News

Successful enterprise transformation has long been considered the holy grail of the corporate world. Transformation is even harder than we thought, the average failure rate is very high.

Three organizations (Copperfield Advisory, Insider and Revolution Insight Group) run an analysis on 128 global companies, that had undergone transformation between 2016 and 2020. Their aim was to perform a quantitative evaluation of corporate transformation. The study also assessed financial performance based on revenue, stock price and market value. They also considered reputation as criterion for success.

This analysis found that only 28 companies of the 128 they examined successfully transformed from both a financial and reputational perspective.

Looking deeper in detail among these 28 organizations, it is possible to identify six attributes, most of which are related to employee compensation and diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I).

1. Employee Pay: higher compensations than firms of similar size

2. Employee Stock Options: employees receive more options than colleagues working in firms of similar size

3. Employee Satisfaction: higher satisfaction at work

4. Diversity and inclusivity: hiring practices with an eye toward equity

5. Women managers: more woman employed in managerial positions

6. Women employees: higher shares of women among employees

The implications of the findings are clear: companies have better chance at success if they focus on their people during transformation. To sum up, how companies engage their employees can be the difference between success and failure!

[Complete article, “The Secret Behind Successful Corporate Transformations”, available at https://hbr.org/2021/09/the-secret-behind-successful-corporate-transformations]