Building a culture of Continuous Transformation

Six ways to take the challenge out of change
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It's time to change how you change.

Every migration, merger, pivot, and turning point. Every strategic initiative and course correction. Every customer experience overhaul or operational re-platforming.

They each feel like The Big One—until you’ve got a few under your belt. Then you know how crazy it is to start from zero every time. And you realize that change is never going to slow down.

That’s why the winners in every market and industry—like Southwest Airlines, Bosch, adidas, Dropbox, Volkswagen, T-Mobile—are the companies that master the art of change itself.

And that’s why creating a culture of Continuous Transformation in your organization is so important. Whether you’re an enterprise architect, a product or engineering manager or a strategic business lead, we’ll show you what that looks like and why it matters so much.

Companies that trust in SAP LeanIX

Telekom
Volkswagen-1
Doctolib-1
Bosch-1
Workday-1
Tesa-1
DHL

Chapter 1

Software gives you an edge.
Complexity takes it away.

Over the last few decades, software ate the world.

Every process in every department in every discipline now runs on software.

This skyrocketing software proliferation has been matched by an explosive growth in integrations and interdependencies between software systems—some bought, some built, some rented; in the cloud, in data centers and on local servers; connected by everything from APIs to hard, custom code.

The result of all this is chronic, compound software complexity—and it’s the number one obstacle to change.

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Dealing with each transformation as a long-term, one-off project just doesn’t work.

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Transformations have to be continuous.

Involving everybody in the Enterprise and ecourage them to contribute their knowledge about Business and Technology is the key to a successful EA Practise

They should involve a series of manageable micro-transformations rather than one big one. Think: software companies moving from waterfall to agile methodologies.

As software development became more complex, companies moved from waterfall methodologies to agile methodologies. This involved both breaking down development tasks into manageable chunks and decentralizing development efforts.

We need to attack software complexity in the same way.

Since the entire organization depends on software, you need to involve everyone. This requires, in part, an easy-to-use, single source of truth about your software estate.

With a shared understanding of your global software stack, including all the relationships between software assets, as well as their connection to business capabilities, you can model and map out transformation paths while continuously uncovering new opportunities for adaptation, evolution, and competitive advantage.

We’ve seen this in action. Mitigating a critical vulnerability in less than 48 hours wouldn’t be possible without this approach.

Chapter 2

What is a culture of Continuous Transformation?

Per definition

A culture of Continuous Transformation is a set of beliefs, behaviors, and tools—all supported by a common language—focused on adapting to and mastering change.

To meet the demands of a rapidly-evolving environment, this culture believes that change is inevitable—and welcome. To continually and flexibly balance long-term and short term goals, this culture adopts agile management practices and takes an iterative, results-oriented approach to goal-setting. Finally, to provide easy access and inform decision-making, this culture relies on tools that are cloud native and data rich.

Some examples of companies walking the walk

EA at Bosch: Lessons for Mapping Your IT Landscape

Engineering

EA at Bosch: Lessons for Mapping Your IT Landscape

Bosch maps its IT landscape and plans for continuous change with an approach based on common standards, a core capability of a Continuous Transformation culture.
Read Article
How the Government of Yukon has built a toolkit to enable rapid transformation – on a shoestring

Public Sector

How the Government of Yukon has built a toolkit to enable rapid transformation – on a shoestring

The government of Yukon in North West Canada has managed to keep pace with its technology toolkit thanks to a culture of openness and interoperability.
Read Article
[CSS] EN Travis Perkins

Consumer | Retail

Modernizing IT at Travis Perkins with EA and Business Process Transformation

Travis Perkins modernizes their IT systems and improves operational efficiency with standardization and a unified view of their IT and process landscapes.
Read Article
A culture of Continuous Transformation lets you make better decisions.

It also helps you surface risks and opportunities earlier. So, you’re ready to change (fast), before you even need to. The result?

Happier customers, competitive advantage, and organizational resilience.

Chapter 3

The six principles of
Continuous Transformation.

There are six key principles that make up a culture of Continuous Transformation.

You might recognize some from the way your organization already works. Hats off. But to truly cultivate this culture, you need all six. And really, you can’t have one without the other.

Here’s how to create a culture of Continuous Transformation.

1/6
Switch your thinking from project to product

Continuous Transformation cultures approach organizational processes and capabilities with a sense of long-term ownership of the product, from concept to decommission.

Like product engineers, teams progress iteratively and incrementally, driving innovation through a series of manageable sprints—no more lengthy projects that are out of date before they’re even delivered

Case Study: First Group
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2/6
Put the customer at the core of your organization

Making customers (which can include employees) the center of your transformation programs means focusing resources on the outcomes most meaningful to them.

That invariably changes your priorities—and since customer needs never stop changing, customer-centricity keeps every department and employee on their toes.

Case study: C&A
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3/6
Get real about democratizing data

Data is the fuel for fast, intelligent decisions. To make sure the entire organization can leverage its power, data must be collaboratively sourced and easily accessible.

Democratizing data calls for a culture that’s comfortable with true transparency—both internally and externally.

Case study: Reckitt
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Prioritize collaboration over command and control

Continuous Transformation cultures actively invite collaboration. Is everyone empowered to make decisions and act on them? Does the organization have a common language to ensure that business and IT work towards the same goals? Are people allowed to access the tools and data they need?

The answer to all these questions must be Yes.

Case study: KUKA
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5/6
Foster a creative mindset

It takes creativity to develop products, solve problems, and innovate. Continuous Transformation cultures empower all stakeholders to challenge the status quo, experiment, and respond to change.

They give people access to the data and tools they need to fuel ideas—along with guardrails to show where creativity is needed (like for customer experiences) and where it’s not (like reinventing accounting practices).

Whitepaper: Guide to business-led IT
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Recognize that everything is connected

Like your software estate, your entire organization is interconnected in complex ways. That’s why cultures of Continuous Transformation are holistic by design.

They understand that you can’t disconnect one IT system without affecting others—just as you can’t create an outstanding customer experience without considering the entire organization (not just sales and service reps).

This kind of holistic, connected culture depends on a common language for talking about the business, a shared understanding of how decisions are made, and alignment around goals.

Download: Business Capability Maps
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CHAPTER 4:

LeanIX is the essential platform for Continuous Transformation.

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The companies that create a culture of Continuous Transformation will win.

Involving everybody in the Enterprise and ecourage them to contribute their knowledge about Business and Technology is the key to a successful EA Practise

To achieve this, you need a platform you can build on, one that offers total visibility over where you are, where you want to go, and how you’ll get there.

The best transformation platform is the one people actually use.

For all your software, whether bought, rented or built, LeanIX lets you master complexity so you can supportand accelerate a culture that helps you transform—continuously.

With a licensing model to facilitate full collaboration and an open ecosystem to facilitate collective data sourcing, getting everyone’s input is a breeze.
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