the business agility report - solutionsiq · for this, the first business agility report, we...
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1SPECIAL EDITION
The Business Agility Report RAISING THE B.A.R.
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SPECIAL EDITION
The Business Agility Report
SPECIAL EDITION
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We're passionate about enabling measurable and sustainable business agility transformations! We help our customers and partners leverage the power of measurement and continuous improvement to accelerate their transformation efforts and use data to guide their journey and measure results.
https://agilityhealthradar.com
SPECIAL THANKS TO
The hardest part of a successful digital transformation is the cultural piece. At Orchestrated, we provide digital transformation, process simplification and product delivery expertise that puts people first. We implement these with our clients using a sensible mix of modern business and engineering practices that are supported by our tools.
Larger organizations use these tools at scale to reason about complex project interdependencies, and how people are organised and supported on the journey to increase agility in their delivery.
https://orchestrated.io
orchestrated.
4SPECIAL EDITION
From now on, the organizations that succeed in outperforming the competition will do so by outlearning them. By becoming a learning organization, you’ll re-equip and re-energize your business to innovate and deliver more effectively than new market entrants – while remaining open to disrupting your own products and business models to survive and thrive into the future.
Collaborating with forward-thinking organizations across the Agile community – including the Business Agility Institute and AgilityHealth – we at Accenture | SolutionsIQ dedicate our research efforts toward understanding shifting market trends, data and business needs. And we do this with a single objective in mind: to continually enhance our ability to deliver the best outcomes for our clients and the wider community.
As a founding member and global sponsor of the Business Agility Institute, we have an unwavering commitment to this goal. We strive to leverage our global reach with clients and partners across our ecosystem, in order to expand participation in future editions of the survey and subsequent report. We’re delighted to invite you to read this inaugural special edition of the report, which we supplemented with additional insights and perspectives inspired by our work with our clients, the Agile community and our wider ecosystem.
When reading the report, you are likely to find that your organization is facing similar – if not identical – business challenges. This report is not only for you to learn from: you can also help by participating in the Business Agility Survey going forward and sharing your challenges and successes.
The age of business agility is here – and this report is your personal invitation to join the movement.
- Accenture | SolutionsIQ
WELCOME TO THE AGE OF BUSINESS AGILITY
FOREWORD
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TABLE OF CONTENTSKEY FINDINGS .......................................................................... 6
METHODOLOGY ........................................................................ 7
SURVEY DEMOGRAPHICS ....................................................... 8
BUSINESS AGILITY FLUENCY ............................................... 10
CHALLENGES ALONG THE JOURNEY .....................................16Leadership .......................................................................................................................... 16
Lack of Buy-in ..................................................................................................................... 18
Inappropriate Organization Design .................................................................................. 19
BUSINESS AGILITY SUCCESSES ...........................................21
DEEP DIVE INTO THE DOMAINS OF BUSINESS AGILITY .... 23
AFTERWORD .......................................................................... 26
ADDITIONAL THANKS TO OUR MEMBERS ........................... 25
INSIGHTS & NOTES ............................................................... 26
6SPECIAL EDITION
The adoption of business agility mindsets, structures, and practices is accelerating. Not a day goes by without a press release from a major corporation announcing their transformation. And despite the hype, it’s more than a buzzword. It is a significant, yet nuanced, change in the ways companies operate. In today’s unpredictable economy, the benefits are clear.
Recently, 394 respondents from 166 companies from around the world took part in the first-ever Business Agility survey, rating their maturity and sharing their insights, challenges, and successes.
The survey found that most organizations rate their current business agility fluency relatively low, but have enthusiasm and hope for the future. Many respondents report that they are struggling with transforming entrenched culture and processes; most commonly developing new funding models and transforming HR, Finance, and other supporting functions.
Despite these challenges, most survey respondents also report that they are experiencing tangible benefits from their investment in business agility; from better ways of working, increased employee and customer satisfaction, and improved market performance.
KEY FINDINGS
BENEFITS OF BUSINESS AGILITY
MARKET SUCCESS
SPEED TO MARKET
COLL ABORATION
AGILE MINDSET
EMPLOYEE SATISFACTION
ADAPTIVE LEADERSHIP
BETTER WAYS OF WORKING
CUSTOMER SATISFACTION
This report draws attention to some of the biggest challenges that most organizations are facing on their business agility journey. In particular, it highlights challenges around changing culture and processes, as well as transforming support functions such as HR and finance. Other specific functions also experiencing challenges include marketing, legal & regulatory, security & compliance, vendor management and operations management.
By providing insights into challenges in these areas, the report helps organizations design a thorough, holistic transformation plan. Such a plan looks across the entire organization and applies sound change management practices to ensure real and sustainable culture change, while also reimagining supporting functions to realize the full benefits of the transformation. We can validate the successes identified in the 2018 survey participants, as most of our clients are seeing the same types of successes – including tangible improvements in employee engagement and customer satisfaction, along with an increase in economic value.
CHALLENGES & OPPORTUNITIES:
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This study investigated organizational business agility fluency against the Domains of Business Agility as well as examining overall benefits and challenges. The study was conducted through a voluntary online survey where respondents were asked a series of demographic questions regarding their organization and to provide the top challenges and benefits they have seen to date. Finally, respondents self-assessed their organizational business agility fluency against 24 domains across four dimensions (Customer, Organizational Connections & Relationships, Ways of Working, and Mindset & Culture).
The survey data was anonymized for this report.
Respondents were asked to provide a rating from 1-10 for each domain; with 1-6 classified as low-moderate fluency and 7-10 as high fluency. In the context of each domain, the ratings were classified as either;
Pre-Crawl (1-2) - the organization mostly follows traditional processes. E.g. Our focus is primarily on achieving a specific output and we do not effectively track the realization of benefits once a project is complete.
Crawl (3-4) - the organization is just getting started with business agility. E.g. Our project business cases define expected business outcomes which are tracked at project completion.
Walk (5-6) - the business agility basics are in place and more advanced methods are being explored. E.g. We are aligning teams and their associated KPIs and measures against product goals rather than project goals.
Run (7-8) - the organization has made significant strides towards business agility. E.g. We are outcome focused and start with the desired behavioral change in our target customer in mind rather than a specific output.
Fly (9-10) - the organization is a global business agility leader. E.g. Teams are funded by "why." The question "how much does it cost?" is no longer asked, instead, "what is it worth?"
The percentage of Run or Fly (7+) levels can be considered a “favorable score” for each domain. Specific examples were given at each range to help respondents select a consistent rating.
To view the questions, or to take the survey yourself, visit: https://agilityhealthradar.com/business-agility-survey/
METHODOLOGY
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For this, the first Business Agility Report, we surveyed a diverse range of organizations representing 29 countries, across 24 industries, and ranging in size from 4 to 400,000 employees. The only consistent factor between them is they all have taken on a goal to become an “Agile” organization. Some have just started the journey while others have been leaders for nearly a decade.
SURVEY DEMOGRAPHICS
Respondents represent organizations of all sizes
COMPANY SIZE
Over 60% of respondents state that their industry is being disrupted or has unpredictable market conditions. Only the Transport industry reports being stable today; with respondents mostly concerned about market predictability over the next 20 years.
INDUSTRIES REPRESENTED
Consulting
Information Technology
Financial Services & Insurance
Manufacturing, Automotive, & Aerospace
Entertainment & Hospitality
Energy, Utilities, & Mining
Transport
Healthcare
Education
Other 8%2%2%
3%2%
3%5%
15%28%
32%
Highly Volatile
Predictable
Volatile
Neutral
27 % 26
%14% 15% 19%
51 - 200 employees
1,001 - 10,000 employees
201 - 1,000 employees
10,001 + employees
0 - 50 employees
% of Respondents
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WHO’S RESPONDINGIndividual Contributors includes agile coaches and similar roles. External Partners or Consultants are not employed by the surveyed organization but work closely with them and are responding on their behalf.
OPERATING REGIONSRespondent companies operate in the following regions
North America29% Asia
9%
EMEA16%
Oceania14%South America
6%
WORLDWIDE26%
Seni
or E
xecu
tive
LOB/
Divi
sion
Lea
der
Indi
vidu
al C
ontr
ibut
or
Exte
rnal
Par
tner
or C
onsu
ltant
Man
ager
C-Le
vel
14 % 14 % 12 % 24 % 19 % 18 %
The two largest industries represented in the survey, consulting and information technology, account for 60% of the survey respondents. Our hypothesis is that this reflects the fact that both of those industries are at the forefront of Agile in general. As a result, they were further along their business agility journey than other industries. We are curious to see what future insights will be revealed by sectors like financial services, manufacturing, entertainment, energy, and healthcare. We are confident that, over time, more industries will join the early adopters, revealing more insights, and creating a momentum for mainstream adoption.
TRAILBLAZING INDUSTRIES:
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We designed the survey questions to gauge the business agility fluency of respondent organizations. The intent is to understand what organizations are doing, how they are performing, and overall global trends.
No matter how we slice the data (whether by region, industry, company size, or respondent), the average business agility fluency is well below the minimum “favorable” Run or Fly ratings (7+). Across all domains, the average fluency rating is between 4.1 and 5.4 (all within the Walking range).
BUSINESS AGILITY FLUENCY
4.9Average business agility fluency
71%
of companies have low business agility fluency (< 7)
Courtesy of
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It should come as no surprise that small organizations have more agility than large organizations. It plateaus at around 50 employees, with the fluency of larger organizations dropping an average of between 16% and 27%. Smaller organizations significantly outperform their larger counterparts in both “Autonomy & Delegation” and “Transparency & Sharing” (an average of 36% improvement).
Also, while large companies have other benefits, no respondent rated any large organization (above 10,000 employees) as Running or Flying (7 or above).
COMPANY SIZE CORRELATES TO BUSINESS AGILITY
5 Lowest Consensus Competencies
Agile Teams
Agile Organization
Autonomy & Delegation
Value Stream
Supporting Functions
63%
63%
64%
66%
66%
5 Highest Consensus Competencies
Customer Channels
Feedback Loops
Measure What Matters
Understand the Customer
Customer as Purpose
85%
79%
78%
76%
74%
Lowest 5 Competencies
Supporting Functions
Supply Chains & Network
Funding Models
Relentless Improvement
Market Experimentation
44%
45%
45%
45%
46%
Top 5 Competencies
Customer Channels
Pride
Understand the Customer
Agile Teams
Agile Organization
55%
54%
53%
53%
51%
BUSINESS AGILITY COMPETENCIES
Courtesy of
Why are larger companies not yet reporting as much tangible business benefit and as many positive outcomes from business agility as their smaller counterparts? We think this divergence is a function of two factors. The first is that smaller to mid-sized companies tend to be further along their business agility journeys. Although these early adopters have challenges that likely differ from those faced by larger organizations, their size means they can pivot quickly and more efficiently. Second, the journey to business agility is a multi-year undertaking, regardless of size – and benefits take longer to manifest themselves in larger businesses. We expect to see more adoption and more business value reported by larger companies in the future, which is another compelling reason to encourage participation in the Business Agility Survey going forward.
BUILDING AGILITY INTO THE ENTERPRISE:
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Courtesy of
Average Maturity0 - 50
Employees51 - 200
Employees201 - 1,000 Employees
1,001 - 10,000 Employees
10,000+ Employees
COMPANY SIZE CORRELATES TO BUSINESS AGILITY
As organizations grow, they put in place extra processes and systems to handle the growing complexity. This is especially true of organizations above 150 people (Dunbar’s Number). Without clear design, it’s easy to fall back on traditional processes which are designed to scale management rather than business agility processes which are designed to descale complexity.
INSIGHT
6.5
5.0
4.2 4.03.9
1,001 - 5,000 employees
5,001 - 10,000 employees
10,001 + employees
1 - 10 employees
11- 50 employees
51 - 200 employees
201 - 1,000 employees
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When examining the range of responses, Consulting companies have the highest median scores followed by Information Technology and Financial Services & Insurance companies. There is no meaningful variation when excluding small (<50) companies from the analysis. Also of note, only these three industries have any companies rated in the Running and Flying ranges (7+) - 41% of Consulting, 26% of IT, and 7% of Financial Services & Insurance organizations respectively.
TOP 3 INDUSTRIES & THEIR MEDIAN SCORES
BUSINESS AGILITY JOURNEY
6.1 4.35.3Information Technology
of respondents have been on the journey for less than 3 years
69%
There is no significant variation in the upwards trend when adjusting for company size or high fluency organizations.
% of Respondents
Average Maturity< 1 Year 1-2 Years 2-3 Years 3-5 Years 5-8 Years 8+ Years
11% 8% 12%17%26%27%
5.24.6
3.8
5.25.7
6.4
Consulting Financial Services & Insurance
Some domains, like “Customer as Purpose”, have almost no variation regardless of how long the organization has been on the journey. Whereas others, like “Pride” and “Collective Ownership” increase dramatically.
INSIGHT
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BUSINESS FUNCTIONS IN SCOPE
“An organization can only be as agile as its least agile division” – EVAN LEYBOURN'S THEORY OF AGILE CONSTRAINTS
By definition, every team in every division should be included in a business agility journey. Companies usually start with the easiest divisions (e.g. Technology) and expand to other business functions. There is a very clear upward trend showing that the organization increases in business agility fluency the more teams and functions are in scope for the transformation. 45% of Running or Flying (7+) organizations are transforming their entire organization, compared to only 21% of other respondents.
When examining specific divisions, while there are fewer organizations transforming support functions (Finance and HR), those that do have higher outcomes.
* These percentages will add up to more than 100% as respondents could choose more than one option.
4.94.4
3.94.5
4.9
5.86.4
5.9
Business
Business Functions in Scope
45% 55% 41% 37% 21% 22% 29% 13%
Technology
Product Mgmt
Portfolio
(PMO)
Finance HR
Sales &
Marketing
Others
Average Maturity
Average Maturity
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Number of Areas in Scope
5.24.9
5.24.9
6.0 5.7 5.7 5.8
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Despite making up nearly 20% of the respondents, no External Partner rated any organizations as Running or Flying (7+)
INSIGHT
Despite the subjective nature of the survey, respondents within the same organization give similar ratings regardless of their position; within .5 points on average. Yet, external parties (Suppliers, Partners, External Coaches, etc.) almost always rated their client organizations lower; between 1 and 1.5 points on average.
Organizations in the healthcare industry have the greatest variation amongst respondents; 4.5 points compared to an average of 2.5 points.
PERCEPTION OF BUSINESS AGILITY
External Partner
3.8Individual Contributor
4.8Manager
5.0LOB/Division
5.0C-Level
5.3
Respondents rate business agility fluency significantly higher when the Board of Directors lead the journey than those led by a Line of Business Leader (24% higher). On average, there is a .8 point improvement to fluency at each level of the organization.
WHO’S LEADING THE TRANSFORMATION
% of Respondents
21% 17% 30% 16% 15%
Average Maturity
Line of Business Leaders
Senior Executive
C-Level Board Level
Other
6.2
5.4
4.23.8
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CHALLENGES ALONG THE JOURNEYAll business agility journeys have their own challenges. We asked respondents to describe the top challenges they are facing and how they are addressing them. Several common themes emerged across all organizations: Leadership, Lack of Buy-In, and Inappropriate Organization Design are the top three.
Themes for Addressing Challenges Along the Journey
By a large margin, leadership is the biggest challenge to business agility adoption that most organizations face. With the right mindset and associated organizational support, a leader sets the tone for the entire organization. Yet, often, the inverse is also true - in the absence of a motivating leader, the organization can stagnate. Respondents to the survey raised a lack of agile mindset, unclear or changing vision, and limited practical support for the transformation as the top three challenges for (and from) leaders.
LEADERSHIP
We recently executed a qualitative research study of our own, during which we investigated the patterns and factors correlating to successful transformation programs. The study looked at 22 medium- to large-sized firms across various industries and geographies including North America and Europe, revealing several findings that corroborate those in this report:1. Leadership as well as culture and mindset are critical to a successful transformation. 2. To achieve success, an organization needs to take a systems-level view of the whole organization,
including critical support functions such as human resources and finance.
LEADERSHIP & CULTURE AS ENABLERSOur study also highlighted some specific activities related to leadership and culture that organizations can undertake to help achieve success with business agility:• Getting alignment and buy-in from executive leadership• Creating a vision to guide the transformation• Developing a clear communication plan that provides many bi-directional feedback loops within the
organization• Empowering the workforce to rapidly resolve problems at the source
CHALLENGES ALONG THE JOURNEY - LEADERSHIP & CULTURE:
Leadership
Lack of Buy-In
Inappropriate Organization Design
Skills & Capability
The Transformation
Mindset
Cultural Change
Insufficient (or Unassigned) Capacity
Existing Processes
Unsupportive Measures, Metrics, & KPI's
Funding & Procurement Processes
IT-centric Journey
Customer Alignment
4%
5%
6%7%7%
11%17%
23%
6%
5%4%
3%3%
17SPECIAL EDITION
Setting Vision and Empowering Teams
“[We have] problematic leadership from the C-Level and inconsistent direction from [our] parent company with competitive and political roadblocks often appearing.”
– BAI SURVEY RESPONDENT
One of the most important roles that a leader plays in an agile organization is to set a common vision, inspire the organization to rally around that vision, and then empower teams to achieve it. This is a challenge in many of the respondents' organizations. Leaders are not displaying trust in their teams, they're failing to set a uniform vision for all teams, and are not able to “let go” of their traditional roles.
Coach leaders in business agility and servant leadership techniques.
There is nothing easier than maintaining the status quo. Unfortunately, this means that leaders need to invest in their business agility journey - and many organizations fail to plan for this investment. Respondents have stated that running a transformation through “stretch goals”, and without executive commitment, is almost certainly doomed to fail.
Transformation Support
“[We have a] lack of executive sponsorship [to support the] adoption of business agility across the enterprise”
- BAI SURVEY RESPONDENT
As important as an agile mindset is for teams, it is doubly so for leaders. It’s all too easy to fall back to traditional management styles when work gets hard or markets go soft. Leaders, at all levels of the organization, need to back the team’s decisions, even when those decisions aren’t the same as they would make. Leaders need to provide an environment where it is safe to fail so that teams can take appropriate risks and experiment.
Mindset“[There is an] institutionalized command and control culture that, although there is an executive desire to change, makes old habits very hard to break.”
– BAI SURVEY RESPONDENT
Change the personal KPIs of each of the
executives to promote an agile mindset
(e.g. Failure KPIs).
Recommendation
Expect, and budget for, a multi-year business agility journey up-front. It will
take longer than you think.
Recommendation
Have a clear and transparent process to set and communicate the business agility vision
to the entire organization.
Recommendations
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For many organizations, it has been a long time since their technology functions were the constraining factor for business agility. That honor lies with the rest of the organization who, without their buy-in, will continue to constrain the business. Respondents identified challenges in gaining organizational buy-in, including; risk aversion from some divisions, misunderstanding about the agile mindset, misaligned organizational KPIs, and challenges in building motivation for change.
Organizational Adoption
“[The challenge is] getting to 'business' agility rather than software development agility.”– BAI SURVEY RESPONDENT
Buy-in across all levels on the organization is vital. Confusion, miscommunication, and active opposition will hamper organizations that attempt to begin a transformational journey towards business agility without the right levels of engagement. The top three areas identified from the survey include; organizational adoption, momentum, and team buy-in.
LACK OF BUY-IN
Getting started may seem complex, yet, it is the easiest part of a business agility journey. Once started, maintaining momentum across a large organization requires coordination and continued motivation. Most respondents described challenges emerging from early misunderstandings that have compounded over time with teams or divisions reverting to traditional mindsets and practices. We see this when market conditions become tough or with leaders reduce investment in the transformation after realizing the initial quick wins.
Momentum“[Our challenge is to] get people aligned and at the same point in the journey.”
– BAI SURVEY RESPONDENT
You get the behavior that you measure - change organizational KPIs (or OKRs) to promote agility.
Recommendations
If possible, get board-level buy-in for the organizational change.
Continue investment in the transformation team and associated
improvement initiatives to realize ongoing benefits after the initial “wins.”
Recommendations
Develop local business agility champions in each team. Support
them with an official community-of-practice at each business site.
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While much of the focus of business agility is on leadership and organization design, without buy-in from individual teams the transformation will achieve nothing. Respondents struggle to overcome both a resistance to change and an unwillingness to focus on the bigger picture.
Team Buy-In
“[Our challenge is to bring] the whole team along on the journey. In particular, our development teams sometimes prefer to focus on the work rather than on the bigger picture.”
– BAI SURVEY RESPONDENT
Identify and resolve pain points from individual teams to get early wins and buy-in.
Recommendations
Do not link headcount reduction goals with the business agility transformation - teams will not trust your intent and will actively oppose
the transformation.
Large organizations naturally have complex internal team dependencies which are only compounded with geographically distributed offices. Respondents are generally concerned that different areas are at different stages in their journey. And that organizational and cultural complexity makes it hard to sustain any long-term change.
Large Distributed Teams
“The size of the organization means that different areas are in different places in their journey. [Our challenge is to] get work done with a multitude of delivery approaches as boundaries are crossed.”
– BAI SURVEY RESPONDENTReduce handoffs across time zones or
geographic boundaries.
Recommendations
Introduce common ways of working and team accountabilities, especially
when the work is being done by external vendors or contractors.
Existing structures are an impediment to adopting business agility for many organizations. Silos, handoffs and an "us vs them" mentality compound to hamper each team’s ability to deliver value to their customers. Specific organization design problem areas include; large distributed teams, team & organization structure, and supporting functions.
INAPPROPRIATE ORGANIZATION DESIGN
20SPECIAL EDITION
Structure“[We have a] large, siloed organization that has a long-standing culture of risk-averse, top-down, plan-based approaches with multiple complex workstreams.”
– BAI SURVEY RESPONDENT
Where possible, reduce handoffs to the point where an entire customer value stream is contained within a single team.
Recommendation
Traditional hierarchical organizational structures are designed to optimize the allocation of work. This model struggles in a business agility context where the focus is to delegate business outcomes to empowered teams. The issues that respondents face include; aligning value streams to existing hierarchies, working across organizational boundaries with non-agile teams, and moving away from top-down planning.
Despite the inherent complexity, it is only when supporting functions adopt business agility that transformations accelerate. Respondents to the survey have identified Finance, HR, and Compliance as the three most important focus areas for their business agility transformation.
Supporting Functions
“[Our challenge] has been with our Ops and HR [teams] who struggle to see what is in it for them. They understand the process and appreciate why it's important, but just don't see how they can apply the principles to their work.”
– BAI SURVEY RESPONDENT
Identify the current organizational constraints to business agility and focus transformational efforts on
those teams.
Recommendation
REINVENTING SUPPORT FUNCTIONS, LIKE HR & BUDGETINGSpecific activities emerged that organizations can take to enhance particular support functions.
For example, to reinvent HR to contribute to business agility, companies can help employees connect to a purpose, promote more continuous learning at all levels of the workforce, and enable faster feedback loops relating to performance and achievement.
Similarly, businesses can reinvent the role of finance in planning, budgeting and funding by exploring industry innovations such as “Beyond Budgeting.” They can also modernize portfolio management capability to continuously optimize how financial resources are applied in a way that ensures alignment to the overall business strategy and capitalizes on emerging opportunities.
CHALLENGES ALONG THE JOURNEY - SUPPORT FUNCTIONS:
21SPECIAL EDITION
Respondents were asked to describe the single biggest impact that business agility has brought to their organization. The responses ranged from process improvements (e.g. speed to market and ways of working) to cultural behaviors (e.g. adaptive leadership, agile mindset, and collaboration). Yet, the largest set of responses described commercial success (both revenue and customer satisfaction) as the primary outcome.
BUSINESS AGILITY SUCCESSES
Most Significant Organizational Benefit of Business Agility
One of the primary goals of business agility is to improve market success. Not just by working more efficiently, but by developing new ways of delivering customer value and bringing the right products to market faster. Survey respondents have seen market success through improved business development, recognition by their customers, and improved product or service delivery.
MARKET SUCCESS
“[Business agility] has given us a competitive advantage and allowed us to react quickly and pivot as needed by our customers. This results in faster customer acquisition, faster time to value, and bigger market penetration.”
“Our retention of both clients and staff is much improved. Our culture is strong, vibrant, and resilient.”– BAI SURVEY RESPONDENTS
Market Success
Better Ways of Working
Collaboration & Communication
Employee Satisfaction
Adaptive Leadership
Customer Satisfaction
Agile Mindset
Speed to Market 5%
14%16%
18%
13%13%
12%9%
With business agility, organizations can outlearn and outperform their competition. Attaining or maintaining a competitive edge depends on each company’s ability to become learning organizations that improve continuously, their success fueled by passionate, empowered employees.
When a company starts to see success in building the new capabilities needed to become a learning organization, it also starts to experience dramatic and measurable improvements in its current state. Often the levers underpinning our clients’ business case include economic value, customer satisfaction and employee engagement. In other words, many of our clients who are far along their business agility journey are seeing already the successes identified in this report.
BUSINESS AGILITY SUCCESS:
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Better ways of working for teams and divisions is the most obvious benefit that business agility brings organizations. Teams, working collaboratively, focus on creating value for customers while taking accountability for business results. Respondents identified tangible improvements through the adoption of agile methods, agile outside IT, and continuous value creation.
BETTER WAYS OF WORKING
“The rest of the organization now sees the value-add of agile practices. They are starting to embrace them.” “Value delivery has improved resulting in greater customer satisfaction.”
– BAI SURVEY RESPONDENTS
Technology teams have traditionally adopted agile methods to create software products and services. Yet, most agile practices, methods, and systems are applicable to many business functions and work products. Respondents provided specific examples of using agile methods in marketing, facilities, customer care, stock trading, strategic planning, HR, and Finance as well as to develop financial and insurance products.
INSIGHT
Organizational complexity is a major impediment to business agility adoption. Each additional handoff inside the customer value stream exponentially increases the time and cost to create value. Many of the respondents have identified significant collaboration and communication improvements, with associated time and cost benefits, from their business agility journey. Alignment, cross-divisional collaboration, and interpersonal collaboration are identified as the three areas with the most significant improvement.
COLLABORATION & COMMUNICATION
“Collaboration among various groups/departments [has improved.]”
“Communication is also changing in meetings, with team's now analyzing problems and not jumping into solution mode. What is the business value and how can it be measured? [This is now a common question that we hear.]”
“The team engagement levels are through the roof, and culture is the number one thing they promote."
– BAI SURVEY RESPONDENTS
23SPECIAL EDITION
We ran a Spearman correlation to find common relationships between domains on each question against all other questions. What follows is some of the interesting outcomes with strong correlations. The questions on “Pride”, “Humble & Happy”, and “Growth Mindset” can be considered “Outcome Factors” as those can't be directly actioned upon. Hence the other questions which are highly correlated to those can be considered drivers of those outcomes. For example, “Transparency & Sharing” and “Collective Ownership” are strong drivers of “Pride” according to the survey data.
The correlation data on “Agile Teams” and “Agile Organization” is interesting. Apart from the strong correlations with agility-related factors such as “Agile Methods” and “Agile Techniques”, “Collective Ownership” is a strong driver of “Agile Teams” whereas “Relentless Improvement” is a strong driver of “Agile Organization”.
We also performed a Pearson correlation between each of the survey questions and public data on company performance; Glassdoor and Mattermark. Almost all fluency questions have weak, yet positive, correlations and will benefit from feedback collected in future versions of this report.
The Glassdoor rating of the company is a measure of how well the employees perceive the company. It’s interesting to observe that high Glassdoor ratings flow from attention to “Customer Channels” and “Feedback Loops” more than practices perceived as supporting agility such as “Agile Methods”, and “Agile Organization”.
The Mattermark Growth Score is an aggregate measure of the performance of the company. Perceptions related to “Feedback Loops” and “Agile Techniques” correlate well with business performance.
DEEP DIVE INTO THE DOMAINS OF BUSINESS AGILITY
Rele
ntle
ss Im
prov
emen
t
Agile O
rgan
izatio
n
StreamValue
Techniques
Agile Methods
Supporting
Functions
& Sharing
Tra
nsparencyCollective Ownership
Vision
DelegationAutonom
y &
Growth
Mindset
Agile
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The Business Agility Report is a vital contribution to the ongoing rapid growth of the global business agility community. We are proud to partner with the Business Agility Institute and AgilityHealth on this report and eager to release the forthcoming 2019 Business Agility Survey.
Accenture | SolutionsIQ is committed to helping in any way we can – not least by encouraging our clients to contribute to the survey on an annual basis, so we can amplify the learnings across industries and across the globe.
We hope you find this special edition of the inaugural Business Agility Report insightful and informative. Join the movement by taking the survey going forward and sharing your organization’s successes and challenges. The greater the participation, the bigger the benefits for everyone.
ABOUT ACCENTURE | SOLUTIONSIQWe are the leading business agility transformation consultancy. We guide
our clients to become adaptive, fast-learning businesses capable of rapidly delivering customer value and innovation for competitive advantage.
SolutionsIQ.com 1-800-235-4091 [email protected]
THE FUTURE OF BUSINESS IS NOW
AFTERWORD
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ADDITIONAL THANKS TO OUR MEMBERS
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INSIGHTS & NOTES
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