In a world where big conglomerates are disentangling their organizations and spinning out focused business units, the Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company (3M) has bucked the trend. 3M is an extremely large company which still maintains a large, multifaceted conglomerate producing many products that we all interact with every day, from Scotch tape to phone cases.
Every company has a unique core competency that sets them apart from others. For 3M, with hundreds of business lines that produce more than 55,000 products, quality manufacturing as a business process is at the core of their DNA. Any large enterprise like Nike, Target, Walmart, Amazon and Apple have different business processes that are their core competency. The same is true even for emerging businesses like MongoDB, Qualtrics, WWE, Tracelink and DoubleVerify.
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We are often asked where companies should start on their automation journey. Strategic-minded leaders will wonder where in the company they should focus and where resources should be applied on their automation journey. 3M is a great illustration of the fact that every company builds their core competency from the same basic building blocks. In a way, even though every company is different, every automation strategy still has the same basic priorities.
All businesses require the same building blocks for automation
Certainly, some companies will have differences from others – an e-commerce brand will have vastly different automation priorities than a ridesharing brand, for example. Even across incredibly divergent categories, however, the same building blocks are there.
Like every other business, 3M has customers, employees and supply chain or ecosystem partners. It needs to sell and market its products which falls to an area of the business that we call the front office.
Someone also has to be working behind the scenes to make sure the money is flowing, the company remains financially solvent and the technology is being implemented in such a way that it supports the vision of the company. We will call this segment, which encompasses finance and IT, the back office.
Five areas exist in nearly every company that would consider enterprise automation: customer experience, employee experience, supply chain efficiency, front office and back office.
The five towers of automation (Source: Workato)
At Workato, we call these five building blocks the five towers of automation. They are an identifiable pattern that emerges when we look at how business processes play out across every company. Broken down, these towers represent the core competency of the company and we can say that the business processes that tie the organization together are the DNA of the company. Running across the five towers are the business processes, the systems and the teams that make up the organization.
When we are asked by leaders where to start the automation journey or what parts of the organization to prioritize in enterprise automation, we point them to these fundamentals. An organization that has automated the five towers well has truly transformed the very essence of their company, embracing the new mind-set and setting themselves up for success in a resilient way.
We live in a world of volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity (VUCA)
Even the mighty 3M was caught up in the supply chain system shocks that resulted from the pandemic. The company was brought to national attention as one of only 10 manufacturers of N95 respirators in the US in the early days of the pandemic and the supply quickly vanished from the shelves.
Even the best, most well-equipped companies are still struggling with how to manage the supply chain system shocks. More recently, Nike, known for their sophistication, has ended up with an unusual oversupply of shoes.
It is instructive to look at how the largest companies are handling challenges. Even with seemingly limitless resources, they are still trying to navigate the challenges that the market throws at them with varying degrees of success.
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Certainly they are larger and less nimble than a small company, but even then their struggles are the sign of an uncomfortable truth that we live in a VUCA world. The elements of VUCA are the enemies of progress and success in the business world.
We have found that organizations who are able to successfully automate processes across the five towers we have laid out here are much better equipped to survive a VUCA world than those who do not.
We have seen companies not only adapt and survive, but even thrive, forging their own form of VUCA that has a much more optimistic tone:
- From volatility to having a very clear path of vision
- From uncertainty to a clear path of unlocked business potential
- From complexity to simplicity and clarity
- From ambiguity to adaptability
The choice of which processes to automate and how to prioritize resources has always been an important one. In today’s world, these choices may be critical.
As is true in many industries and parts of life, starting with and mastering the fundamentals is a sure path to better outcomes. In automation, those fundamentals are the five towers. When businesses focus their resources on these areas, they will end up transforming and improving their core competencies – and becoming more competitive in the marketplace as a result.
How is your business handling the prevalence of VUCA? Let us know in the comments below.