EXPERT SPEAK
ACHIEVING BUSINESS OUTCOMES IN TECHNOLOGY IMPLEMENTATIONS REQUIRES TRANSFORMATIVE LEADERSHIP
Transformative leadership drives an outcomes-focused approach and appreciates that operational excellence is non-negotiable . James Hickman , Head of Sales , Marketing and Solutions at South Africa-based Altron Karabina , discusses how technology consultants and channel partners can help the C-suites to achieve business success in technology implementations through transformative leadership .
Business transformation projects are incredibly important , and C-suites will not go through many of these large-scale exercises in their lifetimes . It ’ s a big deali and happens about as regularly as the average person buys a house : once , twice , maybe three times . If you think about it in these terms , it becomes apparent why getting it right is crucial , not least from an outcomes perspective but also from a costbenefit analysis .
The success of a large-scale technology implication starts with the very first
James Hickman , Head of Sales , Marketing & Solutions , Altron Karabina meeting , all the way through the negotiation , contracting , implementation and ongoing consulting and managed services . The negotiation is crucial , and it ’ s a topic for another day to analyse which negotiation styles bear the best fruit , but it ’ s fair to say that at its core , a negotiation seeks to achieve outcomes – for both parties .
That ’ s crucial : outcomes . There ’ s a lot of talk in the IT industry about achieving outcomes for customers , so let ’ s dig a little deeper into that . Whenever a business needs to implement new systems , especially the more complex integrations , the parties come to an agreement through the negotiation process .
Simply put , the parties go through a number of steps and first agree on the business outcomes they ’ d like to achieve , which will be at the highest level . Then , they work on the functional outcomes , which is a level down , if you will . Once these are agreed upon , the parties iron out the technical outcomes and then a scope of work is defined .
Now , in the industry broadly , this is often where a crucial mistake is made : just when the parties work through the implementation and start arriving at the end of a project and begin signing off things . However , when you stop and analyse what ’ s happening , often they are signing off a piece of functionality at a technical level . Box ticked , and high fives and back-patting . But did the consultant do a good job ? If we are blunt , the technology industry is not very good at coming back to the first level and asking : did we achieve the business outcome ?
It ’ s a great pity because customer success is a buzzword in the industry . Everyone is
Whenever a business needs to implement new systems , especially the more complex integrations , the parties come to an agreement through the negotiation process .
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