen to lead these efforts. But when the project encompasses alignment with executive leadership strategy and governance, the project team will need executive, management and administrative infrastructure to support them. Many times a neutral entity needs to be established.

And because most business improvement or technology initiatives are not part of a company’s day to day business, most companies are ill-prepared to manage them successfully. Unless you or your team have led or undergone many such efforts, you will quickly find yourself in alien territory.

Polestar helps you to organize the management, governance and infrastructure to navigate through this treacherous territory. By engaging your existing management teams and helping organize internal resources into neutral and focused program management teams, we guide and educate your personnel so that you have the necessary structure in place.

Key steps in this phase are:

• Establishing governance
• Setting up neutral and focused program management
• Acquiring endorsement from management to support the project effort

Success is also dependent on having the right resources for the job at hand. There must be dedicated teams focused on the business transformation effort on a full-time basis. Companies need not remodel their entire organization, but they do need to institute an enterprise-wide leadership and a supporting team that will be responsible for end-to-end process optimization as well as the controls and governance needed to enforce the decisions of the leadership team.

The way Polestar works, the focus is on building the project team from existing resources within our clients’ company or assisting with hiring permanent full-time resources from the industry. We encourage and assist our clients in growing their own teams rather than source the project heavily with external resources. By “top-grading”, our client’s resources, they are left with appropriate “run and maintain” teams to support the effort long term so that intellectual property doesn’t depart with the consultants.

Key steps in this phase are:

• Augmenting the team with subject matter experts
• Top-grading the internal team
• Building internal team to maintain intellectual property

Fear of the unknown and internal resistance is one of the chief reasons that business transformation initiatives fail. It is not enough to simply align with the organization’s strategy. The reality of this alignment and all the steps and phases it will take to complete the business transformation must be thoroughly, consistently and constantly communicated. Polestar’s methodologies include the design and development of project based communications, reaching as wide or deep into the organization as necessary, to ensure continuous support of the company’s go-forward strategy.

Key steps in this phase are:

• Develop communication plan in alignment with executive vision and strategy
• Link management of communication with internal governance structure
• Measure effectiveness of communications
• Solicit feedback.

Taking the time to meticulously design and align the processes and policies intended to guide the transformation and manage the changes is critical to the entire effort. Without this critical alignment with strategic vision, mission, objectives and the organization itself, the future-state of the organization is not clear to those inherent in the project’s success. Polestar ensures that this step is completed and completely understood. We provide the methodologies used to develop future-state processes, and policies are then developed and adopted to deliver the rapid benefits that drive value.

Polestar has profound experience with technology enablement initiatives that ensures that process and technology work in synergy. Polestar has tools and processes that aid company leadership in identifying the parts of the organization that will be the most affected by business transformation and determine how they should align to support the effort.

Key steps in this phase are:

• Establish systems and processes to ensure continuous alignment with executive business strategy
• Change Management
• Stakeholder Identification
• Current State vs. Future State analysis

Business transformation is not an easy endeavor, but when executed properly it can be the most important strategic initiative an organization completes. To remain dedicated to true transformation, Polestar works closely with executive leadership in order to continually stress the strategic importance of the effort and ensure the sprit of the endeavor is not compromised or lost.

During the execution phase, Polestar focuses on governance, tracking to the metrics and timeframes, coordination of interdependencies and allocation of resources as well as the more routine aspects of program management including risk, issue identification and resolution.

Key steps in this phase are:

• Continuous Alignment to Business Strategy
• Maintaining of a Current and Transparent Roadmap
• Dedication to Transformation
• Program Management

The final phase of business transformation is to enable the organization so that it does not miss a beat once implementation phase is completed and the experts and consultants that helped guide the effort have moved on. Preparations throughout the engagement set up processes, policies, metrics and technologies needed to capture and record best practices. Polestar’s methodology captures these best practices so they can become part of the overall policy changes within the organization and help ensure a smooth transition and ongoing “run and maintain” ability by the client’s own staff.

Key steps in this phase are:

• Process & Policy Design
  One of the largest pitfalls of organizations however, is not taking the time and investment to design the processes and policies that will guide the transformation changes. Polestar ensures that this critical step is not ignored and brings methodologies used to develop future-state processes and policies can be adopted to deliver rapid benefits and changes for an organization that drive value.
  
• Technology Enablement
  Regardless of the drivers for a transformation effort, it is rare that an effort does not involve some level of technology implementation. Polestar has led many technology enablement efforts and our experience will ensure that technology and process work in synonymously. Processes are rarely efficient without the use of effective technologies. And implementing technology for the sake of technology rarely breeds sustainable success.
• Organizational Change
  It should be no surprise that changes in processes and policies (what people do), should result in organizational changes (how people are organized). Although the extent to which organizational change is needed will vary greatly based on the type of transformation, and the extent to which future-state process will work within the current organizational structure; the important thing to note about organizational changes, is that it should follow the implementation of future-state process and perhaps technology enablement. Polestar, along with leadership, will identify the parts of the organization that will be affected and work with leadership to determine how they should be realigned to support the business transformation effort.
• Organizational Learning
  The final element of the transformation phase is a term known as organizational learning. Organizational learning refers to the processes, policies, metrics, and technologies needed to capture best practices. Organizations may choose to repeat process and policy development, technology enablement, and organizations change a number of times during the transformation. Therefore, it makes sense to capture the lessons learned of each of these iterations to ensure that each subsequent phase operates more efficiently and effectively. Polestar’s business transformation methodology ensures these important lessons don’t get lost in the shuffle.

Polestar is not designed to be a permanent fixture in your organization, but the positive impact of our involvement is long lasting. Our job is complete when all 5 levers are balanced and you organization reaches the Polestar Success Zone. Your organization will emerge from the transformation well equipped with a fully balanced implementation including the right mix of new technology, applicable processes, and trained and prepared staff to leave you securely on your new route to success, profitability and competitive advantage. Once the desired outcomes are realized and the agreed goals have been successfully accomplished, we exit the engagement.