The COVID-19 crisis opened up a world of opportunities for enterprises to accelerate their digital adoption and long-planned transformation programmes. The case for transformation is clear - today, a digital-first strategy is key to pivoting back to a steady growth path, and securing the future of businesses in the new world.
But on the ground, the roadmap to move from idea to implementation is less clear. There are very real challenges that accompany a transformation programme and yet, organisations are expected to accelerate the transformation programmes faster than ever before.
Our Transformation Assurance team are specialists who drive end-to-end trusted transformation programmes for your organisation: from de-risking the transformation programme delivery, ensuring operability of the business outcomes, and driving a robust change management strategy to thrive in new ways of working.
With the independent, honest and seasoned voice that we bring to transformation programmes, your organisation will gain trust over your desired outcomes, state of project execution and integration, the underlying data, processes and controls, optimal organisation operating model and new ways of working that are integral to a successful transformation.
Articulating desired business outcomes
Against the backdrop of cash flow challenges due to COVID-19, quantifying the desired outcomes to get the most value for every dollar spent on transformation programmes is critical.
How we can help
To ensure that there is strategic alignment between your business strategy, transformation blueprint, achievement of outcomes and the offset of risks in your organisation, we help you articulate a clear-cut transformation project execution plan that brings these components together. This will be your north star to guide your investment spend and maximise the value of your transformation programme. We help you:
- Define business outcomes: Translate the transformation blueprint into tangible business outcomes, prioritise them and develop the delivery roadmap to successfully achieve the outcomes.
- Define value management: Define quantifiable value metrics against the business outcomes to translate the outcomes into measurable value that can be systematically tracked throughout the project lifecycle.
- Set up a Value Management Office: Develop and operationalise an operating structure to track, measure and monitor value realisation to know that you are on track to get value from your transformation investment spend, and to receive early warnings of threat to value realisation.
- Establish senior governance: We help develop an oversight on strategic spend and governance mechanisms to ensure continual alignment of strategic goals, timing, progress of value realisation with the dynamic nature of project delivery.
What you will achieve
The planning stage of the transformation programme is key to help you bring your business goals to life. Rather than conducting transformation activities in silos, you will have a clear, robust plan which links strategy, business changes and realities, and the desired value for your business.
Realising value from your change programmes
When delivering the transformation programme, it’s important to stay a few steps ahead of the change and ensure there is a robust change management strategy in place. These enhance operational efficiency, rewire ways of working and drive new business models that ultimately translate to better business value.
How we can help
Focused execution is critical to transformation success and this goes beyond “just doing”. What is required is thoughtful and laser-sharp execution with the end and the risks in mind, and actively deploying interventions at the right time to drive changes, integrate the moving parts such that when the programme is completed, all the moving pieces are in the right place, well-stitched together. To achieve that, we help you:
- Derisk with a Project Integration Office (PIO): We set up a Project Integration Office that embeds end-to-end Project Governance and Oversight, Programme Delivery, Risk and Quality, Project Advisory, Integration and Risk & Quality. The PIO supports leaders to drive quality delivery of the programme, advise on integration issues, problem solve with pragmatic solutions, gain trust and commitment across your organisation towards the success of the transformation. Being an independent, neutral party, we embed trust early with a call out of key risks and challenges and act on mitigation plans swiftly to ensure the project is anchored back to business outcomes and value. Day 1 readiness is key and PIO works with the end in mind to ensure activities for Day 1 readiness are built into the project plan and they are being executed as planned.
- Perform value management reviews: Regular reviews against baseline value management plan to review progress against plan, manage any issues, evaluate ‘lessons learnt’, and identify any new benefits that should feed into the overarching value management plan.
- Manage testing and defect management: Advise, review and operationalise test management strategy and approach to ensure testing is done in a robust manner, defects are managed and fixed systematically, and there is strong governance and oversight to get comfort over the operability of the system. Oversee end to end test execution (e.g. unit testing, integration testing, functional testing, user acceptance testing, performance testing) to provide quality assurance.
- Conduct technical assurance: Beyond project integration, we also provide technical assurance over code reviews, continuous integration and continuous development (CI/CD), data migration, deployment strategies, cutover, security and data integrity to provide trust that the underlying technical, data and security layers are secured.
- Perform portfolio and programme health and maturity assessment: Review your transformation programme and deployment approach against our Project Delivery Excellence framework. This will enable you to benchmark your portfolio and programme maturity for each of your focus areas (insight, control, efficiency, alignment) and identify the key areas of improvement.
- Change-as-a-service: Our seasoned transformation professionals are self-starters and bring the best of technical and project capabilities to augment your delivery capacity and capabilities as business analysts, project managers, scrum masters and change management specialists.
- Course correct and recover programme: We have tried and tested programme recovery frameworks to help you rapidly address root causes of programme failure, and provide the necessary expertise and advice to place the programme firmly back on track for current and future returns on investment.
What you will achieve
A full suite of services across the entire transformation lifecycle to help you deliver your transformation programme seamlessly, from programme initiation to post implementation.
Sustaining transformation and technologies
A top of mind question for organisations is ensuring that the new platforms and workflows will work after launch and there is buy-in from people. Taking stock of the risks, enabling seamless business-IT integration, and staying vigilant for any defects and ‘bugs’ are key. We identify risks from the start and mitigate them before go-live of the transformation programme for a seamless go-live experience throughout the organisation.
How we can help you
Day 1 readiness is critical to prevent disruption to existing operations and customers’ experience. Readiness is by design and not by chance. To go live safely and smoothly, we help you:
- Assess and plan for operational readiness: We provide an in-depth assessment ahead of key milestones in your project delivery in functional, regulatory, migration and organisation readiness and help you close the gaps to get ready. Are the outcomes operable? Do they meet business needs? Do they comply with regulations? What are the practical ways to close the gaps before go-live?
- Assess and plan for organisational readiness: Plan for people’s acceptance of changes, skills and new roles and recommend appropriate interventions. Are people sufficiently engaged in knowing what to do post launch? Are they adequately trained? Is there organisation-wide buy-in for the upcoming changes?
- Assess and plan for system readiness: We review and test if system integrations are done robustly and whether underlying data have been migrated accurately and completely.
- Plan for transition and execute: We ensure that the organisation is ready to operate in the new, transformed environment.
- Hypercare management: During early days of implementation to smoothly transit from project mode to business-as-usual.
What you will achieve
Your organisation will be set up for success, with trust and confidence that you will move seamlessly from project mode to Day 1 to new ways of working.
Driving adoption of new operating model, platforms and roles
How can your organisation thrive in new ways of working, operate in a dynamic environment and continue to achieve operational excellence and execution confidence in their new roles?
How we can help
The return on investment from the implementation of new technology and operating models is maximised through an effective and pragmatic change management strategy. As a result of the transformation, it is imperative to empower your people to embrace new ways of working, through:
- Target operating model assessment, design and implementation: Define end-state operating model through assessment of current state, benchmarking analysis and business/operational vision alignment; Prepare the leadership and the organisation to implement a future-proof target operating model.
- Change management strategy and interventions: Once the transformation programme is initiated, our change management approach is to work in collaboration with your organisation closely to adopt the new systems and ways of working successfully. We define and deliver your transformation through practical interventions that are customised to your organisation’s needs.
- Organisational change implementation: We put the “people” factor front and center to help organisations sustain the success of change. We provide independent analysis and recommendations of critical behaviours required to achieve the desired transformation state. These insights will be incorporated into the implementation phase where we co-create practical engagement and communication activities with you to drive the success of your transformation agenda.
What you will achieve
Bringing your people along the transformation journey will increase adoption of new ways of working (including usage of platform) and realise your programme values.
Transformation Assurance: supporting you in delivering trusted transformation outcomes
Independent and system agnostic ❯
Independent and system agnostic
Our neutrality when it comes to systems allows us to advise you purely in the best interest of what your transformation programme seeks to achieve.
A multi-disciplinary team ❯
A multi-disciplinary team
Our team’s combined expertise across technology, processes, operating models and change management helps us enable successful and holistic transformation programmes for you.
One-network ❯
One-network
We bring the best of our network’s capabilities to bear to plan, advise, manage and deliver your transformation.
Our people are at the heart of what we do
Passionate. Innovative. Always up for a challenge. Our Transformation Assurance team have played countless roles in bringing positive changes and have been future-proofing our clients against the dynamic business landscape. We bring the best talent across all enablers of change: platforms, processes and people.
Learn more about our team and the skills we bring to your organisation.
I’m passionate about helping organisations drive and deliver change successfully, and with trust. Transformation programmes are a big, complex jigsaw puzzle in action and there’s nothing that I enjoy more than putting it together with my clients in the most expedient way, staying anchored to the outcomes and value they want to achieve. The continuous alignment with strategy and target operating model is key to ensure we are building the right picture and adding trust to their transformation.
I joined PwC Singapore from Australia in early 2019, and I specialise in managing transformation programs and delivering value. No two days are the same with the passionate Transformation Assurance team - I enjoy the dynamic work environment and the ability to advise clients to solve their problems!
Our purpose is to provide value-adding technology ideas, solutions and services to clients for a seamless transformation. What I like about my job is the opportunity to be an advisor to my clients, gain their trust and help them make their programmes a success. In my own time, I love to exercise and long runs help me push my mental barriers to give my best at work too!
I joined the team in early 2019 as a business and system analyst. What I love about my team is the diversity, opportunities to explore new skills through professional certifications and learning from each other’s talents and expertise. Outside of work, I am always up for exploring new things, be it upcoming Netflix shows or new eateries!
I joined Transformation Assurance as a Program Management specialist, and I have had the opportunity to work with some of the brightest minds in this industry. I learnt to join the dots of projects with business outcomes and the most fulfilling experiences have been to help clients achieve their goals. Outside my work, I love to travel and learn about the culture of different destinations!
