Theme briefs
We are constantly looking to share our knowledge and experience with clients and contacts across the industry sectors in which we operate. New theme briefs will appear on a regular basis so please visit us again for further updates. We aim to provide real value in the briefing papers you'll find in the following pages and in return we ask for just a little information about you.
There but for the grace of God, go I!
Is the delivery of your IT systems giving you cause for concern?
Perhaps you are seeing repeated failures, cost overruns or not seeing the promised benefits materialise from the outsourcing of your business critical IT Operations. If we were able to help you address your concerns, would you give us 30 minutes of your time?
We offer no magic formula, just very experienced IT Delivery leaders who have led significant blue chip clients to maximise the value from their investment in IT systems. From Delivery Assurance reviews to implementing Service Improvement Plans and from outsourcing key IT operations to delivering major cost savings on existing managed services contracts, our team has extensive hands-on experience in all areas of IT service delivery.
Give us 30 minutes of your time and we will explore how we can work with you to optimise the delivery of your IT systems and improve the performance of your outsourcing contracts.
Contact Andrew Moore or Russell Clifford at DAV Management on +44 (0)118 974 0100.
You can also download DAV's latest white paper on how service management can be empowered to deliver greater value to the business, by clicking on the link below.
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A contact sport
They say leaders are born, not made, and that leadership is about creating great teams and delivering. That's true whether those teams are driving the organisation, or are creating a winning ethos on the sports field. Jack Welch of GE and former England Rugby captain Martin Johnson are prime examples.
To be a leader, you need three qualities in abundance: judgement, influence, and drive. Fall down on any one of those, and your ability to lead from the front will be impaired.
Today's challenging economic landscape is crying out for business executives who can provide inspiring leadership, to coax, cajole and lead employees to better times, and to convince those employees that their self interest lies in buying into the vision that's been formulated and now needs evangelising and putting into practice throughout the organisation.
Leadership is also about the ability to communicate, to think and look ahead and to always make the right judgement call, no matter what the pressure. In short, as Professor Christopher Bones, Dean of Henley Business School recently put it, leadership is a contact sport - if you're not out there, you're not doing it. To read more about A Contact Sport, please click on the link below.
And look out for our next feature in the New Business Landscape series.....in our next communication, we'll discuss the idea of The New Frontier - the importance of culture, the growing role of the BRICS economies, and the key issues affecting project and programme management in a globalised world.
Until next time.
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The customer is king
The influential Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development says that the worst of the recession may now be over, with Britain among those seeing a 'pause' in its economic slowdown.
For confident, forward-looking organisations, that news will be a green light to start positioning themselves for growth.
At the heart of achieving that will be getting the customer experience right. What organisations must ask themselves is, 'Are we really prepared to align the whole of our organisation to deliver a winning experience to our customers?'
If your answer is yes, you'll have a successful brand that offers a differentiated customer experience from your competitors. If your answer is no, what you are actually saying is: 'We will be just the same as everyone else.' That could just be commercial suicide.
To gain a further insight into how the Customer Experience landscape is changing and to download DAV's latest business paper, The Customer is King, please click on the link below.
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Remember the Titanic
They say in rugby that 'a good big 'un' will always beat 'a good little 'un' and that's usually true. But in today's struggling economy, smaller, nimbler players can run rings around slow-moving, monolithic organisations.
To compete with the smaller guys, whose decision-making is swift and proactive, larger companies must sharpen up their game, and be able to gear themselves up quickly to fend off attacks from more adroit rivals.
But that's easier said than done. For monolithic businesses, change is tough, akin to turning the Titanic to avoid fast-approaching disaster. Today, those that survive and succeed will not be the ones making the speediest decisions, but those that get the decisions right and then, critically, deploy the outcome of that decision-making effectively, as part of a properly structured change programme.
What's the alternative to your business behaving like a cruise liner? It's restructuring it to behave like a fleet of perfectly synchronised speedboats, not necessarily built for comfort, but offering the advantage of speed and agility to spot an opportunity and grab it to exploit first-mover advantage.
To read more about Remember the Titanic, please click on the link below.
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Out of Control
Management has a profound dislike of uncertainty within the business. It begins with that feeling - and subsequent confirmation - that something's not quite right. And then it manifests itself firstly through concern over flattening - though still not disastrous - sales figures, then as self-doubt starts to creep in, by affecting the confidence of the Board, the employees, the customers, and ultimately the non-executive directors and the shareholders.
In today's difficult economic climate - with a recession whose length no-one can credibly predict - this strategic drift risks sweeping away unwary companies, who may have missed a move by their competitors or a change in buying habits of their customers.
Like a swimmer who panics and tires themselves out, companies can be in danger of spinning out of control, with a management that is disoriented and confused. At this stage, just as with areas such as project delivery and programme management, the smart move is to take a step back and adopt a considered, structured approach that enables you to understand the real reason behind the change in your marketplace, and take the necessary strategic steps to address it. To read more about being Out of Control, please on the link below.
What sort of boat are you in?
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The power of many
It's often said that a problem shared is a problem halved. That's increasingly the case for organisations keen to generate fresh thinking and ideas within their businesses.
The current struggling state of the global economy and the continuing quest for business growth means that organisations are calling on their IT departments and demanding that they play an active role in helping them survive the downturn by providing tools for collaboration and by participating in innovation initiatives throughout the organisation.
Today's competitive business landscape requires a new way of working, with businesses like Boeing, Proctor & Gamble and BMW, reaching beyond traditional boundaries to embrace suppliers, customers and even competitors. The old monolithic multinational is part of a dying breed in today's new business landscape. Instead, co-opetition and co-innovation is the name of the game, sharing ideas and resources that were once jealously guarded; yet thriving through the power of collaboration.
To read more about the need for Joined Up Thinking and what it takes to turn collaboration into tangible business benefits, please click on the link below.
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Exceeding M&A expectations: A rush of blood - planning effectively for M&A activity
Even in the current economic climate, savvy, debt-free companies will still be pushing ahead with strategic M&A activity. In fact the general lack of market confidence could be seen by many as an opportunity for organisations able to operate from a position of financial strength to take advantage of the new business landscape.
But now more than ever these acquisitions must be made to work. They must meet and indeed exceed M&A expectations. However, all too often the acquiring company doesn't manage the end to end process of the acquisition successfully, there's simply a rush of blood, things aren't thought through effectively and the M&A falls short of its goals.
If you want to adopt the right approach from the outset, please click on the link below to read more about Exceeding M&A Expectations.
Don't see the current climate as a threat. See it as an opportunity. Use DAV's insight to get ahead of your competition.
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The new business landscape: Thriving on the challenge
We are living in interesting times. There is no doubt that the economic outlook may be stormy, and companies are battening down the hatches. However the bigger picture reveals some new trends and certainly some opportunities. At DAV, we call this the New Business Landscape and it has evolved from working with our clients, seeing and understanding how they operate and helping them drive change through their businesses.
Through a series of personalised communications, you'll see how this landscape contains a number of features: continued merger and acquisition activity, driving business integration and change; the need for innovation - not just in technology, but also in business processes - through effective collaboration; a requirement for businesses to remain agile; the impact of globalisation; and, crucially, how by adopting the right approach to planning and managing the change that this new landscape will drive, you can navigate your way through the difficult times and gain a business lead over your competition.
Take the first step. To read more about meeting the challenge of the New Business Landscape, please click on the link below.
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The sweet smell of success: Realising the benefits in large scale business change programmes
It is often believed that if a programme can deliver the capability that enables a business to change then the relevant organisation will have met its business objectives and the programme is complete.
In reality however, the delivery capability is just a means to an end and not an end in itself. The true end is the realisation of the businesses benefits that are enabled by the capability and only then can the business objectives be said to have been met.
Unfortunately, few organisations execute on the long term measurement of benefits realisation and therefore the majority are unlikely to leverage their programme investment to its full potential.
In our fifth and final whitepaper in this series, Realising the Benefits, we explain how benefits realisation planning and measurement, when properly executed, actually starts when the business case is constructed and continues throughout the programme and beyond its closure - until, as a minimum, the ROI period of the business case has been reached.
While Realising the Benefits completes our first series of communications on the critical success factors of IT enabled business change, we are pleased to let you know that we will be following this with others that will help you to unravel the complexities of such large scale programmes of work.
In the meantime, if you have any comments or questions on any of the communications you've received to date from DAV, we'd like to hear from you.
And now, to Realise the Benefits and to learn more about our previous four whitepapers in the series click on the link below.
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It takes two to tango: The role of leadership in programme success
When large scale technology based change programmes run into trouble, attention often focuses on the performance of the programme manager. But is the root cause of failure ever due to shortfalls in senior executive leadership and if so, should culpability sit higher in the organisation?
In our fourth whitepaper The Need for Real Leadership, we explore the roles of the senior executive (who has ultimate responsibility for championing the programme vision across the business) and the programme manager (who must focus on programme delivery) and demonstrate that it is only through partnership, trust and effective leadership at both the senior executive and programme management levels, that the probability of programme success can be assured.
Want to know how? Click on the link below.....
And, if you've read our previous three whitepapers in the series - A Case for Change, Foundations of Stone and Establishing Effective Planning, Management and Control - you'll already appreciate the fundamentals of programme success including the critical early stage activities that will shape the success of your programme, the importance of building strong foundations and how to establish effective planning, management and control once your programme is underway.
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Eating the elephant: One bite at a time
Embarking on a large scale technology enabled change management programme may seem a bit like trying to figure out how to eat an elephant. However, if effective planning, management and control is established from the start, we at DAV are confident that you'll manage to get that elephant down in no time.
In our third whitepaper IT Enabled Business Change - establishing effective planning, management and control, we explore the combination of factors that determine the complexity of planning and delivery, how to break a programme down into manageable chunks and the critical task of fully identifying the threats and risks that could derail your programme.
And, if you've referred to our first two whitepapers, A Case for Change and Foundations of Stone, you'll already be aware of the critical early stage activities that will shape the success of your programme and you'll know how to avoid building your programme on shaky foundations.
Not yet convinced? To read more follow the link below...
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Beware the house of cards
So you've drafted the vision statement and successfully built the business case for your IT-enabled change programme. And, if you had a look at our last white paper - A Case for Change - you'll have understood the critical early stage activities that will ultimately shape the success of your programme.
Think you're ready to start implementation?
If you answered yes, you're in good company - the vast majority of projects are initiated at this stage. The evidence however, is that the answer is most likely no - or at least, not yet. We explore the reasons why in Foundations of Stone - to read more click on the link below...
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Understanding the fundamentals
Has your IT enabled business change programme delivered the results you expected? Have you proceeded with a project only to conclude that the business case was invalid? Is your project already over budget with no end in sight?
If you answered yes to any of these questions you're not alone. More than 70 percent of programmes are destined for failure, wasting millions of pounds in the process.
But it doesn't have to be this way.
Through a series of 5 personalised communications, delivered over the coming months you will see why countless senior executives are still failing to undertake many of the activities necessary to initiate change effectively.
Starting with the first step - The Case for Change - the importance of aligning business change to a defined strategy and clear objectives, you'll learn about the critical, early stage activities that will shape the ultimate success of the programme and how the integrated use of specific techniques including vision statements, initial business appraisals and business cases will help you define a set of tangible actions that can be delivered through a properly structured and managed programme of change.
Throughout the communication series you will also learn fundamental concepts for success including:
- How to establish effective planning, management and control in a project
- How the role of real leadership makes or breaks a project
- How proper benefits realisation planning and management delivers real value for senior business managers.
DAV are specialists in managing complex IT enabled business change programmes and have helped a wide range of companies including Global Crossing, Royal Mail, Thomson Reuters, The Home Office and Monarch Airlines to plan, structure and manage their programmes of change to deliver maximum benefits to the business.
Take the first step....
Download our whitepaper The Case for Change, where we highlight the dangers of taking shortcuts and the importance of getting the basics right.
And stay tuned for the next email....
In our next communication we'll discuss how to avoid building your programme on shaky foundations.
Don't short-change your change programme - don't short-change the business. Instead, follow the DAV course for success.
Until next time!
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Survival is not mandatory
The global airline industry has witnessed unstable times bought about by unprecedented change over recent years. From deregulation and economic downturns through to increased competition, the introduction of low cost airlines, heightened security fears and pressing environmental issues the results are clear - costs have escalated and profitability has plummeted.
Technology has also played its part in increasing competition by removing many of the traditional barriers to entry and feeding commoditisation through improved processes and efficiencies. However, over two thirds of IT-enabled change programmes are doomed to failure, so technology itself isn't the answer. While technology is the enabler, carriers must never be lulled into the false belief that it can alone transform their operations - for any technology based change programme to be successful it is essential that the right approach is adopted, with the business and IT engaged correctly and managed through a properly structured process.
DAV's latest business paper Safeguarding Technology Based Projects in the Airline Industry, explores these issues in depth. Interested? To find out more please click on the link below.
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