Reinventing the Business for Transformative Growth

Key Findings from a recent IMA India - PMI Study

Reinventing the business

• Innovation and transformation are the very life-blood of business. But for many companies, the unprecedented events of the last two years have redefined what ‘transformation’ means.
• How do CEOs view business transformation? How are companies in India looking to transform and reinvent their business models?
• To better understand these issues, IMA India and PMI partnered on an intensive, interview-based research exercise.
• We ran in-depth discussions with the leaders of 10 prominent foreign and Indian MNCs, and backed this up with our research and in-house expertise on the business-transformation process.
• The goal was to examine the internal and external changes at play, the challenges companies face – and how they have responded.
• Our recently-published report – Reinventing the Business for Transformative Growth, distils the key findings from our research.

A 20,000-foot view…

• In this era of disruption, there are no fool-proof ‘play books’ or ‘rule books’ that CEOs can consult while navigating change.
• Instead, they must rely on the practical experiences of other organisations that have successfully transformed themselves.
• Our study revealed many commonalities in terms of how leading businesses approach Business Process Transformation (BPT).
• BPT itself is an all-encompassing subject that includes:
  • A re-think of underlying processes
  • Stakeholder management and cultural change
  • Cross-functionality
  • There may be many catalysts for BPT, but the main ones include shifts in the broader economy, in the competitor or regulatory landscape and technology itself.

Some key findings

Digitalisation is key – but it is not BPT

• Nearly all the companies we spoke to have entirely/significantly reworked their businesses around a new, digital-centric future.
• BPT and digitalisation are treated as synonyms, but BPT goes much further than just digitalising existing processes.
• Digitalisation alone is no magic bullet, but something that must be inter[1]twined with a company’s processes, workflows and culture

Leadership imperatives are shifting rapidly

• External and internal change demands a new approach to leadership.
• What ‘worked’ in terms of leadership styles 5 years ago may no longer be relevant in an environment where products and solutions, customers and the workforce are constantly changing.
• Such change includes not only mindset and behaviour, but also, in some cases, leadership structures.
• Today’s CEO must embrace agility and nimbleness, but must also:
  • Not just communicate, but over-communicate
  • Over-manage, but without resorting to micro-management
  • Adopt robust performance-monitoring systems
  • Wherever possible, decentralise authority and empower people
  • Invest in upskilling and re-skilling
  • Assume greater responsibility for employees’ overall welfare