Digital success to hinge on malleability and BPM maturity

MUMBAI, INDIA: Gartner predicts that, by 2017, 70 per cent of successful digital business models will rely on deliberately unstable processes designed to shift with customers' needs. "Many organizations are either beginning, or in the midst of, digital business transformation initiatives," said Julie Short, research director at Gartner. "We expect that only 30 per cent of these efforts will succeed. To be part of that 30 per cent, business and IT leaders must be ready and willing to innovate rapidly from a business model, business process and technology perspective."

As a result of business model innovation, some business processes must become deliberately unstable. Deliberately unstable processes are designed for change and can dynamically adjust to customers' needs. They are vital because they are agile, adaptable and "supermanoeuvrable" as customers' needs shift. They are also competitive differentiators, because they support customer interactions that are unpredictable and require ad hoc decision making to enable larger, more stable processes to continue.

"It's imperative to break away from linear business processes and deploy a spectrum of standardized and variable processes to reap the benefits of digital business," said Short. "The need for this shift is intensified by the introduction of many types of internet-connected 'things' into the business environment. Things like smart machines generate real-time information for other machines. Business processes must be designed for change to enable organizations to exploit this information. Large, stable processes that have no ability to dynamically change according to new information will not enable organizations to deliver on the promise of digital business."

Also notable is the part where it warns that through 2017, insufficient business process management (BPM) maturity will prevent 80 per cent of organizations from achieving the desired business outcomes from their digital business strategies.

"Deficits in BPM maturity prevent change agents (individuals who lead changes) from delivering game-changing business outcomes from digital business initiatives," said Marc Kerremans, research director at Gartner. "Delivering expected returns from digital business investments requires process reinvention — that is, significant innovation in how products and services are created, priced, distributed and serviced across not just one group, but often across the entire value chain."

"With adaptive change, the goal is not to try to tackle big change on every front. Rather, the focus is on coping with the external nature of major change and its impact on organizations, cultures, governance, technologies and metrics," said Kerremans. "Change agents will likely need to employ several change response types to advance BPM maturity to the point where traditional business process improvement initiatives can turn into big change initiatives capable of supporting sustainable competitive advantage in a digital world."