The CEO’s question to us
Founded in the Netherlands, we’ve grown to become an international biotech player. Some of our competitors are starting to match or outpace our growth and we see larger firms moving to consolidate the market. To keep our independence and stay ahead in this ‘winner takes it all’ market, we need to increase the speed of innovation to further accelerate our growth. Seeing others in the market and in other industries leveraging digital technologies for innovation, I want to make a choice on how we will leverage digital technologies to speed up innovation.
Background
Over the last 80 years, this company grew internationally into a leading biotech player for vegetable breeding while staying a family-owned company.
The company’s success has been built on an entrepreneurial attitude and way of working; scientists would see opportunities to create new varieties and would go after it. As they operate in a market with low switching costs, bringing new innovations in a fast way to market is what has enabled them to keep customers.
At the same time, this largely autonomous way of working sometimes hinders cooperation and collaboration which is needed to scale and can slow down their speed to market with the risk that a competitor will get there first.
Digital technologies, ways of working and new business models are offering many possibilities to speed up innovation. Experimenting with digital technologies enabling innovation is proactively picked up by some; yet it is dispersed and sometimes duplicated, driving up costs. Where and how to focus digitalisation efforts?
The challenge as we saw it
- How to open the minds of leaders to see the potential and opportunities of digital technologies?
- How to choose for where and how to bring digital technologies into the company’s value proposition and business model?
- How to take action to start realising the needed digital transformation?
- How to anchor digital ways of working in day-to-day operations?
What we did
- We agreed with the Board on the support needed from an external party that could guide the digital transformation from a technology and busines perspective. We worked together with the Board to search, vet and select an appropriate technology partner to help co-guide the digital transformation
- Together with this technology partner, we setup the governance for the digital transformation.
- Working with teams throughout the company, we surfaced multiple opportunities to leverage digital technologies. These were then filtered on a number of key criteria to choose a key set of projects. Together these formed a holistic digitalisation strategy including simultaneously standardisation, automation and digitisation of working processes; development of new tools and systems; and an agile way of working.
- The strategic projects were translated into a roadmap, guided by cross functional project teams, supported with digital technology and change management skills. The roadmap also included a transition to when digital capabilities would be fully embedded in the operating model (including the creation and setup of a new business support function), processes, ways of working and behaviour.
- To realise the standardisation and automation of data and processes, we identified and worked on new tools and in parallel identified with the various teams, the key habits to start, improve or leave behind to ensure future success.
- Together with the HR team, we revised policies to support the new job roles, behaviours and skills needed.
- We actively coaching leadership teams on letting go of old and establishing new habits.
What the client got out of it
- Clarity, alignment, ownership and commitment from the Board and senior leaders on the digitalisation strategic framework and roadmap.
- A clear digital transformation roadmap integrating the psychological journey of transformational change
- A more digitalised way of working, bridging autonomy and collaboration, aimed at accelerating innovation
- Awareness and change at both team and individual level of the beliefs and habit that would jeopardise or accelerate the success of the company
- Ability to challenge self and others continuously, which resulted in increased speed of developing ideas to commercialise or letting go of them.