Even though Strategic Simplification primarily advocates simplicity, it has proven to be very difficult to implement. Although IT Cortex does not recommend self-medication, it is of prime importance for an organization to be aware of what a methodology entails. Overcoming the following stumbling-blocks is a prerequisite to success.

• Accept to forfeit customers who might require aspecific, tailor-made or exceptional product or service
  A commercial company has to give up chasing all the customers that it possibly can and focus only on the ones that are ready to go for a standard offering. It is always very difficult to force the Sales and Marketing departments to trim down their creativity so as to keep the products and services offering simple and straightforward. Turned down specific requests (related to features, tariff, delivery, packaging, payment) do not necessary translate themselves into lost customers if they are compensated by other improvements (see next point).
• Highly reliable products or services, strong brand appeal and low cost must compensate for an increase in product genericity.
  A customer is always ready to make concessions provided that he perceives advantages of doing do so: typically if he is convinced of getting good value for his money (see the heuristics of our approach). Product or service de-complexification is but a preliminary step, one must also deliver quality and build a strong brand to make it sufficiently attractive to have customers give up on specific requirements. Pruning product or service specificity brings down the costs of producing and/or delivering them which in turn allows for better prices and/or improved margins. Both sales volume and profitability ultimately benefit from that measure.
• De-complexify the product and/or service offering first then its delivery organization (not the other way round).
  The flexibility and complexity of the product or service offering drives up the flexibility and complexity of the organization and therefore its operating cost. Since a problem has to be tackled at its root an improvement in operational efficiency can only be achieved by de-complexifying the product or service offering. De-complexifying an organization without acting on products or services will bring negative reactions from the customers.
• No halfway application
  This methodology delivers spectacular results if applied in breadth and in depth. Halfway application will only deliver minor improvements that might not even be worth the trouble. This is due to the highly non linear shape of the Pareto distribution. A common mistake consists in simplifying only inasmuch not running the risk of losing a single customer. This is not sufficient. Losing customers is all-right (up to 20 % of them) as long as this improves the overall margin of the corresponding market segment.

Implementing Strategic Simplification requires to go against a tendency deeply ingrained in many organizations : making things needlessly complicated. Being aware of the complexity drivers acting within organizations helps contain their effect to a level that still makes economic sense (called Pareto efficiency).

The stumbling blocks described above - though identified and well known - remain hazardous because of strong preconceived ideas deeply ingrained in the business culture advocated by many consultants. One needs to shift paradigm from a mechanistic, reductionist and overtaxed approach to an organic, holistic, lean and nimble approach. 

Should you be interested in discussing the applicability of IT Cortex approach to your specific situation, do not hesitate to contact us.