Digital Value Creation, ROI and Business Case are key Post-Covid

During August 2020, KPMG and HFS Research released the results from a COVID survey that gauged priorities and trends across a wide group of corporate customers. The first takeaway was the consensus on Business Case being the top priority to realize enterprise value. It is easy to assume financial drivers are a key component throughout an organization’s life, regardless of economic cycle but a buoyant economy drives complacency and/or optimism to drive growth.

As Covid kicked in and the global economy stalled along with global supply chains and people’s own personal situation, finances become a key priority again. We’ve seen record GDP contraction numbers and clearly restoring growth, profitability and sustainability post covid will require financial discipline, guided by a set of principles to keep moving forward.

The survey shows also the behavioral changes we’ve all gone through COVID and how we interpret and manage risk in difficult situations. In that regard it seems this survey shows willingness and acknowledgement that risk taking is necessary to get past COVID adversity. Seems a little but like Maslow’s pyramid and how you may be able to afford no risk taking and lax finance focus in bouyant environments.

Value Creation

History tends to repeat itself and during the 2000’s recession we faced a somewhat similar reality and one many haven’t faced in their professional life. At the time I was part of the group driving value creation and value chain analysis at KPMG Consulting and remember our group was flooded with Fortune 500 requests.

The framework provided a comprehensive framework to improve company performance and enterprise value through the adoption of technology or any other organic operational transformation initiative. It went far beyond Business Case and included:

Benchmarking
Roadmap
Value realization
Scorecarding

While most of the structural elements of this financial and enterprise value framework are the best I’ve seen in many years of working with Fortune 500 firms and the top professional services firms, the framework must evolve to accommodate specific elements of 21st century digital businesses.

As we transition from a buoyant economy to a recessionary one, we must focus on delivering tangible impact on financial statements and competitive position that transcend a deck with ROI or Business Case. A framework currently under development by DigitiXe helps navigate all necessary components to build modern capabilities while delivering financial results.