What does the relationship between OPEX teams and business units look like in your organisation? Do you manoeuvre in harmony or are you operating on two wildly different wave lengths? As more and more businesses embark on transformation initiatives in order to keep up with evolving demands of today’s markets, our research has shown that it is becoming increasingly clear that enterprise-wide collaboration is a critical ingredient for success.

In a recent interview with OPEX Week Europe advisory board member and Inmarsat’s Senior Director of Process and Change, Katie McConochie, we explore the importance of creating a collaborative relationship between OPEX and the business unit and share how you can make this a reality in your organization. Here are some of the key statistics from our recent Benchmarking Report behind the much needed collaboration between the two:

The Key Components

There is a strong agreement among OPEX leaders that when delivering a business transformation, collaborative approaches are an essential component to providing solutions that truly work. Additionally, for businesses embarking on transformation projects, there is a clear need to get the support of senior stakeholders at all levels of the organisation.

When asked to identify the key components for achieving a successful business transformation, here’s how respondents to our recent 2019 Benchmarking Report voted:

Collaboration: 45.57%

Stakeholder Support: 22.78%

Process Improvement: 13.92%

Investment or Resources: 11.39%

Agile & Technology: 6.33%

Raising the Level

90% of OPEX leaders believe that the business units should be more involved in the transformation journey:

It takes time for a transformation to spread throughout an entire organisation. The consensus among OPEX leaders regarding the need for business units to be apart of this process demonstrates just how critical enterprise-wide collaboration is for success. Increasing the involvement of the business units in this process is incredibly important for ensuring that all are aligned and are moving towards a shared vision.

Word of Mouth

When asked their opinions on the need for OPEX to work with business units, transformation leaders shared the following:

"With the wealth of data & information available from Data Analytics, it would take lesser time to analyse and reach the conclusion during the project. Without leaderships’ word & role modeling, it’s difficult to keep momentum among the employees around any topic. The same goes with Operational Excellence. Leader’s endorsements becomes the Talk of Town and creates an unseen vibe among employees around the topic that leader’s speak of”.

“Business functions need to improve their involvement as they understand the nuances of daily operations & comprehensive scenarios that may arise when certain variables are changed. It is also for them to ensure the sustainability & utility of the improved process or operation."

“The transformation is corporate-wide and it takes time to penetrate the entire organisation so basically all parts should continue to increase their involvement”.

“Business transformation is not an incremental change to an organisation, but a steep change that is disruptive in many ways. So it will need all parts of the organisation to be involved in its design, build, implementation, stabilisation and benefit realisation”.

To learn how Inmarsat is acting upon these insights, click the image below to read our exclusive content piece featuring OPEX & business Transformation Advisory board member Katie McConochie: