Organizational agility drives financial performance

PA Consulting launches global survey of 500 senior business leaders

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Mar 28, 2019, 08:00 ET

NEW YORK, March 28, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Organizational agility is a major factor in driving financial performance, according to new research from PA Consulting, the global innovation and transformation consultancy.

PA's research found that organizational agility is the single most important factor in responding to rapid technology, customer and societal change. The top 10 percent of businesses by financial performance are almost 30 percent more likely to display characteristics of agility. Organizational agility enables large-scale companies to thrive, delivering higher all-round performance, with positive benefits for customers, shareholders and employees.

However real and lasting organizational agility remains elusive for many. Three in five business leaders know they need to change yet are struggling to act. PA's research found that:

one in six survey respondents predict that they will fail in five years without rapid and radical change
two thirds of leaders believe their business model needs a fundamental rethink
60 percent cite complex organizational structures are slowing them down
72 percent list organizational agility as a top strategic priority
business leaders are more worried about disruption from digital natives than traditional competitors

Ken Toombs, Head of Americas at PA Consulting, says: "Businesses around the world face unprecedented disruption but also unprecedented opportunities. As radical change transforms the world we live in, organizations must evolve at pace. One in six of the companies we surveyed acknowledged that unless they evolve, they risk failure within five years. Yet we see organizational agility efforts transforming well-established financial institutions, household names, and industry stalwarts, establishing the conditions that have made them fit for the future. This research, and our experience, proves that embracing organizational agility is the most effective way to get ahead of the competition, and ensure your organization thrives, today and tomorrow."

What it takes to achieve organizational agility

PA has identified five attributes key to organizational agility and common to the high performing companies we surveyed:

Center on your customer – place your organization at the center of your customer's universe, co-creating and prioritizing based on their feedback
Speed up time to value – make decisions and mobilize quickly in response to competition, rolling out improvements faster than competitors and investing in moving from idea to launch at pace
Design for simplicity – flatten hierarchical layers to enable teams to build, test, adapt, then deploy, learn and repeat in a strategic, methodical way
Build to evolve – build modular digital systems that can flex easily to respond to changing requirements, seek out and accept changes at any point in the development cycle, and build teams that cope well with change
Liberate your people – create a dynamic work environment that encourages collaborative work practices and empowers employees at all levels.

Sam Bunting, an organizational agility expert at PA Consulting, says: "At PA we believe in the power of ingenuity to build a positive human future in a technology-driven world. As a business leader right now, we've never been afforded a better opportunity to adapt and transform – to truly understand our customers' motivations, to harness the power of technology to create ingenious products and services and to find creative and effective ways to engage and empower our people. We've seen first-hand how organizations can beat their numbers and deliver higher all-round performance as a result of taking these five perfectly achievable steps."

About PA Consulting
An innovation and transformation consultancy, we believe in the power of ingenuity to build a positive human future in a technology-driven world. As strategies, technologies and innovation collide, we create opportunity from complexity. Our diverse teams of experts combine innovative thinking and breakthrough technologies to progress further, faster. Our clients adapt and transform, and together we achieve enduring results.

We are over 2,600 specialists in consumer, defense and security, energy and utilities, financial services, government, healthcare, life sciences, manufacturing, and transport, travel and logistics. And we operate globally from offices across the Americas, Europe, the Nordics and the Gulf. PA. Bringing Ingenuity to Life. www.paconsulting.com

About the research: "The evolution of the agile organization: Old dogs. Ingenious new tricks"
PA surveyed 500 leaders from some of the largest organizations across a range of sectors, including financial services, manufacturing, FMCG/retail, life sciences, travel, energy and utilities, telecoms and logistics. For each organization, we analyzed 15 agile characteristics and found a strong positive correlation between agile characteristics and financial performance.

SOURCE PA Consulting