B2E Solutions

Implementing Enterprise Software like a start-up

Start with the business driver

We encourage start-ups to kick their venture design off by looking at the opportunity or problem that needs solving. On the other hand, Enterprises should look at a problem or opportunity within the business itself.

1. Generate a business model canvas

2. Highlight which aspect of the canvas you want to prioritize - for example, are you struggling to service a particular customer segment? are your key resources struggling to meet demands? do your key activities need further optimization?

3. Create a hypothesis around your focal point

Create employee personas

If you've defined your business driver, then you should have a high-level idea of the type of employees or roles in your business that is going to benefit from a solution. A start-up would typically now create a user persona that is linked to a job-to-be-done as well as a problem scenario. Let's go ahead and do the same for our enterprise.

1. Think about 2-3 different employee roles in your business

2. What job do they have to complete to fulfill their role?

3. What obstacles do they face while trying to complete that said job?

Design an MVP experiment and Prototyping your process

Startups love this particular aspect (at least they should love it). An MVP is the core of a startup's offering (is what I am offering of value to my user that it motivates them to use and re-use my solution?).

So how does an enterprise do the same? We highly recommend the Google Design Sprint for this exercise. It is short, intense, and answers most business questions pretty well. At a high-level, you will:

1. Map out your employee process

2. Find your areas of improvement

3. Sketch possible solutions

4. Create a prototype

5. Validate the prototype with some employees

6. Make a pivot or persevere decision

At Variant Work an MVP is not a finished product to put in the hands of users. We consider MVP to be the experiment used to design and validate a value proposition.

Define Success metrics

This step should not be taken lightly. It is, funny enough, the foundation of your initiative. It ties your business driver to your solution as well as your decision-making process. Great success metrics will help the project team know when and where to invest more resources. When setting your metrics, focus on two areas:

1. Improving in the process - how many errors are made? how long does it take to complete? how many employees deviate from the process?

2. Eliminating the business driver - how are you measuring the impact on the business driver? Is it even measurable? How should you wait to see the expected results?

Launch the solution

By now, you would have noticed that before actually kicking off a huge implementation project, you have systematically reduced the risk of implementing a large project using a venture design approach. Implementing the solution can follow the same approach:

1. Use your MVP as a benchmark, then

2. Implement a proof-of-concept to get a better understanding of feasibility and cost implications.

3. Implement a working prototype to get a better understanding of useability.

4. Implement a pilot to get direct feedback from a range of employees

5. Implement version 1.0 to get your offering out to all your employees.

6. Iterate and Improve to make your solution better.

Next Steps

Venture Design is not just for start-ups. If you consider that enterprise software implementation is a type of venture with high risk, the venture design approach is a powerful tool to use to de-risk the initiative. However, it is not an easy approach to get right the first time around. So we recommend using an experienced consultant or hiring an experienced venture designer to help facilitate the process.