As we emerge from this recession, what do you feel offers the greatest potential to drive your business forward?

Looking back, you’ll see that technology is key to moving from where we were to where we want to be. But rarely can this be done immediately. Big bangs can do more damage than good.

On my way home from the gym last week I was listening to Radio 4’s The Bottom Line. Particularly to Nani Beccalli-Falco, CEO and president of General Electric International. He sees technology driving transformation, not overnight, but in percentage terms.

Each change delivers a benefit, the next improves a little more until you reach your goal. Creating an expectation as just as important as bringing on change.

A strategy for success

I must confess, I knew nothing about Ferdinando Beccalli-Falco. Indeed I didn’t know that much about his company, General Electric International.

It surprised me to realise that it was the biggest diversified company in the world, providing everything from from light bulbs to jet engines. Primarily, though a technology company. Which made what he said so much more relevant.

He talked about a jet engine his company had produced. Today it has brought an 18% improvement in efficiency. Not much, the presenter suggested. But Nanni undeterred said “Yes, but 18% today, 18% tomorrow and 18% the day after that”.

Its getting people to recognise that taking the right steps towards a well defined and realistic objective is far better than promising the world and ultimately delivering nothing. And spending too much money and wasting so much resources doing it.

The Ferrari of technology

What Nanni said reminded me of my time as a consultant in Barclays. They have been trying for years to rationalise a vast and diverse IT hardware and software operating environment that was now out of date and becoming untenable.

They know they have to change, but aren’t prepared to understand their users, or are capable of identifying and designing the vehicle for that change. So they throw money at it. In effect, they keep buying a Ferrari they can’t drive.

Now everyone knows Ferraris are one of the world’s fastest cars. In a competitive world like banking, having something faster then your competitors should guarantee you a place at the front. But apart from the wrong product, no one had managed the expectation.

You can’t just jump in that car, open your garage door, put the pedal to the metal and not expect to crash. And crash they did, spectacularly. In effect, they write off the equivalent of hundreds of Ferraris every couple of years without ever getting out of their driveway.

What they should have done is pulled slowly forward, threaded their way through the traffic until they reached the open road and then gunned it. Instead, they simply came to the conclusion that Ferraris are expensive, keep crashing and don’t get you anywhere.

The fact that they had 50,000 passengers who all wanted to go to different places should have occurred to them, too. But offered the keys to a Ferrari they hadn’t learned to drive, they didn’t know any better.

Corporate technology transformations aren’t expensive!

Its the mistakes that cost the money. And that’s the reality of it. Had Barclays decided to wait until it understood what it wanted to do, dealt with the realities of what it had and then been satisfied to try a one thing at a time until it saw the benefit of each change.

Then it would have realised it didn’t need one single, very expensive fast car, but a fleet of cheaper cars to go in different directions to suit each very different business.

So has it learned its lesson?

No I’m sorry to say it hasn’t. It was advertising recently for consultants to deliver yet another disasterous “Ferrari” project. It still thinks it can close its eyes and hit that throttle. Maybe that area of the City is worth avoiding for a while until you hear that big bang…