What business outcomes are associated with transformation journeys?

The most successful transformation journeys start with a business outcome in mind. Cloud adoption can be a costly and time-consuming effort. Fostering the right level of support from IT and other areas of the business is crucial to success. This article series is designed to help customers identify business outcomes that are concise, defined, and drive observable results or change in business performance, supported by a specific measure.

During any cloud transformation, the ability to speak in terms of business outcomes supports transparency and cross-functional partnerships. The business outcome framework starts with a simple template to help technically minded individuals document and gain consensus. This template can be used with several business stakeholders to collect a variety of business outcomes, which could each be influenced by a company's transformation journey. Feel free to use this template electronically or, better still, draw it on a whiteboard to engage business leaders and stakeholders in outcome-focused discussions.

To learn more about business outcomes and the business outcome template, see Documenting business outcomes, or download the business outcome template.

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Prepare for conversations with different personas

The following are a few business outcomes that tend to trigger conversations with various personas:

• Finance leadership: Increase profitability while driving compliance.
• Marketing: Acquire and retain customers, and build a reputation.
• Sales: Accelerate sales and improve customer lifetime value.
• Human resources: Retain, recruit and empower employees.
• Executive leadership: Meeting market growth requirements and environmental sustainability metrics.
• Sustainability leads: Driving sustainability as a strategy throughout the business, aligned with the company's commitments.

Sample outcomes by category

Speaking in business outcomes can feel like a foreign language to many technically minded individuals. To help ease translation, we curate a set of business outcome examples. You can use the following examples to inspire and demonstrate business outcomes that are based on actual transformation journeys.

To help you find business outcomes more easily, we've separated them into the following categories. This approach tends to drive consensus-building conversations across business units.

Fiscal outcomes

Financial or fiscal performance is the cleanest business outcome for many business leaders, but not the only one.

View samples of fiscal outcomes.

Agility outcomes

Today's fast-changing business environment places a premium on time. The ability to respond to and drive market change quickly is the fundamental measure of business agility.

View samples of agility outcomes.

Reach outcomes

In a constantly shrinking market, global reach (ability to support global customers and users) can be measured by compliance in geographies that are relevant to the business.

View outcomes related to global reach.

Customer engagement outcomes

Social marketplaces are redefining winners and losers at an unheard-of pace. Responding to user needs is a key measure of customer engagement.

Learn more about customer engagement outcomes.

Performance outcomes

Performance and reliability are assumed. When either falters, reputation damage can be painful and long-lasting.

Learn more about performance outcomes.

Sustainability outcomes

Organizations are increasingly discussing environmental goals and sustainability targets. Environmental sustainability is quickly moving from a "nice to have" function of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) to a centerpiece of business strategy, increasingly embedded into everything a company does.

Learn more about sustainability goals.

Each business outcome listed in the preceding categories can help facilitate a focused conversation among your business and technical team members. However, you shouldn't limit your conversations to these generic samples. Understanding the unique needs of your business and building outcomes that match maximizes the value of a cloud transformation.

Next steps

Learn more about fiscal outcomes.