Barrier 4: Leading companies spring forward

1. Leverage market intelligence

To overcome the challenges hampering organizations in your industry, your employees and executives need to maintain visibility on what’s happening within your market. Especially when your company faces unique challenges of its own, anticipating and confronting future challenges following crisis circumstances demands leveraging powerful insights you can only get from market intelligence.

But in reality, many are neglecting to take advantage of key data. Our data showed: 

• 57% of companies gather ongoing data on their products and services
• 55% of companies have Voice of the Customer (VoC) processes and tools
• 58% of companies have dedicated resources for gathering business intelligence
• 57% of companies agree they’re adept at learning or innovating in the face of a threat or crisis

Furthermore, employees are highly critical of their companies' ability to leverage data, tools and processes to spring forward after a crisis. In fact, their level of agreement with the following statements consistently rates 10–18 percentage points lower than sentiments from executives:

• 57% of executives but 40% of employees believe their company is gathering suitable data analytics on their products and services, and that the company can firmly understand how those offerings are performing and used by customers.
• 41% of employees feel they have the VoC processes and tools necessary to understand customer sentiment and changing needs — compared to a greater 54% of executives.
• 58% of executives feel their company has dedicated people, processes and tools for gathering the business intelligence necessary to acutely identify threats and opportunities existing and emerging in the market — but just 39% of employees agree.
• A mere 40% of employees feel confident in their company’s ability to swiftly learn and adopt new capabilities and innovate business processes when facing a new threat or crisis — compared to 57% of executives who feel confident in these respects.

Without business intelligence or data, it’s difficult to make decisions that can positively affect business resilience and agility. To access these insights, you need strong communication links and feedback loops, as well as leaders who will work with their teams to encourage migration of these insights throughout the organization.

2. Invest in innovation

When you invest in innovation, you set the stage for your company to accelerate beyond what other organizations are capable of. Doing so requires implementing a strong organizational structure that fosters fast decision-making. Moreover, businesses that dedicate time and resources toward strategically developing new products and processes gain the ability to improve their current market position while taking major organizational strides forward.

However, our evidence shows that roughly half of today’s companies are currently investing in innovation to succeed in the market:

• 55% of companies have a unit focused on business innovation.
• A mere 57% of companies offer their workforce autonomy to act without executive leadership involvement.
• 56% of companies are organized in a way that facilitates agility and resilience — which innovation investments can help deliver.

As in the case of companies leveraging market intelligence, there’s also a rift between how employees and executives view their company’s current dedication to innovation:

• 41% of employees feel they have fewer constraints than their wider organization — while 55% of executives disagree.
• 40% of employees feel they can deliver innovation without involving executive leadership — whereas 57% of executives prefer to be involved.
• 40% of employees don’t believe their company has resilience, while 56% of executives feel their company is capable of weathering any challenges that emerge.

To enable business success, both camps should agree that the best companies don't just adapt to a crisis at hand, they take advantage of it to impact their market. Additionally, companies that are most innovative put a constant focus on decision-making — an approach that demands executives focusing on the organization’s core values, purpose and business goals. They can then empower front-line employees to decide how they will fulfill their roles in a way that executes on these principles, and in doing so improve innovation and time to market.

3. Maintain a micro- and macro-level view

Moving forward following a crisis demands that executives embody a strong and detail-level tactical understanding of their entire company’s business and operations. Our results show that while executives often have a strong macro-level perspective, they may lack that crucial micro-level view:

• 54% of executives and 61% of employees agree that executives don’t understand micro-level details of their business because they’re too focused on high-level strategy.
• 46% of executives and 39% of employees agree that executives lack a macro view due to a fixation on finer details.

Resolving this operational quandary requires your organization’s executives to balance and maintain strong micro- and macro-level strategic perspectives. This more dynamic position enables your company to chart a forward-thinking course in the face of market competition and shifting industry circumstances.

Additionally, when your executives and your employees — and by extension, your company and its partners — are tapped into how your goods and services are actually used by customers, you’ll be better equipped to make the best, most high-quality decisions possible. This necessitates revising any processes that hinder your ability to see the bigger picture and developing innovative products that align with your goals at both the micro and macro levels.

4. Intelligence and innovation propel business mobility

Springing forward in the face of business challenges and crises requires significant and consistent investments in market intelligence and innovation across cultural, technological and high-level vision lines. Once these investments are in place, apply the insights learned during this transformation across your entire business to amplify positive outcomes. In doing so, you set the stage to drive business growth — and unlock and adopt crucial business resilience and agility.