4 Ways to Amplify Your Team's Success, Ownership, and Maintenance of Your O2C Tech Stack as a Tech Owner
3 | Fill O2C Knowledge Gaps Early
Any major change to the O2C tech stack will stretch your team's capabilities. IT leaders need to bolster knowledge gaps as early as possible to create a solid O2C foundation.
The importance of Specialized Skills
Knowledge gaps exist in any team's capabilities and understanding of O2C best practices. Even the best internal teams need guidance and expertise to support them as they navigate these complex transformations.
IT leaders have two options for bridging knowledge gaps:
- Build up skills in-house.
- Hire experts to advise the team.
The options are not mutually exclusive. We typically advise organizations to start with the second option as they develop in-house proficiency, which has many long-term benefits but takes time. Many successful IT organizations we work with start their journeys with external experts who support their teams and help build up the necessary skills over time. Therefore, IT leaders must choose a consultant who will partner with them on a long-term, self-sustaining model.
Employing external expertise early on can pay dividends by helping derisk the initial phase while increasing sprint tempo. Outside help can be phased out in exchange for internal know-how as the maturity of the organization requires.
Specifically, we recommend that IT leaders:
- Leverage qualified business-process and change-management experts to help map the current and future states of both technology and business process.
- Use experienced digital transformation architects who can advise on O2C best practices.
- Partner with data architects who specialize in complex integrations or data flow challenges.
- Retain software development talent for specific transformation needs like workflow automation and data migration.
Outcome
Faster project delivery, fewer hidden risks, and reduced team stress
Benefits of Hiring External Expertise
Hiring outside consultants is more costly in the short term but has greater value in the long term. RESPEC finds that many O2C issues, like poor data quality and order management, can be avoided by building system architecture correctly from the get-go.
