Operational Strategy and Architecture
You have a clear business strategy and vision, but is it being delivered at an operational level? Many organisations suffer from the following issues:
- deeply complex structures and processes, that have evolved over years, with lack of clarity over end-to-end processes, ownership of processes, and current service levels and performance metrics
- a new strategic vision and direction, but the operational units are paralysed by the complexity of changing to meet this new strategy
- lack of ability to persuade diverse stakeholders of the changes required to implement the new strategy
Operational Strategy and Architecture starts with the Architecture. If any complex structure were to be updated and changed, the architect would start with the blueprints - it is the same for a business organisation. The Operational Architecture is the blueprint of the business, showing clearly and graphically how the business processes and information flow together, how these processes are organised in geographies and business units, how customers and stakeholders interact, and how systems and people support the organisation.
The current architecture can be created using organisation and process modelling tools, which can graphically display the interactions of processes, structures, systems and people. It will also use simple presentation tools, as one of the key uses of the architecture is as a communications tool - ensuring that all stakeholders share a common understanding of the current structures and issues to help build consensus over the way forward.
The current architecture can then be used to help facilitate an agreed operational strategy. This strategy will include a distillation of the overall business strategy that provides common principles for the operational design.
These principles will then be used to create a future architecture - the Target Operating Model, which will display the main changes that are required in order to meet the operational strategy. The Target Operating Model will often include ‘Day in the life' type descriptions for different roles and customer groups to starkly demonstrate the impact of the changes.
Finally, a series of interim architectures may be required, designing the implementation path towards the Target Operating Model.
Hitachi Consulting specialises in the creation and application of Operational Architectures. We have a team of senior consultants who can work with project teams, Board members and other key stakeholders to understand, model and communicate architectures and build, communicate and agree the resulting operational strategies.