Is your executive management team asking themselves questions about your company’s operational excellence now? If not, they should be. Operational excellence is certainly not a new topic—but what makes it highly relevant now is the level of exposure companies are experiencing from today’s market and economic disruptions. Senior executives are under intense pressure to reap the benefits associated with highly efficient daily operations—reduced costs, less waste and more loyal customers. For each organization, the situation calls for a particular type of journey to achieve operational excellence that may range from transformational changes to reinvent the entire global or regional operating model, through to continuous improvement and excellence in execution or targeted interventions that build selective, functionally focused capabilities within the operating model. So it is not enough for executives to know where they plan to take their organizations—how they make those journeys will have a significant bearing on their companies’ eventual positioning, because not all companies are able to handle change to the same degree. The task, then, is for business leaders to select the appropriate change journey with care, and to embark on it with wholehearted commitment and full preparation. At Accenture, we have seen successful companies take three different paths or approaches—one of which is uniquely suited to the company’s culture, capabilities and its leadership team. Choosing the right change journey is as important as deciding what change needs to occur. The three approaches are: - Continuous improvement—This usually involves a large number of small initiatives that are dispersed across the organization to build an ongoing change capability. Continuous improvement efforts are typically led by divisional or geographical leaders and yield quick benefits, require small relative investments and tend to become a natural part of doing things.
- Targeted intervention—The aim is to focus on the area of greatest need that will yield clear return on investment. There is typically a compelling reason to change—a threat caused by a market or industry discontinuity, or a new opportunity for growth—along with a sense of urgency. In this type of journey, an organization decides to make big changes to its operating model, but chooses to do it a piece at a time, often with the goal of reducing the risk of the change initiative.
- Transformation program—Here, the journey involves change on a grand scale, almost always with complete reinvention of the operating model and big shifts in the organization’s structure to align with the business strategy. Where there is the right organizational culture and the right C-level leadership to drive the program, transformation is usually the fastest way to get a big change implemented and to leapfrog the competition.
Executive management teams face profound choices about which path to take to attain operational excellence. Successful companies keep to a disciplined approach in choosing the change journey that they can say, with reasonable certainty, will work for them. Download our latest point-of-view to learn more about Accenture’s approach to Operational Excellence. Research & Insights
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