Read this article about Cognizant Technology Solutions, one of our finalists, in the category Best Achievement in Cultural Transformation & Sustainability to deliver a high performing Enterprise Excellence Culture, selected by the independent judging panel, for the 2019 Business Transformation & Operational Excellence Industry Awards program. Click here to read articles on other finalists.

Rediscovering Early Warning Approach to Business Success

A project lifecycle includes 4 stages – Pursuit, Transition, Delivery & Sunset. During Pursuit, Cognizant identifies suitable business opportunities from client RFPs (Request for Proposal) and create customized solutions to meet their requirements. Post deal finalization, process is Transitioned to Cognizant environment through mutually agreed Transitions plan with predefined goals/milestones.

Finally, the transitioned project moves into steady state Delivery post stabilization, after meeting key project milestones.

At these stages of project lifecycle, the project is exposed to various inherent risks, such as:

Pursuit: Improper deal assumptions around revenue & cost could lead to Cognizant bidding for unprofitable business opportunities thereby affecting financial stability.

Transitions: Inadequate knowledge transfer, incomplete scope considerations, delayed or unmet Transition tollgates, etc. could lead to fines and penalties and contract cancellations CAN YOU SEE WHAT’S COMING?

Steady State Delivery: inability to meet service level, unmet contractual commitments etc could lead to fines and penalties along with client dissatisfaction thereby affecting brand reputation

Therefore, ability to ‘see and anticipate what’s coming’ and its timely mitigation is critical for CDO to meet both implied and expressed value commitments to clients.

Opportunity

Rapid growth with increased complexity presented previously unknown challenges to business leadership with an opportunity to enhance critical management systems including Early Warning Management System (or EWS) to prevent business losses/ failures. Failure to correctly read early warning indicators/ signs led to closure scrutiny of our EWS system with following improvement areas identified.

Hence, it was decided to evolve from ‘subjective’ early warning system to a more balanced approach to risk taking by establishing a bottom-up governance process by nurturing risk-aware culture through use of technology.

Key Culture Transformation Shifts:

Being Proactive

Encouraging & Enabling Proactive Risk/Issue Escalation by eliminating pressure from staff to present an optimistic story to Senior Management. Rather Incentivizing proactive risk management and mitigation through bottom up actions.

‘Don’t Shoot the Messenger

Attitude and Leadership to enhances transparency, openness and objectivity in discussion. Leadership efforts focused to support appropriate risk response when issues are raised proactively, instead of ‘shooting the messenger’.

‘Digital to the Rescue’

Embracing Digital & Technology to develop Integrated & Scalable Early Warning Management System to address ever increase business size, complexity and risks.

Key Drivers

• Communications & Training: Driving rigor through positive messaging (e.g. “Red is good”) to influence diverse cultural mindsets.
• Risk Adjusted Decisions: Continuously enhancing programs by feeding learnings from materialized risks/issues to enable early identification in new projects.
• Formalized Recognition through incentive, career development and promotion systems.
• Leadership Governance Meeting: Providing platform for inviting open debate to question and challenge ingrained thinking and an acceptance of diversity of opinion in presence of senior leadership to drive top down messaging
• Integrated System: Adopting Cognizant philosophy on Digital Transformation to develop proprietary solutions to drive both bottoms up and top down support and ensure project safe-landing through

Benefits

• More warnings/risks per day as result of an open and more risk-aware culture
• Issue closure to limit exposure from identified ‘High Severity’ risk/issue
• Identification of risks early in project lifecycle minimize mitigation effort and costs; risks are easier to mitigate in design
• Self-assessment of ‘High Severity’ warnings/ risks and timely mitigation prevents negative business impact
• Timely identification and mitigation helps minimize client escalations thereby protecting Revenue