Harmony: The right technology for the right business case

If technologically driven change is to match its potential, industry leaders must manage the process of change within their organisations carefully, and constantly. Business is undergoing the Fourth Industrial Revolution, and there is no historical precedent for how this will change process and scale. This paper describes the steps that must be taken to ensure positive progress can be made while allowing for continuing change. The first step is developing and maintaining a communications network to stay on top of the latest developments into the application of Fourth Industrial Revolution technologies, bridging any gaps in understanding, in order to navigate this transformation. The second step is the understanding of the business cases to which these technologies can be applied, in order to engender small-scale change that can grow, without finding that a single instance of technology is enveloped by business silos. Intrinsic within this process is an assessment of the correct implementation methodology to enable the right qualities of technology to be brought out, thereby matching the firm’s requirements. The third element is the need to assess value of change versus cost of change. Starting with a proof of concept and building out to a larger deliverable is a good way to manage that assessment. Directly involving end users, solutions providers and the operations function from the start of the process ties expectation to delivery. Leaders must understand that the business can function and change simultaneously but only if they can take on the right mindset in order to manage this process.