Transformation confidence

Executives of today find themselves managing organisations that are experiencing rapid change within their macroeconomic environment.

Changes in consumer behavior and regulatory requirements has forced companies to focus on customer centricity and digitising their business models to not only stay competitive within their industries but to also combat competition from non-traditional competitors and industries.

In order to gain a competitive advantage, organisations are undertaking an unprecedented amount of transformational change that is predominately driven due to internal systems that are no longer fit for purpose and therefore require the introduction of new technologies with the aim of reducing costs and providing more efficiency. In most instances these organizational changes can have a significant effect on the future business and operations of a company. 

The benefits of such big IT-heavy projects can be great but they are not without risks. Such complex projects often experience high levels of project risk during the project life cycle. These emerging project risks need to be identified early to mitigate or manage the risk and limit the impact on the quality of the solution, timeline or realizing the project benefits. Emerging risks that may affect project outcomes are often ignored or inappropriately managed.

Clear business design principles and objectives are pivotal to implementing organizational change which requires project stakeholders to have a good understanding of how the future business should look before undertaking any form of transformational change. This will assist in understanding the key project risks and how they should be managed for large transformational projects to be successful.

PwC’s publication What is Internal Audit’s role in Organisational Transformation? has found that, despite the high stakes, IT projects continue to struggle. Most independent research suggests typical IT project failure rates between 30% and 50% – a problem that’s gaining growing attention from boards, C-suite executives and Internal Audit. All these groups are coming to recognize the risks posed by large IT initiatives.

They want answers to such questions as:

• Are we on-time and on-budget?
• Are we delivering the planned scope?
• Are we maintaining the integrity of our control environment?
• Are we going to have a positive return on investment?

As we’ve done with many clients, PwC can work with you to transform your organisation, drive competitive growth – and avoid trauma. Our transformational assurance solution can be tailored to your circumstances and help achieve alignment of project scope with agreed business case and stakeholder expectations that can help achieve quick wins that will build trust, credibility and momentum for success.