Using our survey data, Principal Consultant Mark Turner looks at how business transformation supports strategic objectives like operational excellence
Whenever I talk to someone about their professional life and the things on which they are currently working, it seems that every organisation is going through some sort of transformation to improve individual or business performance.
This is understandable and, in an increasingly unpredictable world, the dangers of not adapting and changing are well known. But what if the capability to manage this transformation doesn’t exist, or the process of delivering the desired change is not successful?
At Curium Solutions, we have completed a wide-ranging survey looking at transformation priorities and the success of current and past change efforts in UK organisations. The results are revealed in our report, ‘Failure to transform: how business transformation can go wrong’, show clear areas for improvement, including leadership, communication, metrics and skills.
In second and third place in terms of strategic priorities for the next 12 months are operational efficiencies and reducing cost. I am not surprised. Operational improvements are essential in all businesses. They underpin costs, service delivery and sustainability.
However, the route to achieving them can appear challenging. How do you drive and balance:
- hard but essential measures such as productivity and efficiency to mitigate costs, and
- in line with delivering a reliable customer service
- in an environment where your people are fully engaged, developing new skills and having fun?
This multi-layered challenge is made more difficult when you add in the alarming statistic that 90% of strategies fail to deliver their intended results. If the failure rate remains this high, then many operations will continue to be inefficient and businesses will face spiralling costs as their strategies fail to deliver desired outcomes.
Whether you are managing a single channel of interaction with your customers or have fully embraced a multi/omni-channel approach with artificial intelligence and robots, somewhere in this mix is your most important resource – your people.
As dull as it may sound in this digitally focused world, doing the basic ‘people’ things consistently well can be key to delivering and sustaining desirable levels of customer service at an optimum cost, and with a fully engaged team. After all, operational environments cannot be ‘put on hold’ while a transformation project is implemented.
With a clear understanding of the techniques that drive improvements in efficiency, reduce costs and enhance employee engagement, it is possible for organisations to change and deliver operational efficiencies and reduce cost.
If you haven’t had chance to read our report, then please do. I’d love to hear your feedback or your experiences of business transformation.
