The value is measured not by the price but by the benefits received over time.

The challenges of a changing business environment encourage business managers to look for the most effective tools for continuous growth and development. This leads to the new business management and planning needs. The speed of an adequate response often affects the competitiveness of the business and the extent of success.

Digital transformation solutions help to ensure business flexibility, speed and efficiency. Algimantas Brazauskas, Director of Blue Solutions, said that the funds currently allocated by companies for information technology and digitalization projects are growing and are rapidly reaching the level of investment in process equipment, buildings and know-how.

“But the reality is that business still has irresponsible, perhaps even “childish” attitude towards it, although these projects can cost as much as others assessing risk and cost,” A. Brazauskas said. In accordance with him, that is why most of the digitisation projects do not achieve their goals, are not finished in time or significantly exceed the initial budget. Sometimes there is even a need for lawyer assistance to “clarify relationship” between sides. For a business, such outcome of a project, depending on the state of its completion, is more or less a failure.

Value chain

The value chain concept proposed by Blue Solutions, implemented through digital transformation projects of various sizes, helps business managers (owners) to overcome this challenge. “The value chain is a continuous circle of business value created for the customer. It ensures a deep understanding of the customer's business, the ability to offer directions for changes and to respond effectively to them,” said A. Brazauskas.

“Companies need to start with the preparation for IT and digitisation projects,” the interviewer noted. Namely, to answer the questions on why digitalisation solutions are needed, whether the company is ready to embrace changes and how it will do it, and the benefits that the project can bring. “It helps to manage the project execution process and provides clarity on the size of investments needed, their efficiency, the project duration and the acceptability of results, making complicated things easier, clearer and, of course, transparent. Customer’s input is particularly important. The customer must understand why a project is being initiated, what goals need to be achieved, how important these goals are for the company and whether it is comprehensible to the employees of the company who will carry out the project, i.e. the team responsible for the output result,” said Brazauskas.

A perceived and consistently managed change management procedure – focused on the consistent achievement of goals, ensures that, in the course of business, the customer does not depart from the initial aspirations during the execution of the project and, at the same time, responds appropriately to the changes in the business environment. A perceived and coherent execution of the change management procedure, focused on achieving a coherent set of objectives, ensures that, taking into account business development, the customer will be able to follow the initial aspirations and respond appropriately to changes in the business environment.

A huge amount of business data collected during daily business operations allows to shape business insights that increase flexibility and expediency, helping to make the optimal decisions. “Practice shows that when deciding whether to choose business analytics tool, one should think not how much it costs, but what we lose without them,” said Brazauskas. In accordance with the interlocutor, this ultimately means a return on investment, timely business goals, greater competitiveness, customer loyalty and successful continued business development.

One of the key arguments for increasing the competitiveness of business is the correct and visualized information. Business intelligence is a tool to do that, not to “see back”, but to look ahead in building, forecasting trends and effectively managing the business. The business must get the information in a flexible manner – it may be too late to make the right decisions tomorrow. “The faster we analyse, the faster we make decisions, initiate change, and take over competitors. And so without end...“, said A. Brazauskas.

Published in IQ magazine on 2018-11-07