Planning: The Second Stage of Accelalpha’s Approach to Digital Transformation
We examined the assessment stage, in the last blog post, Assessment: The First Stage of Accelalpha’s Approach to Digital Transformation. So, if you haven't read the first installment in this series, we recommend you take a moment to look through that post before reading about stage two. In this blog post, we will be discussing the planning stage and why this is a particularly crucial part of the process.
Lay the Groundwork
In a world with so many variables, you can never plan too much. Benjamin Franklin once stated, "By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail." The more you plan for your cloud transition, the greater the chances you will discover cost-saving opportunities early in the process.
Before you dig into the planning stage, we advise that you start by preparing in three key areas:
- Process
- Team member identification
- Data preparation
Process
While it can be tempting to jump right into the implementation without laying the groundwork first, you can avoid failures or costly mistakes by following a well-defined process tailored to your organization.
Do you understand the current process flow from start to finish? You must understand this first to determine how you can improve your processes with the new Oracle Cloud applications. During this part of the planning stage, you will find performance gaps as you work to better understand what your current system does or doesn't do. Take time to review the process and course-correct based on feedback before approving to move forward.
Implementation phasing is another area that must be addressed during the planning phase. This is the key to the project's success and where you define the project's key goals and any challenges and obstacles that stand in the way of those goals. Your implementation plan should summarize the goals, timeline, and strategy for each step of the digital transformation in advance..
Team Member Identification
Change isn't easy, and not everyone will be on board with adapting to new technologies or processes. That is why evaluating and choosing the best people for the project, regardless of their business unit, is vital for implementation success and enables you to select your team members more quickly.
Team structure within the project is critical, so the sooner you define the different levels and individuals involved, the more smoothly things will go. Once your team has been assembled, you should establish your supporting applications and the toolset you will use during the project.
Make sure any partner tools align with your in-house tools, that your team is comfortable using them, and that they have easy access to them. Additionally, one of the critical items to address during the planning phase is determining and socializing the escalation path. There will always be some problems during a project and knowing where to go, who's going to address the problem, and how they will report back is crucial and could impact costs.
Data Preparation
The third area is data preparation. Not only is this the stage where data is gathered, arranged, and merged, but where you must assess the data availability and quality as well as acknowledge existing problems that need to be solved. Start collecting critical master data from throughout the organization so you can begin loading test data. Of particular importance is collecting representative transaction data.
This stage often begins with identifying a problem or need before even looking at the data. Understanding how a particular set of data impacts the company's resources, distribution, and business operations is essential. Data visibility is critical, but cleaning the data will drive success, cut costs, improve efficiency, and avoid duplicate data entry.
The data preparation phase is where you review manual processes that need to be automated. Look at interconnected solutions or systems within your environment. Make sure you will be turning old systems off appropriately, or you'll have to build integrations to these legacy applications. Also, identify those non-critical applications that could be managed later in the project in case you have to move them in the timeline to keep the rest of the implementation on track.
Setting Up for Success
While each stage we discuss in this series is vital in its own right, skipping one step while doing the rest of the steps perfectly could still result in implementation failure. Digital transformation in the modern age is critical to remaining relevant and profitable. But to ensure you achieve a healthy return on investment from your Oracle solution implementation it is essential to complete each stage along the implementation journey.
This preparation requires time and effort, but there's a reason that so many companies are pursuing digital transformations using Oracle solutions. The benefits of automating processes and adopting new cloud applications outweigh the work you must complete on the front end. The boost in efficiency, increased profits, and inevitable growth of the business are just some of the reasons that more and more companies are pursuing integrated solutions to improve their business and why they can't afford to pass up the opportunity to ensure future scalability.
In the next blog post in our series on the four stages of digital transformations, we will explore the execution stage in detail. Effective deployment during these transitions is a desire of every company, and it can be overwhelming to see all the demands for implementation. If this blog post has raised some critical questions or concerns for you, we recommend reaching out and connecting with one of our consultants.