Evidence from dozens of transformation processes that we have conducted and many others, reported in the literature, says that attempts at transformation that begin in the hard core of organizations - in the business model or in the centers of power - have more difficulty producing significant results than initiatives that take place around the edges. But it is not the case that any opportunity that is on the periphery of business offers the best - and with the greatest potential for success - opportunities for transformation in organizations.
There is a class of peripheral opportunities that facilitates, usually very much, almost any type of strategic transformation process, and that is what we are going to address here.
opportunity location
The first challenge of a strategic [digital] transformation process is the discovery, identification, location of opportunities.
Of course, there are opportunities to initiate a transformation from the organization's hard core, but this is a very difficult, risky adventure and may implode the business. Therefore, it is very rare to start a transformation from the core of business.
The middle layer [that of managers] works all the time under pressure from inside and outside. Here, too, there is no space to seek opportunities at the risk of halting the organization.
The surface layer [that of line collaborators] is fragile and can detach from the organization at any time; in this layer, opportunities have little influence on the organization.
But there are opportunities that orbit the organization in a kind of atmosphere and that, if treated digitally and strategically, with method, have great potential to trigger experiences of innovation and be, in time, incorporated by the organization.
the moment of opportunity
From the point of view of time, not every opportunity is at the right time to be the starting point for a strategic [digital] transformation. For this "time window", we propose to consider the relationships between simple verb tenses [past, present and future] and the relevance of business opportunities.
Peripheral opportunities [in the past] and criticism [in the present] need to be treated with an urgency charge that invalidate them as an element of cultural transformation of the business and, therefore, must be dealt with at a pace appropriate to the size of the impact they have on the business.