How Enterprises Can Move from Technology-First to Process-First Transformation

Organizations transitioning from a technology-first to a process-first transformation are actively choosing to align technology with business processes, rather than letting technology dictate their processes. The business case for this approach will achieve higher ROI, better employee adoption, and create sustainable change.

When businesses address processes before tools, they can identify inefficiencies, design efficient workflows, and then implement technology that works for them, rather than over-investing in software or platforms that do not produce measurable value. The increasing cost of digital transformation, growing management demand for ROI based on hard numbers, and a strong commitment to supporting employees all point in the direction of this process-first focus.

Organizations are learning that transformation does not begin with a new platform, but rather with understanding the business processes that require a platform.

What is Process-First Transformation and Why it Matters

Process-first transformation prioritizes business processes as the core of a digital strategy. Instead of first making a technology purchase, businesses evaluate and map their workflows to align with their operational processes before making longer-term investments.

This allows organizations to make technology investments that translate to genuine business value, as it is linked to a brand-new workflow that has been carefully engineered and refined, rather than trying to retrofit existing processes with pre-existing technology. This also reduces fragmentation, costs, and unnecessary duplication across the organization, while maximizing collaboration and compliance.

By starting with how instead of what, businesses are setting the groundwork for a technology investment that helps their employees rather than hampers them. This matters, as technology is rarely solely the answer to efficiency problems. If an organization does not have a process blueprint to follow, it risks layering new technology into existing workflows, rather than showing any real benefit, and magnifying the problem.

Benefits of Moving to a Process-First Approach

Utilizing a process-first methodology generates multiple returns in terms of cost, efficiency and employee experience.

Enterprises unlock cost efficiencies because every technology investment is paired to a validated process need, thereby eliminating over-spending on systems that are unneeded / redundant. A rigorous process-first approach assures funds are spent only on processes that yield measurable ROI and increase business capability.

Employee enablement improves because when processes are made clear, it allows for embedded tools, such as WalkMe employee enablement, to guide users in real-time. Employee on-boarding and system adoption happen faster with fewer resistance and reduced costs.

Process visibility increases as platforms like Signavio process mapping offer a single source of truth for Executives to view how every workflow operates across departments and where blockers occur.

Finally data-driven decisions become the construct for collaboration among stakeholders to approve any process changes or related technology changes. Platforms like Signavio process intelligence cloud gathering and present actionable analytics of any process that supports continuous process improvement ability over time.

When organizations adopt processes first, they move from an IT reactive spend approach to a proactive strategies change initiative.

Using Signavio Process Mapping to Understand Current State

With signavio process mapping, organizations can visualize how their processes currently work and how workflows can be improved before they make technology selections.

• This mapping creates a simpler, clearer, and detailed visualization of how processes work across business units, identifying any bottlenecks, redundancies in processes, and handoffs that are hard to identify. These valuable insights assist organizations in building workflows that serve well for employees, customers, and business partners.
• Since teams want to see and agree on the same process models, mapping process workflow also gets the business and IT teams collaborating better together. This collaboration can further assure that the technology that is selected, as a result of the redesigned process, is the right technology for the new process design, thus avoiding overwhelmed, extensive, and costly usability issues and rework.
• Real world use cases, organizations that utilize signavio process mapping first before upgrades to their systems or use cases for the technology soon after to facilitate, realize that there are fewer delays, reduction of cost for implementation of programs, and quicker paybacks of their technology compared to historical innovations.

In summary, by mapping the current state, organizations are able to plan for implementing technology more effectively and with reduced needs for iterative suggestions for a school wide, unified focus.

Leveraging Signavio Process Intelligence Cloud for Data-Driven Insights

The Signavio process intelligence cloud helps organizations transition from static documentation of their processes to dynamic, data-based decision-making.

• The cloud utilizes predictive and prescriptive analytics along with process mining to reveal how processes operate rather than how they were intended to operate. In analysing live data, the cloud identifies inefficiencies and compliance issues that may also be costing owners performance that can be in the millions of dollars.
• Organizations receive real-time information about how their processes are performing, enabling quick identification of root causes and critical dimensions in their processes. This kind of clarity leads to evidence-based decisions about what processes to automate, change or retire.
• Real-time monitoring can also be established. Rather than “fixing” processes once and hoping it lasts, the organization will create a continuous feedback loop delivering the capability for every change applied to be measured and evaluated over time.

When footholds are proposed, the intelligence cloud and signavio process mapping combine to pack a tremendous punch in developing a stabilizing framework for process-first transformation.

Enabling Employees with WalkMe Employee Enablement Tools

Technology adoption only works when employees will use it, and the WalkMe employee enablement tools allow for this.

These employee engagement tools provide interactive, step-by-step instructions embedded into enterprise applications. Rather than only providing classroom training or providing manuals, employees are provided with real-time prompts guiding them through the new tasks, keeping errors and confusion down.

Faster onboarding and higher productivity are the outcomes. New employees and old employees alike can learn complex systems quickly which gives organizations the ability to deploy technology without disrupting the work schedule.

A higher adoption rate leads to measurable ROI, because training costs go down, mistakes go down, and the time it takes employees to reach full productivity drops significantly.

For example, a global retailer adopting a new ERP system, used WalkMe in onboarding tens of thousands of employees with minimal disruption, allowing the employer to achieve 80% faster adoption than traditional training approaches.

When enterprises consider employee enablement, alongside process-first planning, organizations can be assured that their technology investments will yield the expected productivity gains.

Achieving LeanIX IT Cost Transparency for Smarter Investments

In order to facilitate process-first transformation, organizations have to fully understand the allocation of their IT expenditures. LeanIX IT cost transparency provides that visibility.

Organizations can use this tool to provide a drill-down, categorization of expenditures. This level of visibility can uncover redundancies and applications that are underutilized, which will allow executives to make more informed decisions on how to allocate resources.

This visibility will also support a more strategic budgeting process. When organizations understand the value that certain technologies provide to specific processes, they can then intentionally prioritize investments that genuinely support optimized processes, rather than just funding outdated systems and trendy applications.

The outcome will be a more disciplined, data-driven approach to IT spending, in which each dollar contributed is part of an outcome that can be measured for a business purpose.
When this is paired with process-first planning, LeanIX IT costs transparency will sync an organization to avoid bloat in technology, and focus more intently on spending for initiatives that will generate impact over the long run.

Driving LeanIX Portfolio Optimization for Sustainable Growth

LeanIX portfolio optimization supports the cost transparency function by empowering organizations with the ability to rationalize and optimize their application portfolios.

It helps an enterprise identify overlapping or duplicate applications and consolidate them in order to reduce complexity and minimize maintenance cost. By reducing the IT footprint, organizations can better align the necessary resources to fewer systems that support the interdependent activities associated with core business processes.

It can increase agility by standardizing applications around key workflows, assisting to create an environment that offers easier scalability, simplification of integration, and simplicity in support all of which are essential to scale and grow the organization.

As a result of using LeanIX portfolio optimization to better manage and recognize future business needs, IT requirements become more aligned with not only supporting objectives, IT is better prepared to allow an organization to innovate and scale.