Deepak Lalwani of Deepak Lalwani & Associates On How To Use Digital Transformation To Take Your Company To The Next Level

Clear up stakeholder disconnects: whether intentional resistance or misunderstandings about the work, your digital transformation initiative presents a unique opportunity to get stakeholders ‘on the same page’ about your transformation.

As part of our series about “How To Use Digital Transformation To Take Your Company To The Next Level”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Deepak Lalwani, expert Change Manager.

Deepak is an expert in Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) adoption. Upon graduating from Columbia University with a Masters in Organization Change & Consultation, he received his training at Accenture as a management consultant in their Talent & Organization Performance practice. Between 2009–2014, he also supported the People & Organization Change practice at two mid-sized consultancies.

Since beginning his own practice in 2014, his specialty is in driving the adoption of digital transformations, including ERP implementations at Fortune 500 companies. He resides in Brooklyn, New York where he enjoys fine dining, reading, and day trips in nature.

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series. Before we dive in, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’ and how you got started?

You’re welcome and thank you for having me! When I was completing my undergrad from Stony Brook University in Psychology, I realized that I could help my family’s business by furthering my education at Columbia University by achieving a Master’s degree in Organization Change Management (OCM).

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lessons or ‘take aways’ you learned from that?

I once spent all night working on a proposal that needed to be delivered the following morning, but realized the next afternoon that it was still sitting in my outbox. What I didn’t know is I lost internet access at the hotel and missed the deadline. The biggest lesson I learned is that attention to details is key.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story?

W. Warner Burke, Professor of Psychology & Education at Columbia University has been an incredible influence and mentor, especially in the realm of organization change. He definitely helped me approach the concept of change management with awareness of how individuals behave in the midst of change, and how to onboard reluctant stakeholders to the process.

Another person is Roi Hansraj. Roi also specializes in digital transformation, and is an expert business process architecture. On several implementations, Roi has been great at framing out ERP business processes that I’ve integrated with clients.

Is there a particular book, podcast, or film that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?

As a boutique consultancy, marketing & business development is extremely important. It’s one thing to do the work once a project or transformation converts, it’s another thing to ‘get your foot in the door.’ David A. Fields’ book — The Irresistible Consultant’s Guide to Winning Clients is a playbook for getting business.

Extensive research suggests that “purpose driven businesses” are more successful in many areas. When your company started, what was its vision, what was its purpose?

In 2014, I was really excited to help companies with their digital transformation because enterprise technology not only improves an organization’s effectiveness, but also helps its people.

Are you working on any new, exciting projects now? How do you think that might help people?

I won’t say it’s new, but my colleague and I created Business & Technology of Greater New York (BTGNY), which has grown to over 3000 members.

The purpose of the community is to connect business and technology leaders to discuss their management and technology best practices and opportunities. Due to the pandemic, we implemented our own digital transformation by going from live ‘fireside chat’ events to taking an all-digital approach on LinkedIn.

Thank you for all that. Let’s now turn to the main focus of our discussion about Digital Transformation. For the benefit of our readers, can you help explain what exactly Digital Transformation means? On a practical level what does it look like to engage in a Digital Transformation?

I know Digital Transformation can mean different things to different people. For example, as Satya Nadella (CEO of Microsoft) states, “We’ve seen two years’ worth of digital transformation in two months. From remote teamwork and learning, to sales and customer service, to critical cloud infrastructure and security — we are working alongside customers every day to help them adapt and stay open for business in a world of remote everything.”

Meanwhile, the value of digital transformations via ERP implementations is to consolidate and standardize systems and processes across an organization’s business operations. For example, Workday is a cloud-based ERP system that has taken Finance and HR processes and automated them across businesses.

For instance, my firm and I worked on a Workday project for the largest hedge fund in the world. They had a different recruiting approach for 10+ lines of business all using a manual, paper-based process. We helped them implement and adopt Workday by enabling the consolidation and standardization of their recruiting process. This way they dealt with less paper-based resumes, and more with Workday’s applicant tracking system that allowed applicants to fill out a web-based form and upload their resume.

Which companies can most benefit from a Digital Transformation?

Any Fortune 1000 company that has manual processes or activities that need to be standardized or automated across their business.

We’d love to hear about your experiences helping others with Digital Transformation. In your experience, how has Digital Transformation helped improve operations, processes and customer experiences? We’d love to hear some stories if possible.

I once worked with a hotel management company with a significant global presence, and they wanted to grow, yet keep their current IT infrastructure. They also wanted to analyze and understand their talent better to make better company decisions, and to deploy key talent across strategic initiatives and new market opportunities. So they selected and deployed the HCM (Human Capital Management) module of a reputable ERP system to better centralize, standardize, and automate their HR information.

We designed, developed, and delivered the change strategy and roadmap to include the engagement, communication, and training approach for the project. We also developed and delivered the change implementation plan for each approach to include key change activities, deliverables, and outcomes.

As a result, we accelerated the execution of the company’s communication and training efforts. We also improved stakeholder engagement and understanding of the project by the company’s 30,000 employees.

Has integrating Digital Transformation been a challenging process for some companies? What are the challenges? How do you help resolve them?

Absolutely! There are challenges, and I find the biggest challenge is stakeholder management. There are very few change plans that will make every single stakeholder ecstatic about the change they’re going through, even if it’s the best course of action for the company overall. So my firm and I try to find a happy medium between a company’s strategic imperative and its people.

As for how we help resolve them, having one-on-ones with key stakeholders is a great way resolve any misunderstandings or disconnects. Obviously, meeting in-person is ideal, but connecting over video (via MS Teams, Zoom Video, or Google Meet) works great when working remotely.

Ok. Thank you. Here is the primary question of our discussion. Based on your experience and success, what are “Five Ways a Company Can Use Digital Transformation To Take It To The Next Level”? Please share a story or an example for each.

1. Clear up stakeholder disconnects: whether intentional resistance or misunderstandings about the work, your digital transformation initiative presents a unique opportunity to get stakeholders ‘on the same page’ about your transformation
2. Align to strategic objectives: Digital transformation provides an opportunity to better align with your senior management team and the strategic objectives of your company
3. Active ownership by employees: Companies that completely outsource the deployment to an ERP systems integrator were more likely to experience challenges than those that took more active ownership of their transformation
4. Clarity of business processes: Companies that did not take the time to clearly define their future state business processes (Finance, HR, Customer, Procurement, etc.) struggled much more than those that did. Those that relied on best practices or off the shelf software solutions to drive their transformation actually experience the most difficulties
5. Improved standardization & automation: Moving legacy data to the new ERP system is a common challenge among companies that recently completed a transformation, but once business processes are streamlined and the data has been migrated, you can standardize and automate processes to include better decision-making and reporting

In your opinion, how can companies best create a “culture of innovation” in order to create new competitive advantages?

It’s impossible to be a truly innovative company if your behind-the-scenes is a mess, or employees are getting burnt-out by wasting time on activities that don’t add value.

So while innovation may come from inspiration, streamlining activities provides psychological and mental space to share your best ideas, collaborate meaningfully, and stay engaged.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

“Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated” — Confucius

Our brain is always working. It likes stimulation so it keeps itself busy. With that said, I do think we tend to make things more complicated than they should be. So as I grow older and wiser, I do try to simplify things both personally and professionally, and that philosophy has worked well for me.

How can our readers further follow your work?

Have a look at my publications or read a few testimonials on my website. Listen to me speak about change management or go ahead and send me an email to deepak@deepaklalwani.com.

Thank you so much for sharing these important insights. We wish you continued success and good health!

You too! Thank you for the interviewing opportunity. I hope you enjoy a successful and prosperous 2022!