Digital transformation is a hot topic for businesses everywhere, and for good reason. As industries evolve and the demand for faster, more efficient services grows, companies must adapt to remain competitive. At LSC, we embarked on our own digital transformation journey well before the pandemic hit. In this interview, we sit down with Evelyn, our Business Systems and Innovation Manager, to discuss the process LSC went through, the goals we set, and the valuable lessons we learned along the way.
From relooking at how we deliver to streamlining processes for our clients and consultants, Evelyn sheds light on how LSC embraced change, navigated challenges, and positioned ourselves as a more agile and efficient company. Whether you’re looking to start your own digital transformation or seeking insights into how it can impact your business, Evelyn’s experience offers practical takeaways for all.
What motivated LSC to embark on a digital transformation journey?
Pre-2020, we were already making internal changes, recognising that businesses were evolving and people were expecting more. They wanted faster results, instant access to information, and we wanted to keep up with that pace of change. We aimed to stay ahead, not just internally but in how we served our clients, consultants, and candidates. It was important for us to offer the best service we could.
COVID sped things up for everyone. Luckily, we had already started our transformation, but the pandemic forced us to move faster. We needed to support a fully remote workforce—not just our employees, but also our clients and consultants.
We also realised we needed to have efficient processes and systems in place to handle this shift. Our focus primarily was on adding value, not wasting people’s time. We wanted to ensure that anything we implemented wasn’t just change for the sake of change but was genuinely supportive and value-adding.
What were the primary goals of the digital transformation project?
Our aim was to make people’s lives easier and ensure that working with us was as simple as possible. We wanted to reduce administrative tasks (specifically reduce the volumes of emails we send) and free up time, so people could focus on more value-adding work. For managers, when they’re looking for people for projects, we wanted to make sure that LSC was an easy company to deal with. There shouldn’t be a heavy administrative burden when working with LSC—we wanted to present consultants in a straightforward, streamlined way. We also wanted to ensure that they were easy to manage.
A key driver of the transformation was giving our clients and consultants more control and transparency, making processes easier and more intuitive. Our goal was to ensure that everything we did for them was as seamless as possible—from onboarding consultants, managing timesheets, invoicing, PO management, and handling extensions. We wanted to make everything as effortless and admin-light as we could for everyone involved.
Equally with our consultants, we wanted to make their lives easeir and reduce administative tasks for them.
To achieve this, we had to look at automation. As our business grew, as the number of clients and consultants increased, we needed to maintain the same level of service for everyone. Automation is what made that possible.
We’re a people-centered business, and throughout our digital transformation journey, every change we made was centered around one question: how is this adding value for the people we work with? How are we reducing their pain points in their day-to-day work?
How was the process kicked off and manged?
We brought all the stakeholders together and looked at the immediate areas that were identified for change. We then began mapping the processes across all areas of the business—both internal and external. Whether it was how we operated internally or how we engaged externally, we looked at everything. We mapped out every process, reviewed our data, and made sure that it was structured, organised, and accurate. You can’t automate a bad process or bad data without creating more problems down the road.
By mapping these processes, we could dig deep and identify inefficiencies—whether it was wasted time or steps that weren’t adding value or, in some cases, were frustrating our clients or consultants. We asked ourselves, “Why are we doing it this way?” Then we worked to change it—sometimes tweaking it once, twice, or even three times, following an iterative approach until we found the right solution. After mapping the processes, identifying areas for improvement, and ensuring our data was structured and up to date, we were able to build automation around these processes and data. It became all about doing things better—how could we improve even by 1% with every change we made?
We focused on eliminating manual, repetitive tasks that didn’t add value and were often just a source of frustration. By doing this, we freed up our internal teams to have more meaningful conversations with clients, really understanding their needs, or to better support our consultants on the projects they were working on.
What’s your one piece of advice you would give to anyone who is thinking about kicking off a digital transformation project?
Start now, don’t wait. There’s no “perfect” time to start. While you’re waiting, your competitors are already moving ahead.
Whether you’re a hairdresser implementing online payments or a pharmaceutical company still relying on paper-based forms, every business must adapt. Even in large manufacturing sites with heavy automation, paper processes are still common. Moving to digitalisation is crucial for improving efficiency and staying competitive in 2024 and beyond.
The biggest challenge is often people. You can have the best strategy, but without team buy-in, it’s pointless. Resistance to change is natural, but it’s important to reassure people that their roles are evolving, not disappearing.
I would also communicate the benefits to employees. As businesses become more digitally savvy, so do their employees. Their skillsets grow, and they’re gaining new experience, leveling up alongside the transformation. There’s a mutual benefit—for both the business and its employees—when they embrace and drive the change together.
Can you walk me through some of the key changes and improvements implemented during the process and how they improved our client’s experience?
One of the key changes we’ve made is in how we interact with our clients. We’ve introduced new systems that eliminate the need for constant back-and-forth emails. We now have innovative ways to present consultants for future work, all housed in a single portal. This means clients don’t have to search through emails or files to find consultant profiles—everything is centralised and easy to access.
Once a consultant starts on site, we’ve implemented an online timesheet and consultant management portal. This gives managers full visibility of timesheets, allows them to approve time directly within the portal, and even provides visibility on their PO tracking. Although many clients rely on their procurement department to manage POs, we handle that for them within the portal too.
Our system is designed to manage entire project teams, handling everything from timesheets and POs to onboarding and ongoing consultant management. This removes the administrative burden from the managers and clients, allowing them to focus on higher-priority tasks.
The feedback has been very positive. We’ve built a robust service within LSC that can support large project team. Our clients appreciate that the systems we have in place ensure they always have the information they need, and they find the processes easy to manage. We’ve also received great feedback on how we present consultants for upcoming projects—it’s new, it’s innovative, and many clients haven’t seen this approach before. It’s making LSC a more seamless company to work with.
Ultimately, that’s our goal. We want our clients to know that working with LSC is as smooth as possible. Whether they have a small or large project, LSC is here to provide support. We have the systems, the processes, and the network of consultants to ensure everything runs efficiently from end to end.