Rejuvenating business operations with process transformation

Traditionally, healthcare has been considered a complex and slow-moving sector, primarily driven by government reforms. However, COVID-19 pandemic has made us realize that healthcare organizations need to be nimble to survive. With the sudden shift to a virtual model, the organizations, that had an agile transformation strategy in place, were able to quickly adapt and gain the first-mover advantage.

For ages, patients were satisfied with undergoing physical check-up once a year. They only checked-in with their doctors when they actually required it. The last decade saw an increasing trend towards preventive care that wearable technology powered. Today, these wearable and remote monitoring devices are an essential part of the virtual care process.

However, hurriedly adopting digital solutions without a comprehensive process transformation strategy cannot deliver the expected results.

How to chart business transformation?

A BCG research highlighted that 70% of digital transformation projects fall short of their objectives; often with profound consequences. This is especially true for large organizations, where delivering such a fundamental change at scale is challenging. Therefore, business process transformation must be a strategic business decision. They must lay out the blueprint of how the business will sustain and grow. It serves to align people, process and technology with an organisation’s vision for the future.

Before charting on a transformation project, there are some significant internal considerations that a business must consider. These include increasing cost of operations, a maturing workforce, as well as the better utilization of core business functions such as finance and HR.

Also, from a technology perspective, one needs to understand that technology is a part of the transformation process; that it should be integrated into systems as a solution to an existing business problem, and not because it comes with attractive features or functionalities.

There is also a strong need for effective change management wrt transformative strategies. Technology is important, but people are usually the determining factor. Organizational inertia from deeply rooted behaviours is a big obstruction. Also developing processes that not only deliver consistent performance but also support unexpected technical or business errors is crucial.

Further, it is important to establish well-defined performance metrics to measure the functionalities before, during, and after the transformation. The business must direct its efforts towards setting up a robust system for the protection of user data and user authentication. These two key elements are at the core of process transformation.

A 3x3 framework for effective transformation

To offset these challenges, three principles need careful consideration before the implementation of a transformation project for creating adaptive and agile business operations. Each of these principles come with three parameters that organizations need to evaluate. This 3x3 step framework can help business leaders determine the why, when, where, and, how of transformation across processes:

Step 1: Set-up phase

At this point, the management needs to evaluate the basic processes and operations of the organization to:

• Identify scope and answer the question of what needs to be changed and why?

• Establish the urgency of change by answering the question of why now? The business needs to answer this most critical questions. It considers both the internal and external factors that establish the need for process transformation within an organization.

• Communicate a clear message outlining the aim and objectives to make sure everyone is in line with it and works towards effective implementation.

Step 2: Establish a strategic perspective

Next, the management needs to define the strategic framework that includes:

• Tools and strategy: Businesses cannot do technology integration in isolation. It must be strategic with components of processes, analytics, and digitalization working in harmony. The business needs to define the technology requirement and establish fit with legacy systems or determine the need to do away with the existing systems completely.

• Execution of change: Once it defines the technology blueprint, the business needs to define the pace and method of execution. Especially the priority aspects and processes to run parallelly, and so on.

• Right talent: The most critical part of these decisions is to identify the right talent; more so, the right team to lead this change. The team should not just comprise people with the right set of technical skills, but also of members who can think global but act locally.

Step 3: Delivery culture and integration

There is a strong need for the integration of change management between different business functions.

• Integration: The transformation team cannot work in a silo. It needs integration with the rest of the teams to have a firm handle on everyday business realities.

• Pilots: A business cannot divorce the new tools and technologies, as well as the core processes from day-to-day operations. They need to run the former in conjunction with the routine business operations as pilots and deliver proof of concept and address any change or modification at this stage.

• Alignment: The consulting team and delivery team goals for transformation need to align with each other, finding the happy middle between the aspirational and the practical, based on ground realities.

The path ahead

The fast-evolving business environment in the unravelling ‘new normal’ requires organizations to up their stakes. They must reimagine and reset their business processes, with the help of innovative, new-age technologies. Thus, it will help them stay in the game and ahead of the curve. However, the path to success lies in aligning the transformation with the individual and group mindset.

Nidhi Singhvi, Senior Director, Operational Excellence, Optum Global Solutions>