Five Hallmarks of Operational Excellence

Listen to The Five Hallmarks of Operational Excellence and Competitive Advantage Podcast

Accenture identifies the five characteristics of operational excellence and presents the Operational Excellence Index to monitor progress on the way to achieving it.

Accenture research on past economic downturns has found that high-performance businesses put a premium on operational excellence and pull ahead of competitors when the upturn comes. These companies are operationally disciplined during the good times, and they press home this advantage in the bad times to gain market share and change competitive position.

Operational excellence is a valuable differentiator because it is a source of competitive strength as well as cost and cash benefits. However, it is not just about doing the same things better—the pace of change means that businesses must build new operating models at the same time they improve old ones.

Adopting these five characteristics of operational excellence may represent a paradigm shift for many companies. To help determine the areas in which to invest to begin addressing the needed changes, Accenture has developed the Operational Excellence Index. The index reveals the overall health of a company’s operations by measuring performance across all business functions, including both structural and execution elements of each function.

Contact us to find out how Accenture can help you use the Operational Excellence Index to identify current gaps and show the business benefits of aligning reality with the vision.