This column is co-written by Sebastiaan Laurijsse, Senior Director IT & Digital Transformation Manager at NXP and Ilse Kerling, Founder of Global Business Academy.

Missed Part 5 of the series? Read it here.

In the previous article of this series, dissecting the journey at Dutch manufacturing company NXP to realise the value of analysing current skillsets in pursuing a valuable transformation. 

In this final article, we will round off the previous 5 columns by summarising all the important components of transformation:

Phase 1 – Transformation strategy, executive sponsorship and alignment with the business

Step 1: Alignment with the business: how can we accelerate their success?

Step 2: Aclear vision, strategy and goals

Step 3: Quantifying those goals with the help of the CFO. Executive sponsorship CFO.

Step 4: Client centricity vs reality

In the old days, everything was a project. You build a website and deliver it after two months – the so-called Waterfall. Agile stems from the “this isn’t quite what I wanted” reaction. The ownership belongs to the business. They give continuous feedback and determine what will be delivered and how. In a way, you live and breathe together on the project. The reality is usually more unruly. You tell a client, who is used to Waterfall, “I want 5 minutes every day”. Or you get a person who was pushed forward, or someone who represents 15,000 users. Then you can only hope that you have the right individual, who represents the right people. This is an important factor that plays a role in the 70% missed transformations.  

Phase 2 – The internal adoption of transformation

Step 5: On the soapbox: the how, what and why up until organisational microlevel

Step 6: Alignment with your (Indian) service providers

Step 7: Upskilling and team-building of your global workforce, including the service providers

Step 8: Measuring and monitoring

Agile and DevOps is how we create client satisfaction and speed. The Agile framework contains tools and evaluations to measure our agility. Quality, lead time, client satisfaction, adoption, you name it. NXP also has a “feedback now plan. When you are at an airport, you often see smileys next to the toilets. Those are not there to know whether things are going well, but to monitor peaks in unhappy smileys. In those cases, the toilet may be dirty or there is a long queue. It always triggers action. We do the same with our clients. Lastly, we monitor the wellbeing of our people. We have a master scrum temperature check every two to three weeks plus two to three surveys a year. This helps us to make quick adjustments, whether that is management, team dynamics, work pressure, cultural differences. This is crucial, otherwise change will not happen.  

Step 9: Pushing forward or holding back: the crucial role of the CHRO is to protect the health of the organisation.

Step 10: Long-term endorphins

To create a lasting change, there has to be gratification. Otherwise it’s like a diet or quitting smoking: eventually you fall back into your hold habits. That is why the last step of change is gratification. This is personal, which takes us back to NXP’s ‘know your people’.  That is why the people, culture and inclusion element is so crucial to NXP.

 By being part of IT director Sebastiaan Laurijsse’s world, we were able to understand the importance of each step. But for such a structured change to have a long-term impact, it is important for talent to stay in the organisation. That is where purpose comes in. This is why Sebastiaan is already preparing his organisation within NXP for the next step: a purposeful culture.

 Purpose vs result

People want to work on assignments that have purpose. They are prepared to work really hard, but when it is finished after three months, they leave. We already see that happening, especially amongst our data scientists: if the puzzle is not complex enough, they go elsewhere. How do you prepare your organisation for this? How do you keep their knowledge in the organisation? You don’t want to keep people in; you want to attract them. You can only do that by creating an purposeful environment. Within my team I see that: learning is on #1, purpose on #2, driving results on #3. The new vision is an organisation where people want to work, which will lead to the desired results. The closer you get to C-level, the more they look at results. Right now, we are in an era of rapid transition.  

That’s it for the Transformation series! Revisit Ilse’s column here for more insights on closing the cultural divide.

The post Transformation (Part 6): how NXP achieved a cultural overhaul appeared first on Global Business Academy.

This column is co-written by Sebastiaan Laurijsse, Senior Director IT & Digital Transformation Manager at NXP and Ilse Kerling, Founder of Global Business Academy.

Missed Part 4 of the series? Read it here.

In the previous article we outlined the complexities that service providers add to transformations.

In this article we examine the key question: do you know your stakeholders well enough? Do you understand the culture? To do this, we draw on the examples of Dutch manufacturing giant NXP. Sebastiaan Laurijsse, NXP’s Senior Director of IT & Digital Transformation Manager provides the insights in this article, and shares NXP’s journey to realising the true potential of transformation through analyses of employee skillsets.

No compromise

On the one hand, we need to understand the stakeholder and create a better connection, and on the other hand we must show that NXP is prepared to look at the cultural differences and collaboration – but we should not be prepared to compromise on the operating model in the DevOps and agile culture we want to create.

Excuses, excuses

On top of that, we’re fortunate to have really great Indian talent, but also to run into the phenomena culture. It is not okay to use culture as an excuse to delay driving collaboration. That conflicts with the principle of unlocking the true intrinsic motivation! You can only do that when you understand your international workforce. That’s why we entered into a long-term partnership with Global Business Academy, who are specialised in 21^st century intercultural skills.

Skillset of the future

21st century intercultural skills are in the top 10 skillsets of the future. It’s not just about the knowledge that there are differences – everyone knows that – but how are they different and how do you close the gaps. How do you influence, give pushback effectively, and lead in a globalised world? Thàt’s when you achieve the intercultural skillset of the future. First time rights, rolling planning, giving and receiving feedback, influencing decisions, driving efficiency: it’s just a sample out of Global Business Academy’s offering that really appealed to us. They add the global context to our curriculum.

 Integrated into DevOps and Agile

Within NXP, this is being integrated with our Agile and DevOps curriculum. Phenomena like failing fast, transparency, self-management and accountability all have a different meaning in Indian, Dutch, American and Romanian cultures. This program enables us to look at these phenomena with a global mindset. On top of that, the teams at NXP create their own common ground culture in which they turn assumptions and expectations into team agreements, and create a strategy to enhance kaizen.

 Knowledge and assumptions

The quick reaction is: I don’t have a problem. But it’s not just about growing your global mindset and learning how practical skills can help you work more efficiently; it’s also about seeing yourself through the eyes of the other person. Dutch people find it fairly easy to be vulnerable – “Brainstorm and put it on Yammer so that we can react”. But that doesn’t always work across other cultures who may not be comfortable with that level of vulnerability. By gaining insights into your own culturally-influenced expectations, you become much more effective outside of your country’s borders.

 Bias

But perhaps even more important is to challenge your own assumptions. Is it my bias, the other person’s bias, the cultural difference, or the individual? The behaviours are the same, but the foundation of behaviour really is different. This also includes challenging your opinions:

• Am I judging this person on the basis of their work or on their style?
• Do I create the safety that is needed for people to deliver good work?

It’s not just about expanding your viewpoints on the outside world, but also on the inside.  

Leadership capabilities

And that brings us back to the beginning: the value of transformations not yet realised. The singular most important aspect in transformation is leadership. The product owner manages teams of 12 – 14 people. This person must know everyone – truly know everyone. Know your people. What would be possible if you were able to unlock their intrinsic motivation? Because when you embrace change, you are the one who has the knowledge and knows the value.

In the next article, all components of article 1 to 5 come together and we will show how Sebastiaan completes successful transformations at NXP.

The post Transformation (Part 5): 21st century intercultural skills appeared first on Global Business Academy.

This column is co-written by Sebastiaan Laurijsse, Senior Director IT & Digital Transformation Manager at NXP and Ilse Kerling, Founder of Global Business Academy.

Missed Part 3 of the series? Read it here.

In the previous article of this series, we looked at the internal complexities of transformations: the ability to get people to embrace change is an art, after all. We took a look inside Sebastiaan Laurijsse’s IT organisation – Laurijsse is the Director of IT & Digital Transformation Manager at NXP, and co-contributor to this article.

In NXP’s case, there is an even bigger challenge beyond simply getting the organization to embrace change: A lot of the work is outsourced, and it’s critical that outsourcing providers embrace the change and transformation, too.

600 internal staff, 1800 external staff

“Our team consists of 600 internal staff and 1800 external staff, via service providers,” explains Laurijsse. “Because of automation and digitalisation, you can do a lot more with just one person. so, you want to innovate together with your service provider and change the organisation to a diamond shape.”

“But the service provider also sees opportunities: Using current SLAs, they can do more with less people and create better margins. The result is that the service provider feels that we are always looking for more for less, whilst in truth our world is more complex than that.”

We don’t do projects, we do products

“This may sound very simple but represents a huge change. With a project, you grow a flower and then you’re finished. That’s when you throw the flower over the wall to operations, and as an operations team, you want to make sure that the flower stays alive as long as possible.”

“We decided to no longer do projects,” explains Laurijsse. “We add temporary capacity to the operations team so that the team that maintains the flower, also builds it. This creates care to make the right choices for the long term.”

“How can the flower last as long as possible? How do we increase the smell so we sell more? How do we introduce different colours so we stay relevant? What we see is higher quality and a better outcome. This is one of our core strategies in our transformation.”

 We don’t do products, we do projects

“We equip our people with these new skills – including staff from our service providers. We make them part of the team and part of the change. On an Indian employee level, we see that people want to stay with us because we have a purpose.”

“What does that do for external providers? They are not used to this way of working. They are missing out on extra business, and want to know why they are not getting this project whilst they are doing the work. But we say, ‘We have the people, why would we hire more?’,” explains Laurijsse.

Top down vs bottom up

“In India we had a manager who was struggling with this philosophy. His organisation wanted him to deliver on 180 KPI’s and issue rapports. He was managing the people through a ‘do this’ and ‘solve those incidents’ approch. Whilst we believe in bottom-up decision-making and servant leadership, all our employees have the right to take their work off the backlog on the basis of priorities. But if I say ‘left’ and the local manager in India says ‘right’, then they will usually go the other way. After all, it’s the local manager paying the salary of the employees.”

Culture

To get people’s buy-in, you have to know your target audience, and tailor your message accordingly. The same goes for India-based service providers. With 600 people internally and 1800 externally, Laurijsse had to get his service providers’ buy-in for the transformation.

That leads to the key question: Do you know your stakeholder well enough? Do you understand the culture?

In the next article, we will examine this more closely. Why are 21^st century intercultural skills seen as the #2 and #4 skillset of this decade – both by Singularity University and the Institute for the Future? And how is that relevant your work with outsourced and offshored teams?

Read Part 5 of the Transformation Series HERE.

The post Transformation (Part 4): the challenge with service providers appeared first on Global Business Academy.

This column is co-written by Sebastiaan Laurijsse, Senior Director IT & Digital Transformation Manager at NXP and Ilse Kerling, Founder of Global Business Academy.

Missed Part 2 of the series? Read it here.

In the last article, we looked at the crucial role of the CFO in driving transformation. In this column, we examine the key to success: the capability for employees to change.

The CHRO plays a crucial role in this. To understand the internal complexities, we take a look inside Sebastiaan Laurijsse’s IT organisation – Laurijsse is the Director of IT & Digital Transformation Manager at NXP, and co-contributor to this article.

Tired of change

NXP underwent a period of significant change and insecurity as a result of mergers & acquisitions activity. These changes naturally impacted the corporate culture, as well as the workforce.

On the one hand, the result was a culture defined by “we have always done it this way”; but there was also insecurity resulting from the technology itself, and concerns around whether staff would stay relevant, and whether their jobs might disappear or be cut because of data science, Laurijsse explains. This creates barriers that make adoption difficult.

NXP’s transformation

NXP promises speed and agility to shareholders. “I want this same value embedded in my organisation,” explains Laurijsse.

By way of a simple example: If your internal client has to wait 10 days for a laptop to arrive, your organisation is not agile. Everything should operate flexibly and in real-time.  

To achieve this, Laurijsse started with his operating model, asking the question: “Which people, infrastructure, resources, technology, service providers, contracts, locations, KPI’s and measurements show that the division and internal processes truly add value to the strategy?”

His program is called “Organise for change”, ensuring that the people, resources and processes can continuously adapt. That sounds simple, but it’s not, he explains.

The same financial envelop

The semiconductor world is operating ahead of the curve. NXP sells future products that will be released in 3-4 years. As a result, it quickly feels the impact of changes in economic cycles, which has resulted in a search for cost efficiency, especially over the past years.

The main questions Laurijsse has asked himself are: “How do we eliminate waste in our service delivery and increase efficiency? How do we develop products in such a way that they enable the business to shorten the time to market or increase the quality of our products? How do I improve the productivity of our staff?”

At the same time, h efinds himself having to operate within the same financial envelop. “I get a budget each year, and in a year’s time I have to achieve more. Given this budget, I have to look at my costs.”

From pyramid to diamond

Laurijsse’s strategy has been to allocate the biggest chunk of his budget to human resources. However, he explains: “When I zoom in further, I see that a large part goes to repetitive tasks, incidents, standard work and procedures. Our next step was, therefore, to figure out what the operating model would look like when we applied technology to replace standard work. And then the question was whether we could hire staff with more expertise?”

The result, he says, is an organisation that went from a pyramid to a diamond shape. “You operate within the same envelop, but higher up the value chain.”

Change curve

To do this, you have to provide staff with the opportunities and the time to enhance their skillset, he explains. But you also have to restructure, let people go, hire new staff and build new hubs.

“You hire people with new skills, both from the market and universities.”

This sounds logical, but employees who have been impacted by the cost savings, are tired of change and unsure about their job, so they see this negatively.

“In the change curve you get frustration, resistance, emotions, limited adoption and a relapse – because we said we weren’t going to cut jobs, but we eventually had to. Staff don’t know about the individual cases where we’ve been trying to develop someone for years, but it just didn’t work out,” Laurijsse explains.

From cooperation to competition

Another aspect in the transition from pyramid to diamond shape is that the culture changes. New staff, with new expertise, often have other interests, religions and political preferences. And they are also more competitive. So, you see a shift to a performance culture, whilst what you really want is a culture of collaboration, where team members help each other.

The crucial role of the CHRO

The CHRO is incredibly important in the transformation. The key is to create an inclusive environment where people feel safe to develop themselves. That’s when people can realize their own potential and the organisation is able to grow as a result.

The CHRO is the guardian of the strength and the health of the organisation. How do you build stamina? How do you alleviate pressure?  After a phase of consolidation, when do you give the organisation a rest, wven while the CFO is still keen to pursue more results?

These questions are not only crucial during COVID-19, but also during times of pressure and insecurity, such as transformations.

In the next article, we take a look at the last piece of the puzzle in terms of complexity: India-based Service Providers. They represent a large part of the work force. To truly be successful, they need to embrace your transformation, too.

Ready to move onto Part 4 of the Transformation Series? View it here.

The post Transformation (Part 3): the crucial role of the CHRO appeared first on Global Business Academy.

This column is co-written by Sebastiaan Laurijsse, Senior Director IT & Digital Transformation Manager at NXP and Ilse Kerling, Founder of Global Business Academy.

Missed Part 1 of the series? Read it here.

In the last article we examined that 70% of all global transformations miss their goals, and its impact on shareholder value. In this article, we look at the crucial role of the CFO to increase success.

From cost to value

IT is often positioned within a shared service center to which you allocate costs; often a percentage of the turnover. Because of all the new technologies, this role is shifting. IT has become a facilitator of future revenue. That requires different knowledge and insights to determine value and budgets. Forbes investigated that the present board of directors and management teams often lack IT knowledge. In 10 years’ time, they expect 75% of future CEOs to be more technology-driven.

6 years in 1 year

Sometimes when something drastic happens, things can move very fast. How can a company in Asia Pacific close in on our technical advantage in just one year, whilst it took us 6 – 7 years? To protect your future revenue, the Cyber Security Officer (CSO) must have a big say. Often, the CSO is in direct contact with the CEO and the Board and may have more influence than the CIO because the impact is more critical.

Old vs new-style budgeting

When setting IT budgets, often the old measurement is used: a percentage of the revenue. That leads to these type of situations: “The future revenue is somewhat unpredictable so please save $2 million on our computer environment”. I then say “I don’t do that” because that’s the capacity to validate and test products. The new products that we must support are becoming increasingly complex. We need more capacity to keep the development costs and time as low as possible.

$2 million for $1.5 billion

With the old measurement, you reduce $2 million, but it has an impact on future revenue of $1,5 billion. Of course it’s not so simple: will the product be successful? There are many sales and marketing factors. The challenge for IT is that the value can be hard to understand. The crucial element is that the president R&D and the CFO understand that it is a value chain. That IT is not only a cost, but also a strategic enabler.

The crucial role of Finance

The finance division within my IT organisation helps me to get the financial resources to execute my strategy – to ensure that the lights stay on in my organisation. It is essential, however, that they understand the value of what I do. That means not only C-level, but every layer of the organisation, needs to possess a tech savviness and an understanding of the value chain.

The crucial role of the CFO

The CFO has a key role in the success of the transformations. Firstly, by creating a partnership between the CIO and the CFO to identify which areas will help us stay relevant for shareholders. Secondly, by quantifying the true benefits that the transformation should deliver. These can be profit, costs, or risks. And thirdly, by being a sponsor of the project. The CFO is also the beneficiary. The more vocal the support and the internal communication, the faster the transformation.

Why this last point is so important is the topic we will uncover in the next article. The key to success is in people and their ability to adapt. To understand the internal complexities, we will take a look inside Sebastiaan’s IT organisation.

Read Part 3 of the Transformation series here!

The post Transformation (Part 2): the crucial role of the CFO appeared first on Global Business Academy.

This column is co-written by Sebastiaan Laurijsse, Senior Director IT & Digital Transformation Manager at NXP and Ilse Kerling, Founder of Global Business Academy.

Darwin’s evolution

“If the rate of change on the outside exceeds the rate of change on the inside, the end is near,” said Jack Welch, years ago.

In these times of AI, RPA, data science, blockchain and virtual agents, this saying is becoming more relevant than ever before.

The only difference is that we have so much technology, at such low costs, that we can’t speak of Jack Welch’s ‘change’ anymore. Given the huge amount of technology and, not to forget, the ever more demanding consumer, the rate of change experienced is so high that companies have to transform.

For a long time, the law of the strongest prevailed. Multinationals seemed undefeatable. But this has been replaced by Darwin’s law of evolution. Speed is crucial: it is the survival of the fastest. If you are not first to market, the potential for future revenue may begin to evaporate.

US$900 billion

While cash is still king during the pandemic, digital transformation is so important that globally, companies have spent $1.3 trillion on it this year alone.

So, the money is there. The technology is there. So why is it that, according to McKinsey, 70% of all transformations miss their goals? That translates to $900 billion for this year alone.

Before we examine the answer, let’s reflect: What does this $900 billion mean to you? How much money have you allocated to transformation? If an average of 30% is successful, what are the risk investments? And what does that risk mean for the future of your company?

Back to the main question: With such an abundance of money and technology, why do 70% of transformations still miss their target?

You probably know the answer: people and culture. But why is that so challenging? Sebastiaan Laurijsse, Senior Director IT & Digital Transformation Manager at NXP, offers some explaination: “Transformation is not the singular goal,” he says. And he is right. Transformation is a tool to reach your goals. The benefits – whether to increase sales, produce at lower cost, or reduce time to market – those are the goals.

Seen from an internal context: You need to ensure that the new ways of working are adopted so that you can develop at lower cost or need fewer resources. There is always a goal to accomplish.

Goals are often measured in revenue and costs. Experienced shareholders look at the return on investment, however: How much revenue is generated from every CapEx dollar? If you can influence the metrics of the market, you will gain shareholder interest. That means more investors and more liquid assets.

Next week: The crucial role of the CFO

In the next article we will look at the crucial role of the CFO and the skills that CFOs need to improve the success of transformation initiatives.

Sebastiaan Laurijsse
Senior Director IT & Digital Transformation Manager NXP

The post Transformation (Part 1): The Law of Evolution appeared first on Global Business Academy.