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Building Relationships - Interim Management

The Decent Homes programme is a 10-12-year £40bn government initiative to modernise all the UK's social housing.

 CityWest Homes, an arms-length management organisation (ALMO), which spun off from Westminster City Council five years ago, is spending £200m refurbishing the 13,000 tenanted homes it manages for the council in the City of Westminster.

 Brian Johnson, who became chief executive three years ago, explains: "We've been making the transition from behaving like part of a local authority to behaving like a small organisation that is more independent, able to grow, change and react quickly and deliver more, which has involved a complete rethink of the attitudes and skills we require. Lots of the executive and senior management team here are not from the public sector, which, on the one hand, is a big benefit because we are not constrained by our knowledge of what has and hasn't been possible in the past. A downside is that we don't know what we don't know."

 One of the things Johnson and his team did know three years ago was that they needed outside help to manage the refurbishment of the properties they managed, and that it would be "thoroughly irresponsible" to employ 19 people full-time on what would be a lengthy, but finite project. Johnson is a seasoned and enthusiastic user of interim managers, and employing interim project managers on the Decent Homes programme was, he says, "a no-brainer."

 He approached Impact Executives for help, and the consultancy fielded Paul Gatrill, a highly experienced chartered civil engineer and building surveyor, to project manage the modernisation and refurbishment of six 20-storey ugly tower blocks on London's Harrow Road. "The initial costing for the works was £48m, and we told him we couldn't afford any more than £36m, so we set him an unreasonable target before he even started," recalls Johnson.

 An additional complication was the fact that CityWest Homes' project management processes were virtually non-existent, admits Johnson.

 "But during his career, Paul had actually had a hand in building a high percentage of all the tower blocks in London, which gave us the confidence he could deliver reliably even though we were having to construct the processes around him," he says.

 "And he has certainly demonstrated his ability to work in a fairly chaotic environment, which is what I have come to expect from interim managers, who add most of their value by virtue of being overqualified for the roles you put them in."

 Gatrill joined CityWest Homes in January 2005 with a blank sheet of paper. "I knew what the budget was and that we had to finish before 2010," he says. "I developed a brief and appointed a team of quantity surveyors, architects, structural engineers and a health and safety consultant. We worked with the team from Wates Living Space, the contractors for the regeneration."

 Before long, Gatrill was able to bring forward the completion date of the project, first to April 2009 and then to December 2008, and reduce the overall cost by £1.5m.

 "We did actually look at pulling the buildings down and starting again from scratch, but that would have cost twice as much, taken over twice as long and would only have given the buildings a life expectancy of 50 years, compared to the 30 that the refurbishment will provide," he says. "It would also have meant finding temporary accommodation for the residents."

 As it is, the modernisation is already causing residents plenty of upheaval, and Gatrill admits that the 'resident consultation' has been the single biggest challenge of the project. "The building is the easy bit; the people aspects are difficult and demanding," he says.

All of his previous project management experience has been in the private sector - hotels, office blocks and so on - and all of it new build. "You get all sorts of design and delivery problems, of course, but those are relatively easy to overcome," he says.

 Johnson admits that the organisation has learnt from the experience.

 "We were right to bring in some very high-calibre project management skills from outside the sector, but I think we all under-estimated the enormity of the resident consultation challenge, which is very different from typical project management exercises," he says.

 "These blocks have had limited investment over the past 20 to 30 years, and residents' experience of makeovers is often from the TV, where people like Carol Smillie turn up in orange boiler suits and transform the place in two days," Johnson continues. "That does not reflect the reality of the kind of upheaval involved in our refurbishments, so managing residents' expectations has been enormously difficult. We have done lots of consultation, which is good, but actually, most people are far more interested in how the work will affect them week-by-week."

 Gatrill bears the brunt of residents' frustration. Johnson says: "Paul will get calls on a Sunday morning to say the one remaining lift in a tower block has stopped working - the other one being out of service because it is being replaced. Throughout it all Paul has never lost his spark or passion or his desire to do things differently."

Leila Summa has a taste for data driven innovation: your world is the digital media.  She is the perfect blend of Digital leadership brought together in a highly authentic. She is Insightful. Experienced.Erudite.Provocative.Pragmatic.

 One element of the resident consultation that is exercising Gatrill at the moment is the installation of digital TV. "The buildings are bristling with satellite dishes, and we want to replace them with two big dishes on each roof and then cable down the TV to every household," he explains. "But over half the residents are Arabic speakers, and we need to provide Arabic, Egyptian and Turkish TV stations, among others."

 But Gatrill and his team are now half way through the project, and this month the scaffolding and protective netting comes off the outside of one of the buildings, allowing residents to see out of their windows for the first time in months and use their new balconies.

The Decent Homes initiative is just one of many things CityWest Homes has had to get right over the past two years as it adjusts to a more independent life.

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Chief Internet Officer - The New Corporate Digital Leadership

Corporations have taken a big leap forward over the past decade by adding or advancing digital properties to its portfolio of assets in order to better leverage or extend its brand. Most of this has been under the extended responsibility to the CTO or CMO or both. Fortune 500 Companies have created and monetized web sites and digital products. During this time, you have noticed the emergence of start-up competitors that have leaped past big companies while the bigger companies just sit and watch.

 For example, how did Amazon.com beat Barnes and Noble to the punch and why couldn't Barnes and Noble react more quickly given their resources? In addition, companies like eBay and Craigslist have dominated major media assets such as local newspaper companies. Why should there even be a market for online real estate, automotive or job web sites that don't come from the companies who own the product themselves? Travel companies?

 Problem Statement

The problem is that the "big company" has not been positioned to manage a digital business. As Jack Welch had put it, the strategy or the "ah ha" idea is really only just 20%, but it is the execution that wins out. I firmly believe that the "big company" has not been positioned properly for the execution - regardless of its digital strategy.

 Previous Options

Previously, options were to hire a more experienced CMO, invest in consultants and interactive agencies, or perhaps an acquisition.

 CIO Solution

Chief Internet Officer

 Benefit 1- Organization Management

A CIO should be able to provide the insight as to how to best structure an organization to support an e-business. A CIO should have run and/or built a start-up and have been involved in a Corporate start-up. Having such frame of reference will allow the CIO to know what they need the organization structure to look like in order to succeed and what they need to do to make the appropriate changes. For example, it is important to re-evaluate 'functional' or 'matrix' designs and support more business unit-like designs. In addition, it is important to evaluate how product, marketing and technology are structured as well as the process within each. In today's world of Agile development and stronger performing technologies and methods, the organization should not be driven by RUP approaches, business analysis and such.

 Benefit 2 - Strength of Distribution

The CIO can clearly advantage a larger company by leveraging its assets to acquire distribution. There seems to be a middle ground today between a CMO and CTO where the CMO is skilled at "marketing" and the CTO is skilled at "technology development". Distribution blends both skills and is often overlooked. Large companies spend too much money on advertising and media agencies when they could merely be deploying more web pages and creating partner relationships to leverage strength of distribution.

 Benefit 3 - Architecture - Information and Technology

Perhaps the most overlooked of all is information and technology architecture. Where the CIO position most benefits an organization is the ability to assist with IA and Technology and meet project demands (this benefit blends a bit with "speed to market"). On the IA side, many companies utilize large sets of data to conduct their business both internal and external.

 The ability to account for IA is a skill that needs to be accommodated for in Marketing plans that is often overlooked. With respect to Technology architecture, it is often overlooked how much larger companies are not properly set up to conduct an e-business - even today. As CMO's prepare to launch new initiatives on top of older technology architectures, they could be building a house of cards that may not be supportable long term or that may be causing hardship to support internally or to push to production. A CIO should have the insight on how to best match resources and strategy with technology architecture.

Leila Summa has a taste for data driven innovation: your world is the digital media.  She is the perfect blend of Digital Interim Management brought together in a highly authentic. She is Insightful. Experienced.Erudite.Provocative.Pragmatic.

 Benefit 4 - Speed to Market

Speed to market is the final benefit. Not to give away any secrets in the this one as it truly is a 'secret sauce' for many others in my field but the 'process' deployed internally to produce product and marketing initiatives is essential. Today, there are dozens of variations of Agile methodologies from which to select that will improve a business' speed to market.

 Implementation

Need to target a candidate for the CIO position. Prior to the filling the role, the Company must take the internal political will necessary for the CIO to execute. As such the following needs to occur:

 1. Generate the appropriate the political corporate will for the CIO to succeed

a. Allow the CIO to re-arrange the organizational structure as necessary to support the Internet

b. Allow the CIO to separate consumer digital initiatives with separate infrastructure policies

c. Allow the CIO to manage digital initiatives to a business plan rather than a budget

 2. Source a candidate with the appropriate skill sets

a. Remember, nobody can have 20 years of Internet experience. Do the math. It wasn't until the mid-90's that Internet/Digital businesses took shape. Even then, few people entered the category. Ten years of experience is senior.

b. The candidate needs to be both well-rounded and have managed a P&L. By well-rounded, they need to be strongest at online sales and marketing but also have managed product development, web development and have a strong understanding of finance and operations.

c. The candidate should have been in BOTH a corporate start up leadership role and pure start leadership role.

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Digital or Business Transformation

Digital transformation refers to the changes associated with the application of digital technology in all aspects of human society. Digital transformation may be thought as the third stage of embracing digital technologies: digital competence → digital literacy → digital transformation. The latter stage means that digital usages inherently enable new types of innovation and creativity in a particular domain, rather than simply enhance and support the traditional methods.

 - Wikipedia

 It has been more than 30 years since computers had been introduced into business world. With the help of, powerful mobile devices and high connectivity, now we are living in a momentary world that is evolving so fast towards digital that now digital transformation is inevitable.

 Most of the C-Levels in corporations started to pay more and more attention to Digital Transformation. They believe, without this transformation, even a long-established company may extinct. It is the Kodak example they are afraid of. To be honest, the risk is there, however is 'Digital Transformation' just enough?

 Marketing, sales, manufacturing, finance processes should all be digitised in order to fulfil the transformation. It includes working anywhere anytime, broader and faster communication, enterprise integration that would enable performance & efficiency improvements.

 That is all well planned and should be executed step by step. Yet can you imagine any change to be internalised without a holistic approach? Without embarking every team member, adjusting / improving their competencies, engaging them all around the same evolving mindset...

 That's why, we believe this topic should be handled with a broader scope and it is the reason behind we like to call it a "Business Transformation' rather than a Digital Transformation.

 In other words Business Transformation shall handles the topic more broadly including mindset and organisations, leadership and entrepreneurial mindset, education and pragmatic planning.

Leila Summa has a taste for data driven innovation: your world is the digital media.  She is the perfect blend of Interim Management leadership brought together in a highly authentic. She is Insightful. Experienced.Erudite.Provocative.Pragmatic.

 Your Business Transformation journey is unique

 Every company has its own inner dynamics and every category has its own realities hence your journey should be tailor made to your business. When there is so much at stake, it is not an easy task to move the rocks around, without rigor planning, sufficient on-boarding, kicking off the new mindset with an adjusted organisational structure.

 The internal impact - Mindset& Organisation

 Any change in a company first impacts its own resources, starting from human. Top-down transformation approaches tend to stay at the top level with Digital Transformation Teams, causing manager level (or further) to think it is not their business. The only way to beat the resistance to change is to embark the resistors ASAP.

 Corporate and entrepreneurial mindsets are two far ends thus moving from one to other is not given. However, with the power of a corporate company, an entrepreneur mindset can achieve higher goals sooner. That's why, we should keep on increasing skills of the individuals in our organisation, empowering them to move forward within the team.

 The Impact on Consumer Experience

 Digital transformation for the consumer end includes an architecture of your digital ecosystem to be able to do better listening, segmentation and tracking, enabling you to increase your digital media investments efficiency, letting you to fish where the fishes are. All these changes will definitely have a positive impact on your consumer engagement and thanks to the new tools, we will be able to measure the ROI of your campaigns / activities.

 Step by Step Approach

 As said, digital transformation is a key stage throughout this journey. All your existing processes should be analysed with expert analysts according to the dynamics of your company and industry. Only after then, a solution can be determined and tailored to your needs. The gains here are not necessarily immediate, therefore long term investments should be planned with an entrepreneur mindset.

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Digital Transformation - Digitalization: High Tech or Human Touch?

There is a fact that is quite understood and realized among leaders in the majority of the main industries around the world and this is: How the digital technology is disrupting all the models we know so far.

 Digitalization happens to be at the moment the main source of tremendous transformations in different aspects of our lives. Digitalization is the new connectivity for citizens, policy makers, societies and governments. It presents unlimited chances to the creation of more value to businesses, although if not undertaken carefully, it also represents risk.

 Much has been discussed and analyzed, very specifically the economic or societal implications of the digitalization phenomenon, questions are rising and contest widening, while important questions are just appearing while the process of the digital transformation is taking place.

 However, throughout all this processes, I want to point out as an urgent matter and the most important factor in all this boom: Who is the operator behind a machine? To whom are companies targeting their augmented or virtual reality gadgets? Who is behind all this digital transformation show? Is what some economists from the EU business school name: the unitary cost of production, say, the human being, say, you and me.

 Some great personalities around the world from various cultures, I am talking about supermen who undertook time to scrutinize our inner and outer nature. Those great philosophers agree that the present mankind's evolutionary state is that of the mere intellect, nothing else nothing much. Intellect has enabled us to go beyond the unexpected in the material world. It has enabled us to progress in many fields of thoughts from the materialistic point of view, say, what our senses experiment as a stimulation that comes from the outside: object and subject. However, paradoxical as it seems we are perpetuating our dependence to devices and decreases the natural abilities we have been born with, making us in many cases mentally lazy and acting like slaves of those devices. Otherwise, can anyone explain if they know how are thoughts are formed or how can we undergo profound changes in our deep personality and have an integrated life? Statistics show a very bad projection in this so far.

 Exponential growth which defines most of the scenarios we are actually living can help us understand all this material phenomenon. Universal laws from a physical point of view limit our senses and way of existing. Exponential growth therefore releases unlimited possibilities in graphics, virtual realities, holographic realities or astral realities. When a computer's speed continuously increases its rate the more fantastic or even science fiction like computers or devices comes up. Processor chips- "Computer's main component is called the Central Processing Unit, or CPU for short. The CPU is a very small piece of silicon and is often referred to as the silicon chip or the processor chip. This tiny little piece is the brain of the computer, equivalent to the engine of a car"-double in speed every eighteen months according to Moore's Law, the rule of thumb in the technology industry. Therefore, computers as we know, up to 2025 will tend to be more than 70 times faster than it is now in 2016. Photonics ("the branch of technology concerned with the properties and transmission of photons, for example in fibre optics"), says the more data coming out of fiber-optic cables, faster connectivity, this increase at more than double rates every nine months.

 Meanwhile as an exercise analysis, changing customer expectations, cultural transformation, outdated regulation, and identifying and accessing the right skills - to name just a few. These challenges need to be addressed by industry and government leaders to unlock the substantial benefits digital offers society and industry. Machines increase efficiency, provides lots of tools to deal with ailments, health problems among others, in the other hand also decreases our intellectual coefficient not allowing to use discernment or analytical abilities, it also disintegrate our personality making us sometimes too much ego or selfie (The Internet of Me) driven making us loose vision of a holistic life view.

 After placing a debate above on the real meaning of the human being behind the devices, we want to always emphasize very clearly that technology is useful. Technology is beautiful. Nothing more than that: "The word technology comes from two Greek words, transliterated techne and logos. Techne means art, skill, craft, or the way, manner, or means by which a thing is gained... So, literally, technology means words or discourse about the way things are gained."

 Bearing these premises in mind, quite many recommendations can be given out but as a set information to aid incumbent industry leaders in their efforts to achieve a proper digital transformation this can apply not only in companies but in any groups such as families, students, social organisms, etc.:

 Place the human factor above everything and anything. This include a solid ground human resource philosophy in the company.

 Have moments of silent, periodical moments of conscious silence (this is far different from sleeping), away from all type of technological devices. Turn them all off while you are into these systematic moments of silent. If in group, the better although is strongly advised to do it individual as individual mental peace brings forth collective peace. It all starts with each one of us! Regularity is advised, hopefully twice a day, 30 mns.

 Start practicing meditation twice a day. 30 mns.in the morning, 30 mns. in the afternoon. Meditation create new neurons, increase the brain's gray matter, widen brain connection. It makes us more intelligent. Intelligence doesn't mean just having a high IQ. Meditation increases immune function and decreases pain. Meditation decreases inflammation from the cellular aspect. Meditation decrease stress, depression and anxiety.

Leila Summa has a taste for data driven innovation: your world is the digital media.  She is the perfect blend of digital transformation strategy leadership brought together in a highly authentic. She is Insightful. Experienced.Erudite.Provocative.Pragmatic.

Training to each one of the members on how to breath properly (a vast majority of people don't know how to breathe even though they have noses!).

 Start training on what you eat. Yes, you are what you eat. The purer the food the more intelligent is our mind. Food goes to the blood. The blood nourishes our brain and overall system.

 The creation of a new digital culture consist on involving everybody, shareholders, stakeholders, etc

 Start searching and identifying, developing and later on launching new, digital business models.

 Setting up successful corporate venturing businesses inside the company is a must.

 Every aspect of operations must be re-examined.

 Leveraging data and the right digital traction metrics must be part of the new culture. This also includes investments in security.

 Build a high-quotient digital workforce

 The company that want to thrive into the digital enterprise must go beyond the mere implementation of new technologies just for the sake of it. What gives a digital enterprise that long cherished competitive advantage is its culture, strategy and way of operating, never forgetting that in your new digital business models, always ensure these two things: The employees as unitary costs of production and customers as the center of everything you do. All the lights should spot on them!

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Digital Transformation - What It Means for Global Enterprises

Fundamentally, a business enterprise would exist in a 'going concern' to make profits and maximize the shareholders' value. To be able to deliver business results consistently then becomes most important objective. There could be a number of strategies, programs and policies that an enterprise would practice to deliver business results. Digital transformation is one such innovative strategy that an enterprise could look to practice in a structured and time bound manner.

 Here is an important dimension that I would like to highlight, and to put it simply, digital transformation would bridge the gap that always existed when Digital (in business parlance this would mean Information and Communication Technologies) became necessity for efficiency, but remained a huge cost center and avenue of change inertia for a majority of times. It is all about getting closer to transforming this cost center to a revenue center, by consistently and selectively applying Digital to get closer to customers and stakeholders alike to make difference to the way they live, or do business, or collaborate.

Leila Summa has a taste for data driven innovation: your world is the digital media.  She is the perfect blend of digital transformation consulting brought together in a highly authentic. She is Insightful. Experienced.Erudite.Provocative.Pragmatic.

 For global enterprises what this means is that when its digital interests are driven by keeping its customers at large in focus they can be construed as making significant strides in their digital transformation strategy. Depending on what stage of technology adoption they are into (1st, 2nd or 3rd generation) the DT intensity would vary. For instance, recently I wrote an article on how GRC solutions can be revenue enablers - GRC then becomes a part of a broader digital transformation strategy.

 A majority of new age business enterprises would have made substantial investments in implementation of most grass root enterprise systems. That is a whole reasons why from the technology provider ecosystem do we get to hear about mobile, analytics, social and cloud most of the times when it comes to digital transformation, which is a contemporary articulation. The fact remains that it is up to the CIO and other CxO executive team members to figure out what would be a right beginning of their digital transformation program and what would its life cycle look like in their company. In other words, an enterprise could really be ready for digital even if they aren't talking about social, analytics and mobility, similarly, even if a relatively new enterprise (such as a start-up) can still be talking of massive investments into DT even if they do not use large enterprise systems, for instance an ERP. As we said, the key to remember, and hence to derive most benefits of amazing digital transformation program, is to know how and if digital investments made by an enterprise are taking it closer to a customer to make difference to the way they live, or do business, or collaborate.

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