Demystifying implementation success in a post-pandemic world

Enterprise technology implementations were at an all-time high in 2021. Inevitably so. Over the last two years, the world shifted from treating digital transformation from ‘good to have’ to one where it’s a ‘must have.’ Businesses across the board let go of their legacy business models and continued to move to digital at an accelerated pace. Those who didn’t, lost out on significant competitive edge and market share.

Enterprise digital transformation though crucial, is only as successful as its implementation. McKinsey states that two out of three large tech implementations regularly exceed budgets, miss schedule estimates, and underdeliver against business objectives and benefits. Large technology implementations cost millions of dollars and a failed project is debilitating for the business given its critical importance.

There are several reasons why implementations get complicated. But mostly it’s due to change in requirements, insufficient funding for complimentary solutions, poor solution fit, lack of scope management, accountability, and adequate testing, and of course the onset of remote working.

So, what are the ways to move towards better implementation processes and ensuring customer success?

Businesses are dynamic and so are their requirements, especially if they operate in volatile markets – and the last two years have been the most difficult environment businesses have faced in decades. In such scenarios accomplishing implementation goals is often akin to hitting a moving target. Accomplished the task involves right planning, skill and most importantly a clear definition of project success criteria in collaboration with the customer. It is important to understand what success looks like to the customer and document it. This helps reduce the risk of project failures while improving the odds of success.

Defining the success criteria involves three key factors – the Iron Triangle (Cost + Scope + Time), realized benefits and most importantly ensuring stakeholder satisfaction. This is fundamental to any project. That said, the challenge lies in ensuring a balance between all these factors. Focusing on one aspect alone while ignoring the rest is bound to be disappointing. Let’s say you implemented a product on time and within budget—is that success? It could be, but not unless it meets customer expectations.

There is a particular episode in one of the best TV shows ever made – Mad Men – where two opposing agencies team up to pitch and win Jaguar’s vast advertising business. This model works well in real life too – sans the drama. Enterprise requirements are vast and often, most tech-solution providers are not equipped with the depth and breadth of resources and solutions to address customer needs. Unless their solutions are driven by a platform that allows them to add newer capabilities and configurations quickly.

Scaling involves talent and hiring is not always the best bet in this case. For instance, if a certain implementation requires a team of 100 members, hiring new talent, onboarding and then training them is not only cost prohibitive but also causes significant delays in implementations and hampers customer experience.

In such a scenario, it makes sense to identify and build alliances with the right partners who can help fill the gaps both in terms of resources and domain expertise.

This model can be a win-win situation for both customers and solution providers where customers get to engage with one technology partner instead of managing multiple partners and yet benefit from additional resources and solutions they need to succeed in critical transformational projects. For solution providers the real value lies in enabling a better customer experience that paves the way for more business engagement in the future.

Change in customer requirements is a given. You can have the best implementation processes, but if the system’s technology foundation is inflexible, no matter what you do there will be inevitable delays in implementations.

A scalable technology architecture lets customers reimagine aspects of their business in-sync with their requirements. It lets them add more users, geographies, and capabilities to manage digital innovation at scale as opposed to focusing on changing their technology infrastructure every time they need to make a business pivot. A flexible architecture allows customers to benefit from accelerated time-to-market and scalability, reduction in IT cost and complexity, faster product development cycles, and an improved alignment between IT and the business at large.

Another area in technology enterprises need to evaluate when onboarding technology partners is their success history with integration and solution roadmap. Most enterprises rely on multiple systems that have different solution architectures. If the solution in question doesn’t have much history in successfully integrating with the existing tech-infrastructure it may not be the best option.

Similarly, it’s important to make a note of the solution provider’s product roadmap. Technology keeps evolving and keeping up can be expensive, and yet, a competitive necessity. If the solution roadmap is not in sync with the larger business vision or adaptable with newer technologies, enterprises miss out on gaining significant ROI from their tech investments.

You can invest in the best of technologies, but if it’s not intuitive, it doesn’t help. Simplified user interface allows customers to do their job easily, which helps in increasing user adoption, reduce the need for manual support, and accomplish tasks more independently. Providing a sandbox environment on the day of project kick-off for instance instead of providing it at the later stages of the implementation can go a long way in enabling successful adoption. Enabling this environment earlier on in the project allows users to get familiar with the solutions that helps in faster user adoption and reduced project timelines.

A cornerstone of every implementation is user training. Gone are the days when users could be trained one-on-one, or they could walk up to the IT department. A robust virtual training portal with on-demand training modules in sync with customer requirements helps in faster user acceptance and thereby faster ROI. These virtual training modules can be instructor led, self-paced or even role based.

It’s one thing to implement new technologies and another to enable holistic enterprise-wide change. It’s not uncommon for users to reject new solutions and revert to using legacy or manual ways working. This is where effective change management plays a key role. A project is six times more likely to be successful when there’s excellent change management. Familiarizing users as early into the implementation process as possible allows actively preparing the personnel, who can then be the ambassador for enabling change internally among other users.

The shift to digital is inevitable with the right implementation process. Executed well can lead to a win-win for both customers and technology partners where customers stand to gain significant ROI and competitive edge while staying agile amidst disruptions. Solution providers committed to partnering with the customer on the other hand, not only gain customer trust but also more opportunities for growth in the future.

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This article was first published on The Times of India.