Innovation labs, design sprints and other ideation formats help generate innovation potential, but they come to nothing if the ideas and concepts are not implemented in a consistent and structured manner. This is exactly where "Digital Delivery" comes in, in the transition from strategic planning to the implementation of the newly developed concept. To get to the operational implementation stage, the necessary skills and tools must be identified, the team must be put together, the right project environment must be created, and, last but not least, a tailored development process must be set up for the product and the customer.
- Agile project organization
- Development process
- Go-to-market
- Business case
- Process automation
- Digital operating model
- Organizational embedding
Agile project organization
Why do companies fail to introduce and implement an agile way of working or decide against it altogether? According to analyses, the most common reason is the lack of innovation and organizational culture. Companies are often trapped in their static and hierarchical cultures and knowledge silos, which result in reduced participation in change processes. The goal of agility, however, is the exact opposite: a heterogeneous composition of self-organized and cooperative employees in cross-functional teams that enable increased quality and shortened time-to-market. Crucial to collaboration are the short time intervals and the performance of regular reviews, which ensure that a product is developed according to relevant market and customer needs. Accordingly, the associated financial and content-related risks are significantly minimized. But when is such a change process at all meaningful and effective for a company? Particularly in complex and changeable environments, an agile organization makes it possible to react and adapt to changing, unexpected conditions in a more targeted manner. It quickly becomes clear that not only internal structures need to be changed, but also the mindset of each individual in order to sustainably build up and anchor agility in the teams and the organization.
Development process
In order to remain marketable in the long term, many companies need to expand or renew their existing product or service portfolio due to changing customer needs and market conditions. The companies concerned are often aware of the "what?", but defining and shaping the "how?" is usually a challenge. The basis for the "how?" is a cooperative team with a common goal and a clearly defined overview of the elementary steps from conception to delivery. After successfully focusing the necessary product features and functionalities based on relevant customer needs, lean and small development teams are formed. The initial goal of these teams is to anchor the development process and prepare initial use cases to define and prioritize possible scenarios and requirements that are relevant from the customer's perspective. However, to ensure long-term market viability, additional internal and external teams are added via a scaled development process. The combined competencies and collaborative work guarantee an exponential and sustainable increase in team efficiency. It enables increasing progress in MVP development and initiates final preparations for future market entry.
Go-to-market
At first glance, the introduction of new, digital products focuses on two central disciplines: technical software development and the market entry and marketing strategy. At second glance, however, one crucial component is often neglected in our experience, namely the content-related and organizational orchestration of these disciplines. Why do we see this as a decisive success factor in the launch of new, digital products? Especially in this project phase, product owners, project managers and others are confronted with a multitude of goals and requirements from customers and management. For example, customer feedback must be recorded almost daily and ideally integrated directly into the product. At the same time, there are preparations for the beta launch, such as the provision of content for the urgently needed landing page. In addition, management and committee requests regarding strategy, data protection and co. have to be dealt with in parallel. We accompany you in this phase both in the strategic elaboration as well as in the operational execution and support you in finding the right balance for dealing with the issues in the dynamic environment.
Business case
In order to ensure the long-term economic viability and holistic meaningfulness of a digital service or product idea, the Business Model Canvas (BMC) can be used to develop potential business models. The first step is to identify the key qualitative factors for the business case using the nine central elements of the BMC. This is followed by a quantitative business case analysis to evaluate the business scenario in terms of the profitability of the necessary investment. Specifically, we draw up a sales, cost and revenue plan for each case. The sales planning forecasts the market potential in terms of market volume and market share on the basis of validated assumptions. Cost planning includes a detailed list of the individual cost areas and their distribution. The sales planning balances the planned P&L and enables the derivation of an initial break-even analysis. In order to concretize the potential developments of the business case, best, real and worst case scenarios are compared. We support you in the process of strategic and operational positioning as well as in the targeted follow-up of the business case for the profitable implementation of your digital service and product ideas.
Process automation
One way to optimize your existing business processes is to automate them. Understanding internal processes is the foundation for process optimization and the associated achievement of set corporate goals. At this point, digitization offers a variety of opportunities for active process optimization of business processes. Processes that are optimized lead to faster throughput and response times and at the same time contribute to a reduction in costs. Excellently designed and thoroughly structured processes can be flexibly adapted and expanded to new framework conditions. Repetitive activities can be automated, freeing up targeted capacities for core business activities. Automated processes stabilize process reliability and improve process quality. Regardless of your specific automation goals, the starting point for process optimization should be to improve the user or customer experience. From process optimization to process management to the use of process mining: We support you in your business and process automation with the help of individually selected and customized solution approaches.
Digital operating model
If you want to survive on the market in the long term, you have to understand the new challenges of digital transformation. Companies are facing a variety of structural and operational changes to provide the missing link between a digital business model and their own business. Addressing the need for a new business model requires the development of a new operating model, or digital operating model, to support you. This opens up decisive implications for the way companies operate, communicate or offer their product and service portfolio. But how can such a promising model be implemented and sustainably established? An agile and product-oriented way of working and organizational structure form the foundation of the approach. Efficient and effective cross-functional collaboration in agile teams (squads) increases the value of your company in the long term. The fundamental focus here is to derive value from iterative and lean management of necessary tasks and continuous validation of product-market fit. A digital operating model serves as a kickstarter for your company's sustainable digital progress and success. It should be noted that such a model differs from company to company due to different strategies, cultures and structures and is usually individually adapted and implemented. We are happy to support and advise you in the transformation and sustainable implementation of a digital operating model tailored to your needs.
Organizational embedding
The digital transformation requires significant changes in existing corporate processes and structures. A more intensive focus on digital innovation projects promotes the targeted progress of the digital transformation. But how can the scalability of a promising innovation project be ensured in the long term? The focus here is on defining and evaluating the appropriate organizational form to combine the newly developed, digital business idea with the established core business the best possible way. We support you in conducting a detailed analysis of the identified key factors, from which tailored recommendations for action can be derived for the business model embedding of your innovation project. Basically, we differentiate between three different strategic options to successfully expand your digital business: First, developing a digital business within your own organization in line with your existing business. Second, the development of a digital business outside and parallel to the existing business with its own brand and in its own legally independent unit. And thirdly, incubation - i.e. the initial outsourcing and development outside the existing organization as well as the simultaneous preparation of the organization for the subsequent integration of the digital business. We will be happy to advise you on the selection and sustainable implementation of the option tailored to your individual needs.
An overview of current top topics
Our experts for Digital Transformation
Get in touch with us through Xing or LinkedIn