We are very proud to have been selected for Microsoft’s #BuildFor2030 strategy, because of our focus on embedding inclusion and sustainability into our offerings.
What is #BuildFor2030?
Working towards building an inclusive economy, Microsoft and our partner-led communities are coming together to launch #BuildFor2030. Starting March through October, Microsoft will be recognising and showcasing partners who have solutions in our marketplaces that align with the UN’s Sustainable Development goals. This is designed to highlight technology that enables an inclusive economy, creating opportunities and positive business outcomes. We believe technology is key in driving solutions that enable everyone, everywhere, to achieve more.
Microsoft, March 2020
How Minttulip supports #BuildFor2030
We have long emphasised the importance of investing in Microsoft Modern Workplace capabilities for the sustainable nature of the benefits they bring an organisation, such is the virtue of an evergreen service: at its heart you pay a fixed cost for ever-increasing capability.
The key, however, is converting capability into recognised benefit across your organisation, and implementing a strategy to maximise these benefits can be challenging simply because of the breadth of engagement required, and depth of knowledge and expertise needed. This is particularly true around issues of sustainability and inclusion, because most organisations do not yet have dedicated roles in these areas, or where they do, they are focused on delivering against existing process and are not included in strategic conversations.
This is where we can help.
Cloud services such as Microsoft 365 are already more sustainable from an energy consumption and environmental impact perspective, but for those benefits to be realised, organisations must see how adopting them and building their ways of working around them will bring value. This is even more true when we look to the task of building an inclusive workplace, where digital capabilities can bring huge accessibility benefits, but only when combined with a clear strategy and digital operating model that embeds awareness and a commitment to “nothing about us without us” at its core.
We help organisations to build and deliver the business case, implementation plan, and business change strategy for an inclusive Modern Workplace – ensuring that everyone is included, and that benefits are realised for all. Our expertise and experience in modernising and transforming technology, works hand in hand with our service transformation and business change and adoption capabilities to ensure a holistic approach to Modern Workplace realisation.
A sustainable benefits framework
The principles of our benefits framework, which we use to ensure our customers deliver the Return on Investment from their licensing investment, identify sustainable value as the result of effective digital strategy implementation and the embedding of inclusive design principles into an evergreen digital operating model is one of the most effective routes for realising benefits long after any “transformation programme” has resolved.
Focusing on specific examples of where benefits have been delivered shows everyone both a commitment to action, and that things can be better. This is a principle at the heart of our “Benefit Pathways” approach, which we use to show how better ways of working emerging from your organisation, tie into the strategic goals of your organisation. Whilst some benefits may be expressed in terms of traditional benefits mapping outcomes, such as time back, cost reductions, or improved outcomes – we also ensure that longer-term strategic goals are represented in the analysis, and that it is clear that changes in working practices and “on the ground” behaviours, can have a huge impact on culture, and how inclusive your organisation is. This is why a benefits framework with a broader view is important, and why benefits recognition must extend across programmes and beyond them, not live within any single one.
Below are the key areas we focus on when helping any organisation understand the benefits that come with undertaking an inclusive design approach to Modern Workplace strategy.
Not all of these factors result in a straightforward cost-reduction or reallocation benefit, and convincing an organisation to recognise long-term benefits as part of a business case focused on new digital capability provision can be challenging, but the evidence is available, and our experience has been that a strategic digital capability will be more interested in evidencing its contribution to the strategic objectives that underpin organisational growth through a consciously inclusive Modern Workplace strategy – and this is often an under-explored part of a digital business benefit conversation.
Embedding inclusion
Just as it is insufficient in the context of delivering evergreen services to restrict benefits recognition and reporting efforts within the life of a programme, you will also neglect your commitment to sustainability and inclusion if you fail to embed these principles into your operating models. One area where Minttulip helps organisations incorporate inclusive principles is through the design and implementation of an inclusive Evergreen Digital Operating Model, which includes key processes, and engagement forums to ensure diverse representation in the making of decisions, and creation of digital policy and services.
Whilst this has just been an overview of our approach, we will be publishing more content in the coming weeks to support #BuildFor2030, and show some more of the detail of what we do.
As the #BuildFor2030 campaign kicks off globally, we would invite anyone with an interest in understanding more about how we help organisations to build an inclusive Modern Workplace to get in touch for a discussion about where we can help.
