Benefits Management (including activities such as benefits realisation or tracking) is central to the work of Transformation Leadership – and as with all important aspects of our business, we do it collaboratively.
Complex programmes may be initiated for strategically important reasons; ambitious transformations may produce huge headline savings or performance increases. But what does success look like at the ground level of the organisation? At the place where transformations have to bite and build momentum to ensure the full benefits will materialise, how is success measured? And how is ‘success’ defined and monitored for long-term, complex programmes – perhaps with international reach, perhaps spanning multiple organisation units, perhaps reaching many years into the future?
Capgemini Consulting, and Transformation Leadership in particular, are world-leaders at benefits-led programmes – transformations that are designed from the outset with the end outcomes, rather than outputs, in mind.
The Collaborative Difference
Our benefits realisation approach is central to the Collaborative Business Experience. In many other areas, typical delivery-focused projects – from construction through IT and even to professional services – begin by establishing a ‘specification’ for delivery in the form of objective outputs. If these are met and the intended output delivered, the project is described as ‘successful’ – without regard to the actual results.
We do not believe our clients hire us to blindly follow a detailed specification for a piece of work. If we don’t think it will deliver what the client wants or needs, it is our job to raise that challenge and develop, with you, a better solution. This is only possible when we can fully understand what those needs are – and when we and our clients can speak a common language to describe ‘what great looks like’ for your business.
Benefits-led programmes begin at both ends of the project – where do you want to go, and how will you know when you’ve got there. Naturally, measuring ‘success’ means tracking the headline benefit – e.g. a £200m saving. But what things have to go right for this to be achieved? What measures can be tracked that will give insight into where to look if progress should go astray? How can non-financial benefits be quantified?
Your success is the only success
Projects begin with developing a deep understanding of what is important to your business success, gained by working through potential outcomes with senior managers. These headline benefits are explored, looking for smaller component outcomes than can be measured objectively.
Benefits Realisation includes the granular focus: ground-level staff may understand the big goal, but will be more motivated to support changes when the direct outcomes for them can be demonstrated. Benefits Realisation means understanding what benefits occur at all levels of the project’s sphere of influence, and understanding how these contribute to overall project success.
These benefits become the cornerstone of project progress measurement – the secret of focusing on outcomes rather than outputs.
Having agreed a common definition and breakdown of success collaboratively, Benefits Tracking extends this to working together to establish how progress is recorded and reported. Capgemini brings a wealth of experience in different approaches – from Balanced Scorecard to Dashboard-style reporting systems. Transformation Leadership work with these core techniques, adapting them to suit the project and your organisation.
Sustainable Benefits
A core driver for Transformation Leadership consultants is to ensure that benefits are demonstrably sustainable. By creating robust Benefits Realisation and Tracking systems, supported by skills transfer in interpreting and adapting measures, Transformation Leadership creates ownership within our clients’ organisations for ongoing success.
Benefits-led projects create the most successful, sustainable and celebrated transformations. Transformation Leadership contributes the skill-sets that ensure all projects benefit from this depth of understanding and focus.
