Alexandre Wajsblatt , Project Director, specialized in digital transformation of the Finance function, is an accredited expert consultant at FocusTribes, since October 2019.
After 10 years of experience in Finance at Danone, marked by a strong "Systems" dimension, Alexandre Wajsblatt voluntarily moved towards business functions, before launching himself as an independent consultant in 2017. His dual culture, finance, and business, enables him to quickly understand the methodology to be implemented in groups undertaking a major transformation. A pure FocusTribes consultant in short.
In 2021, to manage a transformation project, Alexandre reminds us of a few fundamentals; which may seem obvious... And yet...
"As a project accelerator, I am first and foremost a fan of simplicity: you have to start by simplifying", says our expert consultant. According to him, little has changed since the introduction of ERP in 1995/2000. It could even be considered worse since models and organizations have become more complex. Companies have "reinvented" their needs, always wanting more data. The result is that there is now an inordinate amount of data to manage. "The volume of data to be exploited has increased mainly by stacking, with one layer being superimposed on another... without any real rationalization work.
Ensuring strong sponsorship is also a key point, and even a sine qua non for a good start to a project: and the higher its rank in the hierarchy, the better... This sponsor must make high-stake decisions, supervise the framework, and allocate the necessary resources.
As Alexandre points out: "It is necessary to be able to anticipate, from the start of the project, the difficulties and arbitrations likely to be encountered by the consultant throughout the transformation process, and to do so with a good team that is truly committed.
Another obvious point but so often overlooked... According to our independent consultant, the most important point in the planning strategy is to recruit the right people. Considering the availability of internal employees and business representatives before hiring IT teams and using external people to increase the capacity to do things, is essential to the success of a project.
Methodological input should not be overlooked either. Whether it is a classic methodology (V-cycle type) or pure Agile, it must be shared by all the players (and applied). In addition to being shared, it must be accompanied by homogeneous practices in terms of presentation and monitoring, the aim being to facilitate the reading and consolidation of the progress of various projects.
Our digital transformation consultant explains: "As a project accelerator, my role is also to provide the best solutions by providing them with a toolbox and the necessary kit: a methodology, project templates and animation tools.
Finally, sharing, harmonising, and centralising are key factors in the role of a consultant who must, in fact, provide the right collaborative tools. This is more true now than ever (or - This is more true), in the context of the health crisis we are experiencing and the development of teleworking, where this notion of collaboration is even more complex to implement. Since 2020, projects are evolving in the right direction, technological solutions are appearing but, according to our expert, they must be made even more collaborative and simplified.