Getting the basics right

"If done well, this will accelerate benefits to customers, reduce risk and help streamline the company’s investment spending.”

One way companies can be more efficient is maximising the value of every dollar spent and ensuring services built for one area of the business can be utilised across other parts of the organisation. This can be particularly important for companies undergoing significant change or transformation.    

At ANZ, our team is focused on building business services once and then deploying them widely throughout the organisation. This prevents a situation where different parts of the company are building services and products only for their specific use, resulting in duplication of effort and resources.

This approach allows a company to create solutions not only to meet immediate needs but also to pave the way for the future by anticipating what might be needed down the track.

But how can companies ensure consolidated service models are adopted?

It starts with mastering the ‘brilliant basics’: four fundamental principles that underpin sustainable growth and innovation.

These principles—incremental value delivery, the right mindset for growth and transformation, reusability and product leadership—are essential for building a strong foundation and delivering exceptional services to customers.

Focusing on these ‘brilliant basics’ will help a company establish the building blocks and enable an organisation to better deliver its services to customers.

Incremental value delivery

Let’s start with incremental value delivery. This happens by addressing and solving cost challenges through small gradual changes in manageable increments, rather than a single release. This creates a roadmap based on customer needs for future distributions.

Leaders set the stage for a business and play a pivotal role in transformation. Thinking in components, like Lego blocks, allows the assembly of solutions and services that are both innovative and efficient. 

The right mindset 

While leadership is vital for transformation, at the heart of ‘brilliant basics’ is the right mindset. By adopting a start-up mindset, companies can empower growth through analysing problems as opportunities.

This perspective helps foster a culture where the flow of work, ideas and revenue are in constant motion. This is crucial for businesses seeking to transform and allows a company to continuously reinvest and reinvent itself.

Shifting from a reactive to transformative mindset can allow a company to focus on the products its customers need and want.

An example of this is a company which constantly improves its product based on customer feedback, rather than only making changes when problems arise. This proactive approach keeps the company agile and better meets customer needs.

Reusability 

The third cornerstone of ‘brilliant basics’ is reusability. Focusing on building once and consuming widely at the same time as removing discarded aspects of the business.

Teams can create so-called modular utilities which serve both immediate needs and allow for future expansion. A focus on reusability enhances operational effectiveness and boosts sustainable growth by ensuring resources are better utilized.

An example of reusability is designing the customer relationship management (CRM) system to be modular and scalable. This addresses the immediate needs of different divisions and allows the platform to be expanded with new features and integrated with other systems.

Product leadership 

The final element of a ‘brilliant basics’ transformation is shifting from the project leadership style to product leadership. This can be a significant change in approach for many companies.

The shift strengthens the services’ eco-systems, builds intellectual property and creates value through interaction and adoption. It's about making the core service efficient and repeatable.

For example, earlier this year ANZ Business Services assisted a team to implement a central service for collateral management, saving millions of dollars a year.

Mastering the four ‘brilliant basics’ is more than a strategy; it's a call to action to create cross-functional teams which will allow a business to grow well into the future.

It's a commitment to building a strong base of common services and components to support a business to be agile, innovative and transformative.

The journey to mastering the basics may be challenging, but it holds the promise of unlocking new opportunities and achieving lasting success. 

Vinit Jha is the Centre of Excellence Lead for Business Services at ANZ