FAST-TRACK TO FUTURE-READY PERFORMANCE Elevate every decision with intelligent operations From insights to action, the path to extraordinary value starts here. Contents Change how work gets done 03 Choose smarter, act faster, win sooner 06 Transform business performance 08 Three ways to become future-ready 15 Outsmart, outperform, outpace 30 About the authors 32 Fast-track to future-ready performance 2 Change how work gets done The journey to operations maturity is worth taking Fast-track to future-ready performance 3 Change how work gets done For every organization, the path to operations maturity has distinct milestones. Yet, ultimately, each journey is unique. It’s a journey well worth taking. Being more operationally mature can translate into tech-savvy ways to fulfill orders, acquire customers faster or discover new streams of revenue growth. Organizations can simultaneously improve employee engagement and retention, all while heading confidently into the future. Adding intelligence to the journey—by applying a strategic approach to advancing the operating model and transforming the business through technology, processes and people—eases and speeds up an organization’s race to the top. Where are organizations on their operations maturity journey today? And how can they speed it up to realize new value for their businesses? Fast-track to future-ready performance 4 Change how work gets done Accenture’s global research reveals that many organizations are making slow, steady and incremental changes in their business operations—or more specifically, their core systems, processes or service management capabilities. But they’re often failing to change how the work gets done. And they’re not acting, or scaling, fast enough. Our research uncovers a powerful incentive to fast-track operations maturity. We show that applying tech-driven operational intelligence across the organization correlates to greater profitability. Achieving the highest level of maturity possible means some organizations become “future-ready.” These leaders benefit from greater productivity and efficiency today. They also gain the agility and resilience to keep generating greater overall business value. Fast-track to future-ready performance 5 Choose smarter, act faster, win sooner Future-ready companies are more efficient and profitable Fast-track to future-ready performance 6 Choose smarter, act faster, win sooner To understand the connection between We found that: business operations maturity and performance, in 2020, we surveyed more • Maturity progress increases efficiency and profits: Organizations than 1,100 C-suite and VP-level executives that were one maturity level higher between 2017 and 2020 were, on average, 7.6% more efficient (lower operating expenses per dollar across 11 countries and 13 industries. of revenue) and 2.3 percentage points more profitable (EBITDA as percentage of revenues).1,2 Our research combined these survey responses with externally validated financial performance data. Based on our experience, • Being future-ready has added advantages: On average, we identified four levels of operations maturity:stable, organizations we found to be future-ready showed a 2.8x boost efficient, predictive and future-ready. in corporate profitability and 1.7x higher efficiency than at lower maturity levels.3 Organizations in the stable and efficient levels that reached future- 2.8x 1.7x readiness by 2020 gained a 2.1x boost to operational efficiency and a 4.1x boost to profitability, compared to their peers that average boost in higher efficiency made more moderate maturity gains. corporate profitability levels for for future-ready future-ready organizations organizations • Operations maturity can boost global profits: Our modeling analyses indicate that if all organizations around the world moved from the stable, efficient or predictive levels to become future-ready by 2020, this would equate to US$5.4T in added global profitability. Fast-track to future-ready performance 7 Transform business performance Each of the four levels of operations maturity is underpinned by a set of technologies that drive efficiency, insights and increasing capabilities Fast-track to future-ready performance 8 Transform business performance Stable Efficient Predictive Organizations concentrate Organizations become more Organizations focus on how mostly on core process productive. They incorporate tested analytics can drive predictive improvements and on methods, such as Lean Six Sigma and insights and augment human strengthening quality and process standardization. They also ingenuity. They deploy technologies compliance controls. They have deploy robotic automation tools and and leading practices with that not yet developed the ability to gain other automation technologies. goal in mind. strategic insights from diverse data streams. But they are unable to blend data to They discover ways to make operations the point where it generates forward- more of a source of insight while thinking insights. Nor can they quickly improving efficiency and reducing create and deploy teams of people costs. They begin to use blended data with specialized expertise. from former siloes (as well as data from partners throughout their value chains) to anticipate and position for market shifts. And they start to assemble and regroup high-performance teams on demand. Fast-track to future-ready performance 9 Transform business performance Future-ready The organizations at this highest level In turn, that helps them increase Our analysis also included an assessment of the journey to intelligent operations workforce engagement, retention, of what we call transformational value, see better business outcomes than and contribution—even under stress. which characterizes the future-ready state. others, including increased efficiency and It explains how future-ready organizations profitability and improved shareholder Focused on enterprise-level gains, are primed to capture continued experiences. They are more agile their leaders use workers’ specialized performance gains across efficiency and than others. talents when they need them. They profitability, as well as deliver excellent also allocate resources to support customer and employee experiences. By breaking down siloes and using coordination and communication advanced technologies, they realize across technology investments. greater speed-to-market, product/service Future-readiness is not an end state. innovation, improved revenues and What’s transformational value? improved talent mix through automation It is part of an operations maturity and workforce capabilities. journey that is constantly evolving. Transformational value is based on It helps an organization adjust to proprietary modeling and experience-based They’re resilient because they can fluctuating conditions and make internal investigation. It combines hard measures combine and coordinate data, analytics connections to power innovation and (such as survey statistics and financial and artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities. enable performance gains.4 performance) and soft measures (such as leadership characteristics) to generate a scientific, holistic calculation of value. Fast-track to future-ready performance 10 Transform business performance Figure 1 shows the average Figure 1. profitability and efficiency Where transformational value Future-ready gains—5.8 percentage points intersects with intelligent operations Intelligent and 18.8%, respectively— Predictive Insights-driven Proftabilty ans 5.8pp* achievable as a result of moving Efficient ffcency ans up from the predictive to the Automated Stable Transformational future-ready level. Foundational value And our experience working Technology Foundational tools Robotic automation Advanced data science AI, cloud and and technologies with workflow capabilities blockchain enabled with more than 400 leading organizations across 20 Talent Human-only workforce Machines augment Machines augment Knowledge workers focusing countries and 18 industries humans for humans for on judgment-based work. select processes majority of processes Agile workforce at scale attests to productivity and efficiency gains up to 50%. Processes Non-standardized Industry- and function- Industry- and function- nd-to-end digitized and and fragmented leading practices leading practices transformed processes applied selectively applied widely Data Siloed or incomplete Aggregated at the Leveraging analytics AI at scale using diverse data up to 50% organization level to drive data insights productivity and Transactionalncremental Strategic/Transformational efficiency gains *Accenture Research and Oxford Economics Intelligent Operations Survey, 2020 Accenture experience shows that additional productivity and efficiency gains up to 50% can be seen in organizations displaying future-ready characteristics. Fast-track to future-ready performance 11 Transform business performance Our research revealed: Figure 2. Operational maturity level by industry today Organizations are currently at different levels of operations maturity in all industries. Insurance 31% 57% 10 n 100 Those in insurance and high High Tech 27 2% 9% n 100 tech generally reported higher Automotive 25 65 8% n 100 levels of maturity than others Consumer Goods & Services 27 64 8% n 100 (see Figure 2). Retail 35 5 7 n 100 All organiations 33 5 7 N 1,100 Surprisingly, only 7% Banking 35 57% 6% n 100 of respondents fall Industrial uipment 28% 0 6% n 0 into the future-ready Oil & Gas 42% 49%