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Aligning the Project with the Company’s Vision
Ensure the Strategy and Execution are Linked
The risk of focusing solely on solving immediate operational issues is that the transformation becomes the concern of only a small circle of stakeholders. Yet an organization is a complex, interconnected system, made up of teams with diverse roles and expertise that must collaborate toward a shared outcome.
Many companies still operate in a vertical structure, where strategy is designed and communicated from the top, while execution teams are left with fragmented goals and short-term milestones — often disconnected from the bigger picture. This loss of meaning can lead some functions, particularly those close to finance, to believe that financial results are the sole objective.
Such a perspective rarely inspires long-term engagement or innovation. To drive sustainable transformation, it is crucial to connect strategy, objectives, and execution — creating alignment across all levels of the organization. When everyone understands how their contribution supports the company’s vision, transformation becomes not just a project, but a shared movement.
Explaining the Divide
The causes of this disconnect are often multiple:
- Lack of communication: the strategy is not clearly explained or shared with employees, who then struggle to comprehend its purpose.
- Weakened motivation: managers may have difficulty generating engagement for execution that feels “blind,” lacking a clear rationale.
- Organizational silos: departments operate in isolation, sometimes across different hierarchical levels, preventing local goals from aligning with the company’s overall strategy.
How to Restore Strategic Alignment
This fracture can be avoided, provided the following conditions are met:
- Employees clearly understand the organization’s strategy and long-term goals.
- Each person perceives their contribution and the initiatives established to make that strategy succeed.
- Performance measures concretely illustrate how each team’s work impacts overall results.
- Employees have identified levers or means to actively improve their own contribution.
Moreover, collective intelligence should not be received only from top levels. A truly balanced organization encourages bottom-up feedback, embedding mechanisms so that ideas, insights, and proposals can surface from all levels. Thus, any transformation solution must incorporate this essential need for strategic alignment—ensuring coherence, motivation, and lasting organizational performance.
Finance transformation: Understanding the Present to Better Project Into the Future
At the outset of a transformation project, three essential questions arise: Where are we? Where do we want to go? And how do we get there? These three axes form the project’s foundation: Current State, Target State, and Roadmap. By developing these pillars in parallel and consistently, you can guide a transformation that is truly sustainable and successful.
From Current State to Target State: Understand before Acting
A deep understanding of the Current State is indispensable. It enables identification of recurring dysfunctions within the organization, regardless of the ambitions tied to the Target State.
For example, highlighting existing inefficiencies often helps define the key features of the future EPM system to be implemented or the organizational adjustments needed. Too often, transformation plans neglect immediate corrective actions that could boost current performance. It is therefore essential to dig into the Current State, especially with operational teams, where processes are lived daily.
Defining the Target State: Charting a Clear Direction
Once the diagnosis is complete, the time comes for projection: where do we want the organization to be tomorrow? Which evolutions are indispensable, and which are desirable? And crucially, how will we measure transformation success?
Comparing the Current State and the Target State enables the construction of action scenarios, the assessment of required resources, and the estimation of realistic timelines. This is when your project partner helps define the “how”—that is, the Roadmap, the true transformation plan.
The Roadmap: Balancing Ambition and Capacity for Change
A successful transformation is not limited to the technical deployment of a solution. It depends above all on the organization’s capacity to absorb and adopt change. Underestimating human and organizational dimensions—role distribution, process evolution, team buy-in—is a frequent error. For a transformation to be sustainable, the right balance must be found between strategic ambition and operational realism, integrating all dimensions of change: technological, human, and cultural.
