Preparing and optimizing your established business for the future.

We are currently going through an exercise of analyzing and redefining a legacy-traditional business As-Is state. The primary purpose is to identify the gaps to optimize and evolve into a company of the future.

We are probably going through our 4th iteration of such an exercise with several businesses in entirely different industry contexts. What always seems to be exposed is the unfortunate mindset of traditional founders or CEOs of well-established companies and brands.

They are always inclined to think and believe that to be competitive in the future and keep up with the demands of the digitization that the quick, easy fix is off-the-shelf plug-n-play technology solutions (SaaS) to be "plugged" in and even substitute existing legacy systems and apply this across the entire business infrastructure value chain. From the obvious and straightforward; digital marketing, to crm automation, to accounting and payroll, to even robots as customer service representatives.

They believe that all these off-the-shelf plug-n-play technology solutions (and I am by no means undermining the power and impact of these plug and play solutions) are the answers for them to compete and future-proof the progression of their well-established businesses.

They fail to realize that it's pointless adding the newest plug-n-play tech solutions to an old - outdated legacy-based business anatomy infrastructure that cannot evolve and adapt no matter how much advancements you add to it.

One has to breakdown and completely redefine the whole skeleton structure of the business in its entirety, then only add the plug-n-play solutions - where and only "if" required. The value chain (the production of value) of your business needs to re-examined and perhaps re-engineered to a state where it is streamlined and optimized to result in agility, resilience and alignment with at least its 5 to 10 year intended new and improved business model - in accordance to its target market growth "cap". The alignment we refer here to is resources, business processes and the flow of value to the customer.

Well established founders and CEO's are getting caught up and overwhelmed by all these latest high-impact technology solutions that ultimately will have very high-impact in the short term - but in the long term - without adequately and diligently re-examining its current business architecture and processes and how it can be optimized for the future - these plug-n-play solutions over time will actually magnify and accelerate its honourable downfall.

As Bill Gates quite aptly summarises it;

"The first rule of any technology used in a business is that automation applied to an efficient operation will magnify the efficiency. The second is that automation applied to an inefficient operation will magnify the inefficiency."

- Bill Gates

It comes down to an introspective, diligent and sustainable approach. One should first seek to critically navigate the imperfections and weaknesses of its internal operations and business model to figure out root causes before seeking external remedies and plug-n-play SaaS solutions. You want to avoid the mistake that might just magnify the inefficiencies and trigger a spectacular beginning of the end.

Build yourself a profitable and sustainable business for the future.