In the lead up to the 5th edition of OPEX Week Europe we spoke to 200+ OPEX leaders from Europe's leading organisations.

Operational Excellence has to be bold and make brave choices. In this survey, our community of OPEX professionals share their views on how to make transformation work, what it takes to see through successful changes and how the world has moved on from last year.

We’ve compared (and contrasted) the results of this survey with some of the results from 2018. While some of the questions have remained the same, others have changed. Here are some of the key findings alongside insight and commentary from the PEX Network:

1. Almost one third of leaders state that competition is the main driver of their business transformation.

Businesses are feeling the pressure from competitors in the same space. Nobody wishes to become the next Blockbuster - though it is inevitable that disruptive forces rely on legacy businesses failing and providing a clearing for new life to flourish. Perhaps one of the big cultural changes of the 2008 crash is that there is no longer any such thing as ‘too big to fail’ - with banks in particular running scared of competition from digital insurgents that appeal directly to a younger, more mobile customer base.

2. Establishing an organizational strategy and developing an organizational change management plan are voted by leaders as the two most important stages of a business transformation.

3. 35% of organisations measure the success of their transformation via cost saving or increasing revenue.

This represents a major reversal from last year. There is likely to be a pendulum effect between the needs to run profitably and efficiently and the need to keep the customer happy. Last year, the customer was king. This year, it seems that the bottom line is in the ascendancy. 

4. 90% of leaders believe that the business functions should be more involved in the transformation process.

5. 46% of leaders agree that collaboration is the number one objective needed to better deliver their transformation.

There is a clear lesson to be learned here for any vendor in the transformation space: stop offering understanding, start offering collaborative approaches to providing solutions. For businesses embarking on transformation projects, there is a clear need to get the support of stakeholders at all levels of the organisation.

6. Full commitment to the project, proper analysis of the situation and a clear strategy are voted as the top three reasons that business transformations succeed.

To gain a more detailed insight into this report click the image below: