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An approach to align technology solutions to strategic business objectives through capability roadmapping.
EXECUTIVE TEACHING
Leverage the process used to create capability roadmaps to obtain a deeper shared understanding of strategic business goals and shift the dialogue with business partners away from short-term, project-based discussions. By broadening the conversation to include people, process, and technology, capabilities can achieve a more holistic understanding of the underlying need.
COMPONENT TEACHINGS
■ Linking Business Strategy to Capabilities—Shift the dialogue between the IT liaison and business owner away from projects and toward long-term plans.
■ Establishing Capability Targets—Put capability target choices into financial terms to help business partners make better investment trade-off decisions.
■ Setting Capability Realization Horizons—Help business partners understand the business and technology implications of different paths to the target state.
■ Driving Application Rationalization—Explicitly link programs to business capabilities to ensure application retirement goals are being met.
■ Managing Demand—Use the capability roadmap to manage demand by reconciling new project requests against established goals.
COMPONENT TEACHINGS
■ The Master–Planning Process, pp. 12–15 ■ Linking Business Strategy to Capabilities, pp. 16–17 ■ Establishing Capability Targets, pp. 18–22 ■ Managing Demand, pp. 23–24
COMPANY SNAPSHOT
Merck & Co., Inc.
Industry: Pharmaceuticals Through medicines, vaccines, biologic therapies, and consumer and animal products, Merck works with customers and operates in more than 140 countries to deliver innovative health solutions. Merck also demonstrates a commitment to increasing access to health care through far-reaching programs that donate and deliver products to the people who need them.
In a complex environment with more than 5,000 applications, more than 10,000 interfaces, and 35 different technical environments, Merck was challenged to reduce IT maintenance and operations costs to increase funds available for strategic projects the business required.
Approach
Merck develops a master-planning process that EA provides to business units. The process uses capability roadmaps to identify consolidation opportunities and align new technology investments to strategic priorities.
Results
Merck reduces the total number of applications by 20% and increases the portion of the IT budget devoted to strategic investments by 50%.
To make the most progress on portfolio simplification efforts, use capability roadmaps to align technology investments with business priorities.
DO frame business goals in key stakeholder experiences to help business partners articulate pain points.
DON’T let the absence of documented strategy serve as a barrier to capability roadmapping.
See Implementation Guide, pp. 16–17.
Shift the dialogue between the IT liaison and business owner away from projects and toward long-term plans.
■ Merck’s EA group uses the Business Journey Storyboard to surface pain points.
■ The Strategy on a Page Template articulates a set of business imperatives that EA can map to relevant capabilities.
1. LINKING BUSINESS STRATEGY TO CAPABILITIES
Illustrative
Strategy on a Page
FINANCE
Business Journey Storyboard
2012 Experience I have one source I can go to for my annual-planning needs, and I know the data is correct.
Strategic and Tactical Financial Planning
2010 Experience It’s difficult to create annual plans because the budget data I need comes from multiple sources, and I’m not always sure it’s accurate.
Optimize corporate performance through strategic financial planning.
What we desire to accomplishBusiness
Drivers and Goals
Business Capability
Annual-planning time reduced while increasing accuracy in forecasting.
How we know we’ve achieved the goal
Outcomes
Define and adopt a standard global-planning, budgeting, and forecasting process utilizing a common data source.
Merck’s EAs work with business partners to force trade-offs between cost and capability targets across the following four dimensions: 1. People: Skills needed to support new capabilities and/or process improvements 2. Process: Level of process maturity and standardization required 3. Information: Quality and completeness of data required 4. Technology: Availability of tools that provide end-to-end support
Current Range of Capability Maturity
Average Capability Maturity
Initial Capability Target
Reset Capability Target
CapabilityBelow Industry Standard (IS-)
Industry Standard (IS)
Industry Leader (IL)
Distinctive Leader (DL)
Strategic and Tactical Financial Planning
Accounting to Reporting
Treasury and Capital Management
$2.5 M $4 M
$3 M$1.5 M
$5 M
See Implementation Guide, pp. 18–22.
Put capability target choices into financial terms to help business partners make better investment trade-off decisions.
■ Merck’s EA group researches industry capability models and standards to help business partners assess current maturity and identify targets.
■ Rely on business partners’ internal assessments and maturity goals when industry benchmarking is not warranted.
“Business partners always want more than budgets allow. It’s our
job to help them assess where they need to be industry leaders and where it’s okay to meet the industry standard by illustrating the business costs and technical costs.”
Paula KowalczykSenior Director, Business and Solutions
Use the capability roadmap to manage demand by reconciling new project requests against established goals.
5. MANAGING DEMAND
Demand Management Decision Tree
Already on roadmap?
Business Request: New Imperative
Yes. Adjust timing?
No. Aligned
to strategy?
No.
Yes. Forward?
No.
Yes.
Yes. Aligned to capability?
No. Review trade-offs (what comes off/gets delayed?) and adjust roadmap.
Yes. Review trade-offs (what comes off/gets delayed?) and adjust roadmap.
No.
No. Add capability?
Yes. Include capability in roadmap,
identify solutions, and make trade-offs.
Yes. Existing solution?
See Implementation Guide, pp. 23–24.
“We had new technology requests coming in from all over the place. The
roadmap allowed us to stop demand for two years. Now we have a plan, and when a new request comes in, we can assess if and how it fits within that existing plan.”
Stacie Kyle IT Account Executive Merck & Co., Inc.
1. Use capability roadmaps to achieve a deeper shared understanding of longer-term strategic business goals. Too often, conversations with the business focus on short-term, technology solutions. By broadening the conversation to include people, process, and technology, capabilities can achieve a more holistic understanding of the underlying need.
2. Give business partners flexibility when developing a capability roadmap by presenting them with multiple paths to the target state. To facilitate better trade-off decisions, make sure they understand the financial implications of capability improvement choices.
3. Involve business partners in the roadmap creation process to increase their ownership of and accountability for specific roadmap outcomes. By tying roadmap milestones to application retirement and demand management objectives, getting business buy-in to more IT–centric goals becomes easier.