The world is changing swiftly, and the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) is ushering in a new era of innovation and technology. From how we manufacture and consume products and services to how we experience life and work, 4IR is transforming and enhancing every facet of modern life. Digitalisation has become critical for businesses to remain competitive through greater productivity, asset reliability and advanced process control, and there is a huge emphasis on doing things simply and quickly to drive business growth and success.

When a task or transaction is complex, it involves a significant investment of resources, and usually, this ends up being time. The age-old adage of ‘time is money’ comes into play here – organisations can no longer afford to waste time, especially considering the rate of change of technology. Ten years ago, it took more than a year for technology to change, but today, it’s anything between three and six months. If a business is stuck in a complex procurement process, your business requirements will most probably evolve so much that you no longer need that specific technology. That’s why organisations need procurement simplicity that enables businesses to be agile and adapt quickly. Finding and prioritising simplicity in an ever-changing, increasingly complex business landscape is key and can set your business apart.

Responding to complexity starts with understanding risk  

Increasing complexity is making life more difficult for businesses of all sizes and across all sectors. Considering how quickly our world is shifting, if business owners and leaders don’t have a clear handle on what they’re working through because of complexity, their business risk position increases exponentially.

If you look at software the major risk five years ago was compliance, with businesses asking themselves if they were consuming the right amount of software and licences versus what they procured and licensed. Today, in the Software as a Service SaaS space, the value proposition has become the focus.  Businesses should look at software as a consumable – using only what is needed, when its needed by whom its needed.

At Dante Deo, we’ve seen many implementation projects fail because organisations don’t understand the risk position or the protection that exists within the contract. Most people don’t even understand the licencing conditions on their phones, let alone complex transactional conditions, and this creates massive risk for most businesses today.

The link between simplicity, efficiency, and agility

The ultimate goal for any business transaction with a vendor is to obtain a benefit that will improve your margin, sustain your margin, or grow your revenue. If your organisation gets stuck in a complex environment, you’re at risk of ‘analysis paralysis’, where you either do nothing and lose the benefit you’re seeking, or you never actually optimise that benefit. Therefore, all businesses need to cut through the complexity and focus on a few critical things that will ultimately deliver the core benefit – that’s where simplicity sits.

More so, finding and prioritising simplicity translates to increased efficiency, optimisation, and risk management – the three core outcomes of every commercial transaction. Simplifying business processes and transactions also allows companies to be agile in the face of change. If you lose your ability to adapt quickly, the odds are your competitor will grab that initiative.

Practical examples of bringing simplicity to complex commercial projects

In my years working at Dante Deo, we’ve helped other companies reduce complexity and clarify their own simplicity. During our work with National Treasury, we looked at the incredibly complex IT category across many different spheres of government, bringing everything together with a unified, standardised contractual agreement. This simplicity allowed for a consistent, predictable process of obtaining goods and services, saving the taxpayer money in the process.

Similarly, during a reorganisation conducted for one of our multinational customers, we took complex transactions and unified them under a global framework agreement, focused on standardised terms and conditions and defined processes and risks. In turn, this enabled the business to turn around the procurement transaction in just three to six weeks, instead of the usual months it previously took to put an agreement in place.

We also play a role in the mergers and acquisitions space, dealing with very complex environments and complicated transactions. In this industry, businesses must understand what supply contracts they have and the various details of these contracts. As such, we’ve developed a robust methodology to give these companies an overarching picture of the most critical components and risks in their agreements and have built repositories of how these details affect mergers and acquisitions in a short space of time. this allowed us to lift, shift and split over 1 000 contracts in eight weeks from when the transaction was announced to the market to the listing date on various stock exchanges in SA and Europe.

For us, simplicity comes from the knowledge we have gained over many years harnessing the power of experience to drive business growth and success for our clients.

Many business leaders may cringe when they read this, but processes, procedures and policies don’t add simplicity to an organisation, instead, they elevate complexity. I’m not disputing that these three Ps are not critical to a business – however, the truth is, they don’t manage risk, don’t offer efficiency, and don’t result in simplicity, it does give predictability though.

Businesses should focus on understanding the information that is available to them, and most importantly, invest in partnering with the right people who will understand the environment that they need to operate in exceptionally well. Many procurement practitioners just stick to tick-box procurement and don’t have the skillset to understand the complexity of the business. You must find people who know the commodity and the environment in which that commodity is utilised in order to translate the business complexity to simple cost efficient and optimised supply eco-systems where the risks are managed as well. I rarely look for a procurement expert – instead, I opt for specific technical skills in the relevant market. Identifying the gap between the business need and the specific transaction is key – you need to hire people who can fit in this gap.

Pick your partners in this space in the same way you would choose your spouse. Consider that it’s a lifelong commitment – the wrong partner can destroy your business, just look at Eskom today. Put real time and effort into creating and nurturing a team that will move your organisation forward by offering simple solutions to complex business requirements.

Effective project management is one of the most critical components of business success, whether you’re offering the service yourself, or developing your business through innovative projects. But what makes a project run smoothly? How can you create the most positive and efficient experience so that projects are delivered on scope and on time?

A recent report by international software review platform FinancesOnline found that business dissatisfaction with project management is increasing, with an average of 11.4% of company investments wasted due to poor project management. Research also indicated that organisations that use proven project management practices waste 28 times less money than their flying-blind counterparts.

In our current economic climate, where businesses are fighting to stay profitable and adapt to customer needs in a global pandemic, no one can afford to suffer the consequences of mismanaged projects and delayed deadlines. Here are a few simple strategies to help you master successful project management and deliver quality services efficiently and on time.

Step 1: Concentrate on the contract

It’s impossible to overstate the importance of a solid contract. It’s what the entire operation is based on and what you’ll come back to if there are mishaps or changes along the way. For a successful project, you need to clearly set out the contract structure pillars that best suit your offering. I recommend including an overview of services, the purpose and business need, a defined scope of work, established deliverables of service, the timeframe and duration, the resources that will be utilised, cost of services, and defined payment milestones. That’s eight key elements to a comprehensive contract. This is beneficial even if the project is internal – setting out parameters like expectations and budgets are critical for guiding internal teams too.

It’s also crucial that, throughout the project, you re-align execution with the contract pillars to make sure everyone from vendors to stakeholders are playing their part. Continuous focus on the alignment between contract pillars and key project constraints will avoid any negative effects to the overall performance targets. This helps you better manage the project and keep all parties happy.

Step 2: Keep the long-term business in mind

A good project manager knows to unpack the business justification of the project before it starts so the project can be executed according to these long-term goals. With information on the business case, you can track the project as it unfolds to make sure it remains desirable, viable, and achievable as a means to support decision-making and continued investment for the business.

A successful project management result has the potential to transform a business – or system – leading to improved bottom-line growth or, in some cases, significant savings. In 2017, Dante Deo worked on a project with the National Treasury to optimise their supply chains and facilitate digital transformation. Simply through strategising and working through complexities with long-term goals in mind, we were able to save the government R2.5 billion. Don’t underestimate the long-term influence of successful project management.

Step 3: Understand expectations

This is crucial for everyone involved, from internal and external teams to other service providers and vendors. Clearly defined expectations from the outset will help the team manage and deliver on what’s been established. Any vagueness in this area could lead to trouble down the line. Make sure everyone knows what the final delivery expectations are so that budgets, scope, and required inputs can be worked out correctly. You also need to determine product quality requirements so you can provide products that best suit the purpose.

Step 4: Know who’s who

If you’re keeping dozens of balls in the air – which is par for the course in project management – having clear structures and definitions will make your life that much easier. This step is about organisation and structuring roles and responsibilities for everyone involved. Confirm service-provider responsibilities, make sure vendors understand their part, and have clear structures in place that assist participants in fulfilling these requirements so there can be no confusion around responsibility and accountability. Keep in mind that the agreed roles and responsibilities need to engage the business interests, as well as those of the user and supplier stakeholders.

Step 5: Be willing to adapt

No matter how prepared you are at the start of a project, there are bound to be changes or developments along the way that you need to adapt to. This is where previous experience can be the difference between successful project management and failure. By applying the plan, risk, progress, and change themes to your project, it’s likely you’ll be able to handle mishaps that arise – even at the 11th hour. And, if you established a clear contract from the start, you’ll have defined tolerances for each project objective, so you know how agile you can be.

Efficient and effective project managers will always have a place in the business world. While we understand that each project presents its own challenges and risks, these simple strategies will help you deliver what was promised when it’s due. And, hopefully, save your business some time and money along the way.

As with most other spheres of society, our supply chains took a massive hit – and are still recovering – from the disruption of the global pandemic. From healthcare facilities and communities desperately waiting for medical and hygiene supplies to backlogged factories scrambling to remedy critical assembly-line components only produced in China, cracks (or, in this case, choke points) started appearing in global supply chains, exposing just how vulnerable and fragile these systems are, especially in the face of a storm. With record-long lead times, supply and demand issues, widescale shortages of base materials, transportation difficulties, and sick workers to deal with, supply lines across most, if not all, industries were affected. Toilet paper, building materials, cleaning supplies, food items, and chemicals were just some of the few casualties – with microchips and semiconductors (and hence, smartphones, computers, and cars) still suffering.

It’s become increasingly clear that supply chains can make or break global corporations of all sizes – and with uncertainty and business volatility bound to increase, digitalisation and intelligent workflows could be the answer to insecure, vulnerable, and even archaic supply chains. However, responding in real time to problems and being proactive to market changes can only be achieved if the entire supply chain is visible – something that 84% of chief supply chain officers already grappled with in 2019, according to an IBM C-suite study. This lack of visibility results in environmentally damaging waste and revenue-reducing inefficiencies. Digitising supply chains will not only unlock productivity, agility, and added value for companies, but can also promote overall sustainability, ultimately strengthening their position for growth.

Modern supply chain technologies may not serve as a crystal ball – enabling business and supply chain leaders to foresee what the future holds – but these innovations do empower them to better prepare today for tomorrow’s inevitable unpredictability and change.

Smart supply chains and their many business benefits

According to Gartner research, by 2023, at least 50% of large global corporations will be using artificial intelligence, advanced analytics, edge computing and the internet of things in their supply chain operations. More so, over 30% of warehouse workers will be supplemented, not replaced, by collaborative robots. Technologies like these can help transform traditionally complex, siloed, and obscure supply chains into fully transparent, integrated digital ecosystems that thrive – and allow their businesses to do the same.

Distributed cloud technologies mean that crucial data can be continuously captured and analysed at every step in the value chain journey for improved management, increased responsiveness, and adaptation to change. Digital twin applications enable companies to create what-if scenarios to plan ahead and take resiliency to the next level. Beyond simply managing your supply chain and mitigating risk, digitisation opens opportunities for increased productivity, increased asset reliability, cost savings, new business models, and more value for your customers. Not to mention, a competitive advantage by positioning you as the preferred supplier in your industry.

A roadmap for supply chain digitisation success

Supply chain proactivity starts with identifying and analysing what isn’t working, pinpointing stress points and operational bottlenecks in these systems, and then brainstorming potential digital solutions to resolve the issues. Every chain has its own unique challenges and priorities, and because of their intricate nature, organisations must research and understand common challenges within their operations and possible underlying root causes. Knowing what areas of your supply chain need improvement is a good starting point to define your digital transformation strategy.

Next, you’ll want to determine your digital supply chain vision and the steps you need to take to get there. Invest some time in researching smart supply chain trends, principles, case studies, and revolutionary solutions that can transform your business. Big picture and blue sky thinking is important – consider how various technologies, platforms, and software will competitively position your company over the next few years.

Discuss your detailed plan of action with other C-suite and supply chain executives to champion and drive forward the digital transformation. Your roadmap should have a comprehensive and long-term approach, detailing unified, integrated technology across your operations and further investments that can be made in the future.

Ultimately, developing a visible, integrated, and data-powered supply chain is going to set you apart and will stand you in good stead in a constantly changing, customer-driven world.