 Accenture's outcomes-orientated strategy of helping our clients become high-performance businesses and governments is a powerful concept. It dramatically differentiates us from any of our competitors because our own success is directly linked to and measured by our clients' success.
To assist our clients in attaining and maintaining high-performance status, Accenture has established the High Performance Business initiative to identify the characteristics and capabilities of high performers. This initiative is a multi-million dollar global research programme that spans 18 industries and seven business functions. The research conclusions are comprehensive, forward-looking, insightful, accurate and relevant—particularly to businesses and governments grappling with the challenges of operating in the rapidly shifting global economy. In the course of this ongoing research, we have concluded that certain characteristics of high performance apply across multiple industries and business functions. At the same time, we have also identified industry–specific characteristics, with the drivers of value varying significantly from industry to industry. For the purposes of this report, the focus is on the characteristics relevant to multiple sectors and business functions. Defining High Performance
Essentially, Accenture has distilled the concept of high performance into relatively simple terms: the ability to outperform peer groups, whether in government or business, over a sustained period. It is the second part of this high–performance equation, sustainability, which in recent times has been the focal point of Accenture's research. Many organisations can appear to be high performers in the short term, especially when they capitalise on favourable market conditions or are fortunate with a single product or market position. However, they can quickly decline when business conditions turn against them. To be a true high performer, an organisation must thrive across discontinuities, including business cycles, industry or economic disruptions and leadership changes. An analysis of the declining life spans of organisations included in Standard & Poor's (S&P) top companies index provides clear evidence that sustained high performance is becoming increasingly elusive. Not too long ago, the average life span of a S&P's company was 50 years. Today, the average life span stands at only 15 years and is predicted to slide to 10 years by 2020. Even more striking, perhaps, is that fewer than one in 10 companies succeed in outperforming industry peers over a period of more than 10 years. These shrinking life spans have been brought about by a complex combination of interconnected factors that include the globalisation of markets and competition, the ubiquitousness of low-cost technology and the growing sophistication of customers and regulators. In studying organisations that do succeed in delivering sustained high performance, Accenture has identified a number of characteristics that these organisations have in common. Not only are these attributes identifiable and measurable, but they can also be replicated—given sufficient time, commitment and hard work. Please note that the descriptions given of these attributes are merely summaries of the key building blocks of high performance. Detailed analyses are readily available on Accenture's website at www.accenture.com. Market Focus and Position
Accenture's research identifies high–performance organisations as those which manage for today and tomorrow. Simply put, they excel at the "where and how to compete" aspects of business strategy, balancing the energy needed to succeed in today's markets with the energy required to identify and forcefully enter new markets. Achieving this critical balance is complicated by the intense pressure organisations face to focus on immediate results. High performers achieve this balance by: - Making strategy a living component of their organisations: for high performers, strategy is not an ivory tower concept, but one that is understood and acted upon at all levels. Nor is their strategy cast in stone. Although they strive for clarity when setting direction, they approach execution as a series of hills to be surmounted, carefully rethinking and refreshing their strategy at each hilltop.
- Achieving enterprise flexibility and agility so that they can respond swiftly to changing and often unpredictable circumstances—with this in mind, they tend to develop unique organisational designs and leadership structures as opposed to following a formula. That said, they are well aware of the textbook standards and do not create differences for the sake of it but to ensure they can continually reorganise as the business and environment changes.
- Understanding the limits of their capabilities: it may seem like a contradiction in terms, but high performers could be called "realistic dreamers." What this means is that they understand their capabilities and push these to the limit—but not beyond.
- Focusing on organic growth: Accenture's research shows that, when making business acquisitions, high performers are much more likely to pursue small and mid-sized deals than mega acquisitions. In this way, they ensure acquisitions are manageable in the long-term.
Distinctive Capabilities
Many companies have mastered either the customer experience or excellent asset utilisation. However, high performers understand that these two objectives must be synchronised and aligned. To do this, they create and exploit distinctive capabilities that are hard to replicate and efficiently deliver a clearly defined customer experience. Distinctiveness does not mean achieving excellence in a single functional silo. It refers to the combination of mastery in a large number of individual capabilities. These include information technology (IT), human and organisational development, marketing, finance and performance management, and supply chain management. In the case of IT, for instance, there is still a tendency to see this purely as a cost to be managed. By contrast, high-performance organisations see IT as a strategic asset that can provide the insight to drive product and service innovation, while also delivering cost and productivity efficiencies. The High-Performance Anatomy
Not to be confused with organisational design and culture, this refers to a set of organisational "mindsets" that drive behaviour among individual employees and the company as a whole. Accenture's research has shown that the following mindsets are crucial to creating a high-performance anatomy: - Execution excellence and successful market creation must be balanced.
- IT is viewed as a strategic asset.
- Talent and its impact can be multiplied, making workforce productivity a key execution differentiator.
- Performance measurement must be broadly inclusive yet highly selective in its focus and metrics.
- Continuous renewal is a real and permanent necessity.
As is clear from this brief summary, the delivery of high performance is an ongoing journey of renewal and discovery. Accenture remains committed to continuing the intellectual journey into High Performance Delivered, to sharing fresh understandings and insights with our clients and to integrating and aligning research conclusions with our offerings. To Top |