Transformation Workshop

Who takes part in the transformation workshop

The workshop works when the room includes the people who can decide and the people who know how operations really run. It is usually attended by general management and the heads of sales, operations and logistics, purchasing, finance and IT, along with whoever runs the online channel today.

Each profile brings a piece the others can't see: sales knows why customers keep ordering by phone, logistics knows which orders cause problems at picking, finance knows where payments fail to reconcile. If one of those voices is missing, agreements get reopened as soon as someone tries to apply them.

The number of attendees is deliberately kept small. A group that's too large turns into a presentation with an audience; one that's too small leaves out the people who will later have to carry out the agreements.

Preparing the transformation workshop

Before the session we talk to each participant separately. We ask what takes up most of their time, what they would change first and what they fear could go wrong. In parallel we review the available data: sales by channel, order volume, systems in use and recurring incidents.

With that information we arrive at the workshop with a map of the current situation and the points of disagreement already identified. That way the session isn't spent discovering the problem but deciding what to do about it.

If the workshop centres on a specific project, such as launching a B2B channel or replacing the eCommerce platform, we also prepare a short background document that participants receive a few days beforehand, so they all arrive with the same information.

Before the session we also agree with general management which topics are outside the workshop's scope and which decisions can be made in the room without later approval. That clarity keeps agreements from ending up as recommendations awaiting sign-off.

How the transformation workshop runs

The session opens by sharing the assessment so everyone starts from the same picture. Then we walk through a real order together, from the moment it comes in until it is paid, and each department points out where it gets stuck, duplicated or corrected by hand. That walkthrough usually shifts the conversation more than any presentation.

From there we work in groups on improvement proposals, prioritise them together by impact and effort, and close with specific commitments: what will be done, who leads it and what the first step is. Our role is to facilitate, bring experience from other eCommerce and integration projects, and keep the session from drifting into generalities; the decisions belong to the team.

We take particular care that the session doesn't turn into an endless list of complaints. Every problem that comes up is recorded, but it is only worked through in depth if it affects the day's priorities; the rest is noted down for the follow-up. When the format runs over two days, the first is devoted to the assessment and the order walkthrough and the second to prioritising and firming up commitments.

What you take away from the transformation workshop

In the days after the session you receive a document with the agreements reached, the prioritised initiatives with their owner, the first steps for each one, and the open issues along with who should resolve them and by when.

That document is the basis for the follow-up sessions. If they produce initiatives of a certain size, such as a B2B portal, an ERP integration or a platform change, the natural next step is to turn them into a roadmap with a phased budget.

The owners of each initiative are named people who were in the room, not departments. It's a detail that makes all the difference when, weeks later, someone has to ask where each commitment stands.