Operational Excellence:

Snapshots
Presentation & Analysis of
150+ professional opinions An Exclusive

Report
Createdinpartnershipwiththe
BusinessTransformation&
OperationalExcellence
WorldSummit
A Company
 Operational Excellence: Snapshots
An Exclusive BTOES Insights Report
Within a lot of organizations, Operational Excellence is stagnating. Often relegated to side-shows rather than being the
strategic weapon every CEO relishes, OpEx programs are measuring themselves in counts of training, certifications and
projects launched. This lack of substantial, sustainable continuous improvement strategy is entirely symptomatic of an
eco-system in need of development, exploration, and most importantly, answers.

In order to understand the future of Operational Excellence & Business Transformation, we need to understand the key
priorities as aligned with where progressive leaders are taking Operational Excellence. With this in mind, BTOES Insights -
in partnership with the Business Transformation & Operational Excellent World Summit recently asked 150+ industry
professionals what they considered to be pressing issues and future trends within Operational Excellence.

This report presents a series of insights gained via the survey, Pressing Issues in Operational Excellence, all released
exclusively by BTOES Insights. If you want to join the discussion, or wish to submit your own content regarding the most
Pressing Issues in Operational Excellence, reach out to charlotte.kelly@btoesinsights.com and get your voice heard.

BTOES Insights is partnered with the Business Transformation & Operational Excellence World Summit & Industry
Awards (BTOES17). An important difference to note between Insights & this event is the BTOES17 agenda is produced
over 6 months of extensive primary research with leadership-level executives e.g. CEOs, COOs, Global Heads, EVPs, SVPs of
major global corporations. This BTOES Insights survey is conducted with a broader range of job functions from manager to
executive level. To learn more about BTOES17, head over to btoes.com.

1
The answers and opinions given in the survey have been compiled here in 6 parts:
Operational Excellence: CX as a Leading Priority
Why is CX being considered the #1 priority to OpEx professionals right now? Explore their reasoning & how other key
areas compare in part 1 of our 'Snapshots' series.
Operational Excellence: The Greatest Developments, The Latest Predictions
In part 2, discover what industry professionals consider the greatest developments in OpEx last year, as well as making
predictions to the future.
Operational Excellence: Critical Challenges Facing Professionals
Part 3 of the series reveals the key challenges OpEx professionals are facing right now, across the industry.
Operational Excellence: Industry Leaders & Pressing Issues
We present the top questions our respondents want to ask Industry leaders like Google, Apple & more.
Operational Excellence: Areas of Investment
Part 5 of our series reveals the top areas of OpEx our respondents are investing in within their organizations.
Operational Excellence: Final Insights
Our final report presents a summary of pressing issues industry professionals believe crucial to Innovation, Leadership, CX
& more.

2
The Demographic
This report received respondents from
across a variety of industries, with a vast
range of job roles. Though all were
professionals, and committed to
Operational Excellence, the industry they
practise in must be taken into account
when analysing the results of this study.

Our professionals come from a broad

variety of job roles & levels of seniority.
These factors will undoubtedly have an Respondents by Job Title
impact on the results of what is considered
the top priority. A select few of the
arguments behind their choices are shown
towards the end of this report, in order to
provide some insight into the correlation of
Job Title to priority issue.

It is also important to note just how many

respondents in this survey specialise in
Healthcare, taking up 21.66% of the overall
respondents. This may help give an idea of
the reasoning behind certain responses.

Word Cloud of Respondents by Job Title

3
 Respondents by Industry Sector

Word Cloud of Respondents by Industry Sector

4
 Part 1: CX as a priority in Operational Excellence
Foreword by Balakarthik Venkataramanan

A very interesting and insightful analysis by BTOES Insights. My biggest

surprise and, to some extent, concern - was that only 38% of the
professionals who responded to this survey rated customer
experience as the no.1 priority for their organizations.
Although it was the majority, I am thinking about the remaining 62%
of respondents who did not call out customer experience as their
organizations no.1 priority. Above all, 13% of the respondents called
out customer experience as the lowest priority for their
organizations. I wonder what that means to their customers!
This analysis opens up some interesting questions for me.

Why didnt all the respondents call out customer experience as

the No.1 priority?
Does this call for a larger calibration among operational
excellence leaders?
Why would customer experience not be the no.1 priority for any
organization?

Being a customer experience enthusiast my personal perspective is,

customer experience should be the ultimate objective for any
organization, irrespective of the industry. The other areas
mentioned, i.e. operational excellence, automation, culture,
leadership, strategy execution and change management are all

experience. 5
different levers to pull in order to achieve the desired customer experience.
Best in class organizations clearly link the internal efforts across different areas to customer experience. The core
focus of any operational excellence methodology is to make the customer experience superior and eliminate all the
pain points for the customer.

A simple but powerful technique that I apply is asking my teams to articulate how the work they do impacts
customers or employees. I approve any new initiatives / projects based on the customer and employee impact. If we
are not able to describe the customer / employee impact, then we dont do those initiatives. This drives home the
message that customer experience is the no.1 priority, and over time it builds a customer centric culture where
everyone is focused on delivering whats best for the customers!
Director of Customer Care at Intuit, Bala is a strategic customer service leader with a track record of customer
experience transformations globally.

6
The Question
This question was made up of 2 parts:

- Q1: Please rank [the below] issues in order of priority to your company
- Q2: Why do you believe this is the main priority?

In Q1, the areas of Operational Excellence & Business Transformation that we offered as options to rank were as follows:

- Agility
- Customer Experience
- Culture
- Change Management
- Strategy Execution
- Business Transformation
- Operational Excellence
- Process Automation
- Leadership
- Innovation
- Digital Transformation

Responses to Q2 were left open-ended, meaning that results are less quantifiable than Q1 however, they allow us to
understand the reasoning behind the choices of our respondents.

7
 Word Cloud generated by the most common words in the answers to Q.2

It is important to remember influences that may have impacted these results with 150+ respondents, this report aims to
simply provide a snapshot of what industry professionals consider the most pressing in the industry, rather than an over-
arching study. The report also aims to offer a deeper insight into the thoughts of these professionals at every level.

8
Full Results
This question was asked to 155 respondents, all industry professionals. Below we have the full results, both averages and
by individual rankings.

Please rank these issues in order of priority to your company

Percentage of topics ranked as #1 priority

9
With 148 respondents choosing to rank any topic as a top priority, we can see that 57 respondents chose CX as their #1
choice.

Topics marked as #1 priority in actual vote number

By putting Customer Experience first, we ensure that all other things such as execution,
transformation, automation, operational excellence etc. are always maintained it is always a
combination of these aspects done well that yields good customer experience
- Respondent, Business Head

10
 Insights: Pressing Issues in Operational Excellence

Please rank these issues in order of

priority when
Whilst CX is clearly an astounding frontrunner to your company
asked to choose just 1 topic as a priority, the chart below takes into
account second preferences, third preferences and so on until all rankings have been chosen.

Customer
Experience

Agility

Culture

Change
Management

Strategy
Execution

Business
Transformation

Operational
Excellence

Process
Automation

Leadership

Innovation

Digital
Transformation

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Responses rated by weighted average of the 149-151 respondents.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7
11 8 9 10 11 N/A Total Score

Customer 37.33% 10.00% 7.33% 10.67% 5.33% 2.00% 4.67% 3.33% 2.00% 2.67% 7.33% 7.33%
Answer Options #1 #2 #3 #4 #5 #6 #7 #8 #9 #10 #11 N/A Rating Average Response Count

Customer Experience 57 15 11 16 8 3 7 5 3 4 11 11 3.71 151

Agility 3 12 18 9 13 11 18 21 11 17 8 10 6.38 151

Culture 13 21 19 17 9 10 13 12 16 4 7 10 5.20 151

Change Management 4 6 12 22 21 16 10 14 19 11 8 8 6.24 151

Strategy Execution 14 26 26 17 17 10 10 9 8 8 3 5 4.62 153

Business Transformation 13 12 7 9 14 28 13 9 21 14 4 7 6.03 151

Operational Excellence 7 22 19 14 19 22 13 13 6 8 2 5 5.12 150

Process Automation 7 6 3 5 7 8 20 19 18 24 22 13 7.68 152

Leadership 16 13 15 15 17 12 16 14 13 4 9 8 5.44 152

Innovation 9 5 15 14 13 17 15 16 15 18 6 10 6.30 153

Digital Transformation 5 9 3 9 10 7 9 11 12 28 36 15 7.88 154

All total rankings for each topic by # of respondents & average ranking (the lower the number, the higher overall priority).

12
Answer Options #1 #2 #3 #4 #5 #6 #7 #8 #9 #10 #11 N/A Score

Customer
37.91% 10.46% 7.19% 10.46% 5.23% 1.96% 4.58% 3.27% 1.96% 2.61% 7.19% 7.19% 8.32
Experience

Leadership 10.39% 8.44% 9.74% 9.74% 11.04% 8.44% 11.04% 9.09% 8.44% 2.60% 5.84% 5.19% 6.54

Strategy
9.03% 17.42% 16.77% 10.97% 10.97% 7.10% 6.45% 5.81% 5.16% 5.16% 1.94% 3.23% 7.39
Execution
Business
8.50% 7.84% 4.58% 5.88% 9.15% 18.30% 8.50% 5.88% 13.73% 9.80% 2.61% 5.23% 5.94
Transformation

Culture 8.50% 13.73% 12.42% 11.76% 5.88% 6.54% 8.50% 8.50% 10.46% 2.61% 4.58% 6.54% 6.79

Innovation 5.81% 3.23% 9.68% 9.03% 8.39% 10.97% 9.68% 10.32% 10.32% 11.61% 3.87% 7.10% 5.68

Operational
4.61% 14.47% 12.50% 9.21% 12.50% 14.47% 8.55% 8.55% 3.95% 5.26% 1.97% 3.95% 6.84
Excellence

Process
4.55% 3.90% 1.95% 3.25% 5.19% 5.19% 12.99% 12.34% 11.69% 15.58% 14.29% 9.09% 4.34
Automation
Digital
3.85% 5.77% 1.92% 6.41% 6.41% 4.49% 5.77% 7.05% 7.69% 17.95% 23.08% 9.62% 4.2
Transformation

Change
2.61% 3.92% 7.84% 14.38% 14.38% 10.46% 7.19% 9.15% 12.42% 7.19% 5.23% 5.23% 5.77
Management

Agility 1.96% 7.84% 13.07% 5.88% 8.50% 7.19% 11.76% 13.73% 7.19% 11.11% 5.23% 6.54% 5.67

All total rankings for each topic by % & total Score based on Survey Monkey weighting

13
In order of priority, what we find is that these priorities fall in the below order:

#1 Customer Experience
#2 Strategy Execution
#3 Operational Excellence
#4 Culture
#5 Leadership
#6 Business Transformation
#7 Change Management
#8 Innovation
#9 Agility
#10 Process Automation
#11 Digital Transformation
But why is Customer Experience considered to be such a priority to companies that practise OpEx? As part of a survey on
Pressing Issues in Operational Excellence, we must understand the reasoning behind these rankings. With Question 2,
Why do you believe this is the main priority?, we sought deeper insights from the respondents.

What follows is a series of quotes from C-level, VP, Director & Executive level respondents, explaining their reasoning
behind their choice as a top priority, CX or otherwise. For privacy purposes, the companies and names of the respondents
have been kept anonymous.

14
Why is Customer Experience your companys #1 Priority?

No matter how good you are, if the customers

experience (perception) is poor, they will find a Everything should contribute to Successful
place where they are happier
- Continuous Improvement Instructor involves the total business. A measure of this
A positive client experience relates to
increased revenue, a better teammate
experience and enhanced shareholder value
- Head of Wholesale Operational
Excellence
-
We are focused on ensuring a positive
customer experience. If customers are satisfied,
it means we are doing something in our
processes that keep them coming back.
Customers are the reason our company exists.
- Healthcare Administrator
Customer Outcomes. Therefore, crafting the CX
success is winning the Triple Crown
simultaneously reducing costs, improving
service & growing revenue at the same time.
- CEO
My organization exists for Customer
Satisfaction
- Director, Risk Management & Process
Engineering
It all starts with the customer. The rest is the
foundation, designed to support your ability to
adapt to customer needs as they change and
develop
- Vice President, Operational
Excellence

15
Strategy Execution
Strategy is focusing on increasing
customer satisfaction, innovation,
stability & agility.
- Master Black Belt
Everyone gets strategy, can maybe Strategic execution is the umbrella for all
envision, talk a good talk, but ultimately other priorities. Without execution,
don't know how to engage or role model strategy means very little.
the change they call for.
- Senior Consultant - VP, Quality-based Programs

Operational Excellence
Operational Excellence is required to
optimize all KPIs across all the function begins, its the goal we strive for
to remain cost competitive.
- Senior Manager, Six Sigma
Culture
Culture is vital for process excellence
initiatives to work.
Operational Excellence is where this all Operating profits are getting marginalized
in the Oil & Gas business. The OpEx can lead
to an agile, profitable and efficient
- VP, Quality Improvement organization.
- Leadership Development
Our culture drives the organization, the
Because Culture eats strategy for lunch!
experience our customers receive and allows
team members to make sound decisions in

- Black Belt - Lean Consultant line with the company's goals.

Leadership
Leadership & people determine the
success of an organization.
- Head of Improvement
Businesses are struggling today to stay
ahead of their changing environments
because leadership doesnt know what
to do or how to do it.
- VP
- COO
The behavior, knowledge and vision of the
top- leadership is the driving factor for
change, O.E., innovation to improve the CX.
Otherwise, other elements stay at the tool
level, maturity can't grow.
- Master Black Belt

16
Conclusion

It important to understand that, whilst Customer Experience has been ranked by far as the number 1 priority, these areas
of Operational Excellence are not mutually exclusive. Customer Experience requires well-executed Strategy, Operational
Excellence means being Agile, and Leadership breeds culture. These issues overlap and impact each other throughout the
end-to-end process of the continuous improvement of a business. Another key point to remember when reviewing these
results is the demographic of respondents certain areas may simply not be necessary to maximise ROI in certain
industries, but an absolute priority in others. That is to say, the snap shot findings of this report should not cause every
OpEx professional to drop everything and focus on nothing but relationship-building.

However, what these results and opinions do suggest is that the industry is transforming. The future of Operational
Excellence & Business Transformation is looking to transform the entire process, moving away from what could be
considered expert opinions and top-down transformation to get back to the customer. The forms of outreach necessary
to provide a top quality Customer Experience are changing, and customer feedback is now easier than ever as businesses
adapt to Digital Transformation. The industry is undergoing a vast period of change & modernisation, and the innovation
that comes with this will transform the entire status quo of Operational Excellence, from end to end.

17
 Part 2: The Greatest Developments, The Latest Predictions
Foreword by Dan Markovitz

There are four purposes of improvement: easier, better, faster

and cheaper. These four goals appear in the order of priority.
Shigeo Shingo, forefather of Lean

First we build people. Then we build cars.

Fujio Cho, former CEO, Toyota

Most organizations that pursue continuous improvement (by

whatever name) often use cost reduction as the raison detre of the
effort. By contrast, Shigeo Shingo, one of the fathers of the Toyota
Production System, emphasized the primacy of the worker in
continuous improvement. Removing cost (and making things faster
and better) is important, but the main goal is to make the work for
the employee easier.

Somehow, that message got lost in the journey of lean thinking to

the United States and Europe. For years, the operational excellence
community has been focused on using tools to take cost out of
products and services. Weve provided organizations with a
librarys worth of techniques to deconstruct and rebuild their
myriad processes. And those organizations have succeeded, to a
point, making remarkable gains in productivity and quality. But in
18
the mean, and in short order, any trace of continuous improvement
general, theyre unable to sustain those gains. They regress to the mean, and in short order, any trace of continuous
improvement evaporates like the morning dew.

Shingos great insight is that continuous improvement must focus on the people in the companynot on the product
the company produces. Toyota has gone even further in its development of lean thinking, making respect for people
one of the two pillars in the Toyota Wayand by respect, the company means not just treating employees well, but
embracing and honoring their capability to learn and grow. (Toyota actually takes a broader view of people, placing all
stakeholders in that category, but the principle is the same: people come first.) Of course, the motivation for respect
isnt that were supposed to be nice or to make it onto a Best Places To Work list. Rather, Toyota realizes that
placing people at the center of continuous improvementindeed, making continuous improvement of its people the
primary focus of the Toyota Production Systemis the only way to ensure that improvements sustain, and compound,
over time.

The operational excellence community has finally come around to seeing the wisdom in Shingos words and Toyotas
philosophy by embracing the centrality of respect for people. The community now realizes that total focus on the use
of a canonical set of tools (5S, value stream mapping, heijunka boards, six sigma analysis, etc.) is myopic at best, and
counterproductive at worst. And thus OpEx leaders will be assigning more importance to interpersonal skills,
operating culture, andshockingly!the customer, and paying (a little) less attention to simply driving out waste and
reducing costs.

This is not an easy shift to make. Tools are easy to teach, and the quick wins companies realize by using these tools
are the corporate equivalent of a sugar high. Its hard to quit. But for long-term success, employees must come ahead
of the income statement. So call your OpEx program whatever you likelean, six sigma, lean six sigma, agile
management, or process reengineeringbut dont leave people out of the equation.
Daniel Markovitz is the Founder & President of Markovitz Consulting. He is also the author of two Shingo Research
Award-winning books, Building the Fit Organization and A Factory of One.

19
The Question
As with Part 1 (link) in this series of Operational Excellence snapshots, this question was comprised of 2 parts:

Q1: What have been the biggest developments in Operational Excellence in the last 12 months?
Q2: How you do see Operational Excellence developing over the next 5-10 years?

The answers were left open, so as to encourage respondents to provide as much detail as they wished, and to ensure
responses were valid and accurate. However, this does mean responses were harder to quantify. What we have taken
care to do is carefully assess these responses by a number of factors, such as key phrases noted across the data,
commonly repeated responses when asked about the future, and recurring key areas in which developments are
perceived to have occurred.

We also felt it necessary to provide a deeper insight into these results using actual quotes & insights from respondents.
Whilst the industry or job title may be revealed to provide context, the names & details of all respondents will remain
anonymous.

It is important to remember influences that may have impacted these results with 150+ respondents, this report aims to
simply provide a snapshot of what industry professionals consider the most pressing in the industry, rather than an over-
arching study. The report also aims to offer a deeper insight into the thoughts of these professionals at every level. This
can also be seen by the demographics of respondents.

20
Q1: What have been the biggest developments in Operational Excellence in the last
12 months?
#1 Key Development: Recognition
19.53% of responses allude to the growing recognition and widespread implementation - of Lean Six Sigma, BPM and
more across industries as the biggest development in Operational Excellence in the past year. Operational Excellence has
expanded so far beyond the original boundaries to now be understood across a wide range of industries, and applied at
the executive level.

Growing awareness of the The inclusion of job-specific

Structural Approach and long
benefits of having a program of roles that are targeting
term vision on how to change.
Operational Excellence Operational Excellence
- Global Head of - Continuous Improvement
- Founder/Owner
Continuous Improvement Instructor

Organizational Changes not

Broader understanding across
necessarily positive. Corporate Transferring OpEx
the enterprise as to what OE
recognition that there is a philosophies into various
brings to Ops Senior
developable skill in leading industries & services. Going
management buying in and
change. beyond manufacturing &
spreading its reach across the
- Head of Business traditional OpEx models.
organization
Excellence - CI Manager
- Vice President
-

21
Further responses varied widely; 10.16% of respondents discussed the introduction of end-to-end process management,
3.3% believed there had been no development at all. 7.8% noted the largest development within their own organization
to be the growth of a positive business culture geared towards long-term Operational Excellence goals.

Word Cloud of the most commonly used terms in Q1

22
 The sharing of experiences &
Measurements of End-to-End new trends through the social
Building a growth culture
Processes whilst developing networks has been the biggest
starting with leadership
new systems generic development in OpEx.
- Senior Director
- COO - Business Excellence Lecturer

Integration of Digital
Transformation & how to Implementation of Lean
Massively re-engineering the
position/leverage within specific concepts as a way of working in
way we innovate
organizations our day-to-day activities
- Change Leader
- Vice President - Quality Manager

Skill sets (i.e. belt levels) continue

Major initiatives regarding to get proliferated but the how Organization has experienced
integrating academic programs to know how still wanes assured ROI. Productivity has
and similar initiatives to unify Industry SME is default on know- increased to a satisfactory level.
& reduce the cost of how. Companies experience The Organizations culture is
administrative support CI/OpEx programs fade or are no moving towards Quality
- Training & Comms longer vibrant prompting a need culture
Administrator for rejuvenation. - Senior Executive, QA
- Senior Consultant

23
Q2: How you do see Operational Excellence developing over the next 5-10 years?
A Focus on Customer Experience

By number of mentions per topic, the results came through as seen below. As with part 1 of this series, Customer
Experience was most heavily mentions regarding development for the future of Operational Excellence. Innovation
received the least mentions, only being mentioned in 2.34% of responses.

#1 Customer Experience
#2 Strategy Execution I think Lean Six Sigma will become less
#3 Automation of a focus, the methodology encourages
#4 Culture sub-optimization & does not truly focus
#5 Leadership on the customer. Customer Expectation
#6 Agility Management will become the method
#7 Digital Transformation successful organizations embrace for
#8 Change Management Process Improvement
#9 Innovation - Program Leader

24
Operational Excellence will continue to
move to the technical, systems world as
more and more processes are automated
and converted to self-service for our
customers; e.g., apps, etc.
- COO
Continued focus on improvement to the
infrastructure, more automation in
process and controls, maturity in
connectivity between client experience
(feedback), client complaints, performance
measurement and process improvements.
- Head, Operational Excellence Word Cloud of most commonly used words in answers to Q2
As a discipline Operational Excellence
Broad-based program encompassing
will continue to play an enabling role in It will become driven more to the people
strategic development; process
technology implementation and resource issues as technology continues to
management; performance
integration. On a personal level, take over those roles that are more
management; change management;
Operational Excellence skills need to focused on handling mundane tasks.
portfolio management; and, project
become part of a core skillset and personal - Continuous Improvement Instructor
management
practice for all successful managers.
- Founder & President
- Training & Comms Administrator
Unfortunately too many leaders see I see culture and leadership's
Continual refinement but also continued
OpEx as past its prime and consultants importance to talent management and
dilution with fads that deter from the
are pushing gimmicks like "Agile is step retention to be critical to operational
overall goals.
beyond lean" excellence and sustainability
- Vice President
- President - Senior Vice President

25
Conclusion

This snapshot has, once again, highlighted the clear value that is being placed on Customer Experience as a priority for the
future of Operational Excellence. What is interesting is that a large number of respondents who discussed Customer
Experience also discussed the dilution or decline of Lean Six Sigma, Kaizen Planning and other methodologies. The
perception of an Operational Excellence focused on Customer Experience being mutually exclusive of these processes may
be reflective of the overarching opinion seen in Q1. The argument follows that Operational Excellence has now expanded
so far outside the original boundaries, the focus must change to match new paradigms, and as a result can no longer be so
easily quantified.

The interest in culture shown in both questions also allows us to understand that professionals are looking for deeper,
sustainable change. The desire to embed the culture of Operational Excellence in the day-to-day of an organization
shows a commitment to achieving system-wide continuous improvement. In short, leaders are no longer just expected to
tick the box of Operational Excellence; they need to execute it.

26
 Part 3: Critical Challenges Facing Professionals
The Question
The answers were given in list format, with the question:

Q: What are the 3 most critical challenges affecting your job role right now?

The answers were left open, so as to encourage respondents to provide as little or as much detail as they wished, and to
ensure responses were valid and accurate. However, this does mean responses were harder to quantify, and it should be
noted that not all respondents gave all 3 answers. What we have taken care to do is carefully assess these responses by a
number of factors, such as key phrases noted across the data, commonly repeated responses when asked about the
future, and recurring key challenges based on job title.

We also felt it necessary to provide a deeper insight into these results using actual quotes & insights from respondents.
Whilst the industry or job title may be revealed to provide context, the names & details of all respondents will remain
anonymous.

It is important to remember influences that may have impacted these results with 150+ respondents, this report aims to
simply provide a snapshot of what industry professionals consider the most pressing in the industry, rather than an over-
arching study. The report also aims to offer a deeper insight into the thoughts of these professionals at every level, as
seen by our respondent demographic.

27
Q: What are the 3 most critical challenges affecting your job role right now?

Though the questions were open, and thus complex to quantify, there were 5 key challenges that were continuously
mentioned from professionals across the industry:

#1: Changes in Culture

13.95%

#2: Lack of/need for Resources

13.18%

#3: Leadership understanding/ investment

11.63%

#4: Management of Change

10.08%

#5: Keeping up with technology

8.53%
Word Cloud of the most common keywords used in
these answers

28
Sample Respondent Answers
1. Leadership & Culture. 1. The Culture Change
2. Leadership & Culture. 2. Skill set
3. Leadership & Culture. 3. Not Enough Resources
Head of Business Excellence Quality Assurance Manager

1. CEOs, COOs and SVPs of Operations who say

they want to commit to the journey and then
change their minds and abandon their active
support.
2. New leaders who come into a company and
don't embrace existing successful initiatives
and think they have to start over or, often,
completely change the priority set. 3
3. Leaders who delegate operational excellence
to the level where the authority of the senior
leadership is no longer obvious and with no
follow up to ensure a positive outcome.
President & CEO
1. Leadership's inability to think strategically
both short and long term.
2. The absence of a vision.
3. The desire of ownership to want to make the
organization look, act and feel like it did in
1982 (when the company was successful)
Senior Manager, Organizational
Effectiveness.

1. Resources/budget 1. Culture Change

2. Leadership understanding & expectations 2. Skills/Experience
3. Culture 3. Priorities
Director, Business Improvement & Senior Director, Business Excellence and
Quality Customer Insights
29
1. Change of Leadership mindset to give
value to OE.
2. Resource allocation for continuous
improvement activities.
3. Developing talent for OE.
Continuous Improvement Engineer &
Lead
1. Companies understanding the ROI of
Operational Excellence investment.
2. Impatience to see results NOW.
3. Teaching leadership how to lead change.
Vice President

1. Proper resource allocation

2. Quality perspective 1. Operational Excellence no longer exists
3. Support from top management, 2. Ability to improve culture between business
inefficient training and IT
Senior Executive, Quality Assurance 3. Implementing methods that truly get to a
customer centric organization
Program Lead
1. Execution by other teams on their
deliverables
2. SME finite resources
3. Lack of proactive approach only react to
mandates and constant oversight
Practice Director

30
 1. Resources to support improvement 1. Numerous stakeholders
1. Time
efforts 2. Alignment of objectives and resource
2. Resources
2. Time allocation
3. Like minds!
3. Innovation 3. Employee development
CEO & Founder
VP of Operational Effectiveness Six Sigma Measurement Coordinator
1. Assimilating and balancing externally
1. Execution by other teams on their
imposed initiatives and
deliverables 1. To maintain operational excellence
transformations.
2. SME finite resources 2. To comply with quality Standards
2. Assuring alignment Board, partners,
3. Lack of proactive approach only 3. To focus on Continuous improvement
leaders.
react to mandates and constant using tools e.g. Lean,
3. Organizational and staff development
oversight Manager Production
needs and resources.
Practice Director
Chief Executive Officer
1. Perception of 'not enough time' due
1. Small team 1. Strategy to adapt to Innovative
to a lot of work with internal clients
2. Convincing the organization of the technologies.
2. Middle management not 'exhibiting'
importance of a formal process 2. Changes in technology are faster than
the correct 'OE' behaviors
management program market or regulators can adapt
3. No cross the board focus on metrics,
3. Budget 3. Political uncertainty
Strategy and Development
only through the lean group
Process Improvement Lead
Lean Expert & Consultant

1. Staying relevant 1. Managing change 1. Lack of support by CEO,

2. Keeping up with technology 2. Getting senior management on board 2. Economic downturn
3. Understanding business trends 3. CEO support 3. Software development
President Director of Operations Business process manager

31
Conclusion
Despite part 2 of this series highlighting that many professionals consider the growing recognition of Operational
Excellence to be one of the biggest developments, these snapshots have shown that there is still a way to go regarding
leadership-level buy-in of Operational Excellence.

However, a key similarity to be found is the importance placed on Culture change. This desire for substantial change,
affecting the day-to-day habits of an organization is potentially what prompted the outpouring of concern regarding
executive or leadership-level understanding of OpEx as a priority. As Operational Excellence transforms, its clear that
many professionals are seeking to push further to ensure their business is embedding the practice. Professionals want to
get ahead of their industry in an extremely fast-paced environment unfortunately, this is not possible without a change
in culture or support from the top.

32
 Part 4: Industry Leaders & Pressing Issues

The Question
As with Part 1 in this series of Operational Excellence snapshots, this question was comprised of 2 parts:

Q1: Who are your top 3 industry thought leaders? These are the individuals and/or companies doing something
innovative or revolutionary that you want to hear from.

Q2: If you could ask your first choice any 3 questions, what would they be?

These responses will be presented based on recurring themes, names of leaders & the industry sector these leaders have
come from. We will present both the #1 leader from the selection of first choices, and the leader that came out most
often overall in the choices of 3. Regarding the questions, we will seek to present commonly recurring questions &
themes.

We also felt it necessary to provide a deeper insight into these results using actual quotes & insights from respondents.
Whilst the industry or job title may be revealed to provide context, the names & details of all respondents will remain
anonymous.

It is important to remember influences that may have impacted these results with 150+ respondents, this report aims to
simply provide a snapshot of what industry professionals consider the most pressing in the industry, rather than an over-
arching study. The report also aims to offer a deeper insight into the thoughts of these professionals at every level. This
can also be seen by the demographics of respondents.

33
Q1: Who are your top 3 industry thought leaders? These are the individuals and/or
companies doing something innovative or revolutionary that you want to hear from.
The majority of respondents chose to name a company rather than a specific individual as a result of this there were not
enough respondents to quantify the individual leaders, meaning only industry-leading organizations will be presented
here. Individual leaders that are part of an organization have been included as part of the organizations ranking.

Based on first choice industry leaders, the top 3 companies shown were as follows:

#1: Amazon & Google (tied)

#2: Toyota
#3: Apple
Based on overall responses, the top 3 were:

#1: Google
#2: Amazon
#3: Apple
These organizations are widely regarded as leaders in their fields,
particularly regarding Operational Excellence & Innovation. Other
leaders mentioned included Microsoft, Thedacare, GE, Spotify & more.

34
Q2: If you could ask your first choice any 3 questions, what would they be?
As highlighted throughout our Snapshots series, the issue of implementing and managing culture within the business
came out as the top question to ask. Other key recurring themes were ones of developing innovation, Leadership &
Customer Experience. Questions of measuring these factors as well as measuring Operational Excellence also appeared
throughout.

Word Cloud of most common phrases

Following is a wide selection of questions given as responses to ask industry leaders, particularly those that were one of a
selection of similarly-worded questions.

35
Questions: Culture

How do you How long does it

How can we develop a How to inculcate
change a culture to take for a culture to
Toyota-like culture? excellence in culture
accept LEAN? change for good
How do you How did you
How are you able to
change the recognize the first
How do you create work around a
traces of impact to
culture culture at the dysfunctional
your organizational
culture?
culture?
top?
What are the top 3 How do you make How do you deal with
mistakes youve How do you see data operational Culture development &
made with Culture & Culture excellence part of the Change
Change? complimenting each culture? Management?
other?

36
Questions: Innovation
What resources
(human &
What are the most How can universities How can you
effective methods of best support the need
otherwise) are
measuring Innovation for interdisciplinary motivate
critical for
innovators?
Excellence? innovation? Innovation?

Are you
Whats the most innovating in How do you balance How do you balance
important aspect Innovation with doing Operational
of developing technics of things well for the Excellence with the
Innovation? efficiency in the customer? need to innovate?
production area?

How can you Where do you focus your How can you
measure time to maximize measure
innovation? innovation?
innovation?

37
Questions: Leadership

What kind of a leader Why is there How can we get leaders

does it take to bring Whats the best roadmap to think in terms of
not one OE
about a broad-based for engaging local developing excellence
change in an leader, as CEO or leadership in OpEx/Lean? through systems
organization VP thinking?

What practices have

How does Has Harvard been
How do you select, Operational successful at making
you adopted to achieve
hire & retain (or Operational Excellence
excellence & what
develop) your
Excellence resonate an integral part of the
major challenges have at different
organizations leaders? Leaderships &
you faced?
leadership levels? Organizations DNA?

Who are your top How do leaders get What messages need to
How can I be a good
three thought leaders in transformed when come from company
leader?
Business Operational Excellence leadership to improve
Transformation? comes in business? uptake for OpEx?

38
Questions: Customer Experience

What steps are you

What will the How do you utilize Customer
How do you
Customer look successfully engage
taking to make your Expectation Management
external
organization truly like in the principles when implementing
customers
Customer-centric? new technology?
future? in the change?

If you have transitioned from How

What brand attributes
How to deal Lead Six Sigma methodology is Customer
with customers to Customer
optimize your Customer
that demand control Expectation Management
Experience
Experience?
they do not support method what results have you being
realized? measured?
How do you involve
Customers in your
process
improvement
efforts?

39
Conclusion

Culture Change and CX have once more proven themselves to be striking issues in Operational Excellence, alongside
Innovation & Leadership. Strong innovation or leadership is apparently elusive to many organizations, and Apple & Google
in particular are striking examples of excellence in these areas.

Ultimately, to move forward in Operational Excellence and continue transforming, it is important to understand the
questions everybody would ask if they could. The industry looks up to companies like Google & Amazon because they are
ahead of the curve they have already seen the future of Operational Excellence, and are already adjusting accordingly.
The race to keep up with leaders like this continues across many industries, but hopefully understanding the common
themes in these questions can help us to find the answer.

40
 Part 5: Areas of Investment

The Question
We asked our respondents:

Q1: What are the 3 areas your organization is prioritizing for Operational Excellence investment?

The intention behind this question was to understand what initiatives are already in process across the industry, and to
gage the level of recognition professionals and businesses alike are investing in issues they may already consider to be top
priorities. As seen in our previous reports in this series, CX & Cultural transformation are ranked as the absolute priorities
in Operational Excellence what this report intends to show is whether or not these priorities are being pragmatically
treated as such. Are these areas considered to be priorities because they are being overlooked, or is initiative already
being taken? What priorities are taking up the most time?

It is important to remember influences that may have impacted these results with 150+ respondents, this report aims to
simply provide a snapshot of what industry professionals consider the most important areas of investment in the
industry, rather than an over-arching study. The report also aims to offer a deeper insight into the thoughts of these
professionals at every level. This can also be seen by the demographics of respondents.

41
The Results
Whilst we did see a typically substantial inclusion of Customer Experience in the responses we received, mentions of
Technology, Automation etc. were notably more prominent. Below we have a list of the most commonly used keywords &
phrases seen in our responses. Please note, this includes all keywords- keywords like Improvement & Business are not
necessarily in relation to specific topic areas.

Recurring keywords & phrases by # of mentions

From this, if we look at actual keywords relevant to Operational Excellence areas, we have Customer Experience, Digital
Transformation/Technology & Automation as key topic areas.

42
However, these results are in part to do with the nature of wording for example, a closer look at the results shows us
that Cultural Transformation & introduction of an OpEx culture was referenced in 7.75% of responses as well, putting it as
the second most commonly mentioned phrase. However, because this theme can be described in a variety of ways, the
term itself did not show in our commonly used keywords.

To delve further into these responses, we will present a selection of responses that reflected common opinions. We have
included the industry sector of respondents, to give a greater insight into their reasoning.

1. Educating the next generation to be more practical in their managerial approach

2. Productivity to a critical measure of success
3. OpEx initiatives being realized to result in a Continuous Improvement Culture across
business organizations

Management, Engineering & Business Excellence

Professional

1. Operational efficiency 1. People development

2. Training 2. Innovation
3. Culture 3. Extend across the businesses
Banking Professional Lean Management Professional

43
\ 1. Customer Service
2. Product Development
3. Support Process
Consulting
1. Recruiting Talent
2. Retaining Talent
3. If that fails, Artificial Intelligence!
Entertainment
1. Maintenance of machines &
automation to improve OEE
Word Cloud, Areas of investment
2. To maintain & improve quality
standards
3. To become a premium health care
1. Keep investing in continuous improvement company
2. Keep track of the balance between your own Pharmaceuticals
know-how and the developments in your 1. Integrating academic programs.
specialism 2. Reducing the cost of administrative
3. Keep track of right KPI's/balanced scorecard support.
Logistics 3. Improving student ("customer")
experience.
Education

44
1. Talent development
1. Digital 1. Strategy
2. Market identity
2. Digital 2. Quantity of customers
3. New technology and
3. Digital 3. Tools and technology
breakthrough thinking
Life Sciences Healthcare
Consulting / Industrial
1. Technology to support more
1. Coordinating the 1. Customer Satisfaction (not
effective process management
operations of the newly quite understanding
2. Robotics automation in process
combined entity Customer Experience yet)
execution
2. Coordinating 2. Skill development for
3. Leaning out the organization
international operations Managers
and processes in a global
3. Formalizing OE 3. Improving operations and
initiative driven by outside
endeavors reducing costs
experts
Formerly Insurance Consulting
Financial Services

1. Culture change 1. Production of oil and gas 1. Cost reduction

2. Training 2. Product quality 2. Waste elimination
3. Problem solving 3. Reliability 3. Improved customer service
Consulting Oil & Gas Health Care

45
1. Systems 1. Software 1. Productivity
2. Automation 2. Training 2. Lean
3. Culture 3. Process architecture 3. Right First Time
Pharmaceuticals Cross-Industry Pharmaceutical

1. Attention to the Needs of the Customer

2. Getting more scientific about the Customer Experience
3. Making everybody accountable for Customer Success

Training & Coaching

1. Documenting business
processes 1. Customer experience 1. Employee Engagement
2. Driving up adoption of improvement 2. Idea generation
those processes 2. Service differentiation 3. Technology-based
3. Automating those 3. Operational scale with problem identification &
processes that can be consistency trending
automated Consumer Goods Executive Search
Technology

46
Conclusion

Across the industry, organizations seem to be focused (for the most part) on 3 key areas: Digitalization/Technology,
Customer satisfaction & experience, and the management/change of culture within their business to embrace and buy in
to OpEx.

This coincides with part 1 of our Snapshots Series, in which Customer Experience & Culture were ranked highly; however,
the investment in technology & digital transformation seems considerably more prominent that its perception as a
priority. Its possible this is due to lack of understanding of the term, or simply that the implementation of new
technologies & digital strategies are pragmatically more of a process to resolve than something like an entire company
culture. Regardless of the reasoning, it can be understood that digital transformation is certainly getting its share of focus
& investment across the board.

47
 Part 6: Final Insights
Foreword by Dr. Mathias Kirchmer
It is great to see that Customer Experience and Strategy Execution have been identified as the top two priorities for
business transformation and operational excellence. At the end of the day, we live for our clients. Therefore, everything
should be about making their experience as positive as possible. A business strategy and its execution need to create and
organization that meets and exceeds customer expectations to enable the short and long-term success. Other areas, like
leadership, culture, agility or innovation support those top priorities.
Everybody talks about superior customer experience or powerful business strategies. But few people know how to
make it happen. The questions shown in Final Insights are very typical for many organizations. Most of those
organizations are able to develop ambitious strategies and related goals. But few of them deliver on those goals. In a
recent analyst study I read that only 13% of organizations meet their yearly strategic goals. The other 87% are busy in the
last quarter of a fiscal year to come up with explanations why they did not deliver on their plans. This will become even
worse with the all present digitalization. Companies try to benefit from the opportunities of our digital world but they are
not prepared to realize the full business potential of available digital technologies.
This is an opportunity for the next generation of business process management (BPM). BPM becomes the discipline of
strategy execution. A process-led execution approach is by definition enterprise wide and customer-focused. Hence, it is
perfectly suited for driving a successful strategy execution. It helps answering the questions about HOW to get things
done. The BPM-Discipline defines the right focus to make a strategy happen, identifies the appropriate improvement
approaches and ensures sustainable progress. It enables a value-driven digitalization that is part of the larger strategy-
execution initiative.
The new BPM-Discipline drives strategy execution in a digital world. It holds the ability to answer the questions
summarized in this Final Insights report and more.

Dr. Mathias Kirchmer is a thought leader in process management with deep practical and academic
experience. Recently he co-founded BPM-D, recognized by CIO Review as one of the 20 emerging enterprise
architecture solution providers to watch and by InsightsSuccess as one of the 50 most valuable tech start-ups.

48
Keeping your organization ahead of the curve now requires an understanding and ability to
adapt in the face of the future of operational excellence. In the final part of our Snapshots
series, BTOES Insights - in partnership with the Business Transformation & Operational
Excellence World Summit recently asked 150+ industry professionals to give us any final
thoughts on 11 key areas of Operational Excellence. These areas, in order of importance
were:

#1 Customer Experience
#2 Strategy Execution
#3 Operational Excellence
#4 Culture
#5 Leadership
#6 Business Transformation
#7 Change Management
#8 Innovation
#9 Agility
#10 Process Automation
#11 Digital Transformation

49
The final part of this report series simply provides some final thoughts on these areas.
We asked our respondents:

Which aspect of these key topics do you urgently want to see more content focused
on in your industry? If you have time, please give your reasoning.

It is important to remember influences that may have impacted these results with 150+ respondents, this report aims to
simply provide a snapshot of what industry professionals consider the most pressing in the industry, rather than an over-
arching study.

This report is the final part of a series of insights gained over the course of this survey, all released exclusively by BTOES
Insights. If you want to join the discussion, or wish to submit your own content on the most Pressing Issues in Operational
Excellence, reach out to charlotte.kelly@btoesinsights.com and get your voice heard.

BTOES Insights is partnered with the Business Transformation & Operational Excellence World Summit & Industry
Awards (BTOES17). An important difference to note is the BTOES17 agenda is produced over 6 months of extensive
primary research with leadership-level executives e.g. CEOs, COOs, Global Heads, EVPs, SVPs of major global corporations.
This BTOES Insights survey is conducted with a broader range of job functions from manager to executive level. To learn
more about BTOES17, visit btoes.com.

50
Customer Experience/CX
Measures of customer
satisfaction that are
accurate and whose data is
easy to collect.
VP, OpEx
State of the art techniques A superior CE gains tons of
to achieve and monitor favorable press (blogs, IM,
this. word of mouth).
Consultant Owner
There are really a good lot
of variations in the conduct
of dealing with customers
or clients. One has to have
a good grasp of
understanding of the
customer or client prior to
an actual engagement
with them; this would
provide a good level of
intelligent discussion for
one.
President
Realigning a company
How is Customer
around customers is a Need to clearly understand Voice
Segmentation being
major issue. OutsideIn of the Customer, in order to align
performed to finely tune the
thinking, Customer Journey activities to meet their need.
Customer Experience?
Mapping are great tools. CI Engineer, Lead
President But they need to be used
properly.
CEO
Clinical outcome as part of the
The most important! customer requirements.
CEO MBB Lean Six Sigma
COO
I have watched a local
hospital, one where I spent 10 Not much, since customer
years implementing a Healthcare patients are experience is heavily based on
performance excellence often considered the external factors like: 1.
program, lose its status in primary customer. Front- Geography (in a global context)
every state and national line staff and Physicians are 2. Local culture 3. The Political
category. It's made me realize also customers whose context (if in Asia) 4. Type of
the importance of customer satisfaction is necessary to Business 5. And the existing
experience, and not financial well delivered healthcare. relationship between customer
tombstone measures, as the Project Manager and service provider.
start of any strategy planning. University Lecturer
President
51
Agility
Agile is talked a lot without All processes, including administrative
processes, require cycle time reduction
explanations so more detail would What is the best way to overcome
efforts. We have plants now making
be very helpful change?
products faster than the order can be
Lean & Six Sigma Course processed or shipped. VP
Lecturer Founder & President

How have firms demonstrated this

How do you get alignment throughout the successfully in a volatile
Organizational Agility - what is it,
company to be agile? marketplace?
how do you identify it, incentivize it?
Head of Wholesale Operational Chief Operations Strategy
Head of Business Excellence
Excellence Officer

How is Lean Development and other

Also, key due to low attention span Agile Methods being leveraged in Again, Creativity before capital -
and urgency. application design and execution of which brings agility
CEO & Founder projects Strategy Operations Consultant
President

Flexibility in manifesting change avoids

I have no idea about Agility---
tedious processes that take longer to Best practices for the
Perhaps, what is its applicability to
achieve results from linear approaches. implementation of this.
our processes?
Project Manager Consultant-Owner
CI Engineer - Lead

52
Culture
Focus of the process of how to get all How do you build and sustain a As previously mentioned,
employees physically and mentally servant leadership culture throughout
engaged in continuous improvement. an organization?
more tie-in between culture
Founder & President Head of Wholesale Operational and OpEx
Excellence Lean Director
How to create a culture comfortable As Peter Drucker said-culture Intercultural teamwork has many
with constant change, specifically what matters most. secrets in itself to be shared in general.
are the actions a Leader (or Leadership Founder & Owner
Formerly Six Sigma-Adjunct
team) can take to enable this.
Faculty
Head of Business Excellence
Very important, the leadership has Peter Drucker "Culture eats Strategy Where does one start to build the right
responsibility for building culture of for breakfast." How are people culture--and how is one sustained over
quality and safety, and developing characterizing company culture? They time (despite changes in executive
positive organizational behavior which all say they want to change/shift it leadership above).
has influence on quality and safety. and I think most say it without taking EVP, Chief Operations Strategy
Nurse the time to understand what it is or Officer
why it is what it is.
President
Understanding Organizational This is the most critical one in order to How to effectively develop a culture of
Culture is essential to Operational continue to elevate the quality, talent Operational Excellence, and sustain it
Excellence, but not of prime and passion within the organization. in the organization.
importance. COO CI Engineer
President

53
Change Management
Much, much more is needed as people
impacted by change are often not
considered.
Lean & Six Sigma Course Lecturer
Critical competence needs: Is this a
formal role / skill in companies? If so,
why?
Head of Business Excellence
Of course this is an equally-important
concern. However, when one does truly
right, consistent with embraced
universal principles, this aspect comes
last.
President
Go Go Go!
Lean Consultant
At what levels in the organization do
you empower change management
Head of Wholesale Operational
Excellence
Success of change initiatives look at
the desired end result and make
plans to ensure that opting out of
adoption of desired changes is not an
option, regardless of position in the
organization.
Project Manager
How Change MGMT and BPM or
Lean IT are being used to streamline
communication and feedback loops.
President
Top priority-many companies don't
think they need to change.
Retired Six Sigma-adjunct faculty Lecturer
54
More direct tie-in with floor staff and OpEx
Lean Director
Dead critical. That is the point of all this
"excellence" work. That doesn't mean one
more person saying "change is hard." That is
old and worn out. What are they actually
doing. GE developed Change Acceleration
Process. That is how they execute change not
how the develop a coalition of 5 managers to
support change.
President
How to make pragmatic and weave into
technical, manufacturing orgs so not ignored,
and becomes a skilled workforce.
Global Innovation Framework Leader
The urgency to improve and the ability to
respond to such changes.
Strategy Execution
How to be on-track of the strategy, and Bringing everyone on board before new Planning, planning,
how to gage effectiveness of the strategy. initiatives are executed. planning...................Planning.
CI Engineer Director of Nursing President
More stamina from leadership to stay the What are the tools to define, and instill
course with respect to OpEx and the time this capability in an organization. This is
Great strategies are often fumbled when
it takes to turn the ship. Too many leaders a good 'phrase' but tangibly how do you
it comes to the execution part. Where's
wimp out if they don't see immediate define, create and succeed. the good process to do it right the first
returns. Head of Business Excellence time? What is the standard work?
Director, Lean Founder & President
Few people actually know what this is Alignment of initiatives from top of the
apart from senior management so more food chain to the front line ensures that Pick the right course and stay the course
could be explained as to how strategic everyone knows what is happening, why and/or proactively modify as time/the
decisions are developed. it is happening, and what role they play environment dictates.
Lean Lecturer in ensuring success. COO
Project Manager
I would be interested to hear how
This is a near second in importance. The organizations are bringing together OE
first, well-aligned with leadership, is within a strategy execution framework -
making and establishing the strategy: and particularly interested to hear which
the planning/organizing, and the metrics they use other than 'firm' savings
corresponding engagements. metrics.
President Global Head of Continuous
Improvement

55
Business Transformation
This needs more as a subject as it is often This is the outcome based on
mixed up with improvement objectives.
Lean Lecturer
Understand the complexities of business
transformation, using companies with
experience in this area. Business transformation
is a 5-year process.
Managing Director
The Japanese plan for things years ahead.
American management does not. Years ago Lee
Iacoca said the American people were not
prepared to have front wheel drive cars. All the
cars in the rest of the world were FWD.
Eventually, we did catch up, but years later. The
same happened with overhead cams. 50 years
later, we finally have them. American
businesses are leaders in technical innovation,
but not in all areas, and we still think only us
can have good ideas
QA Manager
What are the key success factors?
excellence in all other areas.
Head of Business Excellence
President & Founder
The new & the latest best
Is the Supply Chain (Suppliers) as well
practices in business
as Customers actively involved in
processes.
business transformation projects?
Continuous Improvement
President
Engineer, Lead
Emphasize the need for Business
Sustaining the focus on Transformation:
transformation over multiple years is 1. The need to have a team of
a challenge. How have firms Change Agents"
successfully negotiated major 2. 2. Organizational freedom
changes over time--and kept their for the "Change Agents" to
focus until the end? perform.
EVP Chief Operations Strategy 3. R&R system for the change
Officer agents.
University Lecturer
56
Innovation
How to focus on business and strategic
needs. How to leverage commercially
available innovation.
Managing Director
More of the same versus a novel
approach to delivering on traditional
expectations.
Project Manager
How to take Innovation beyond Importance of this varies widely
ideas leadership, culture, behavior based on industry and products.
& Investment.
Head of Business Excellence
1. Links into Business Transformation
mentioned earlier in my responses
2. May want to consider "giant leap"
innovations as new business frontiers
3. Innovations of Technology to be
evaluated in their own merit.
Lecturer
Developing a vision, and aligning
innovations to this vision. Be an Regular people have great ideas!
Industry leader through innovation. Consultant, Lean
CI Engineer
Strategies for motivating first
How is Design for Lean Six Sigma and
line employees for innovative
Innovation working together?
solutions.
President
Nursing
Collaborative platforms: good and bad
Founder & President experiences.
Master of Ceremony
Healthcare is lacking innovation. In
Continuous product and process
order to provide the population with
improvement to deliver products and
much needed care, innovations are
services customers want to buy.
crucial.
Global Innovation Framework
Associate Director, Research
Leader
Informatics
57
Leadership
Here is the heart and soul of this whole
More stamina from leadership to stay thing. No more list of "the top 10 things
What does a leader look like in a
the course with respect to OpEx and effective leaders do." How about if you
Digital era? What is different, what
the time it takes to turn the ship. Too have this type of personality (which isn't
critical skills do they need?
many leaders wimp out if they don't going to change) here are strategies that
Business Excellence Head
see immediate returns. will help you figure out the right thing to
Lean Director do.
President

1. Create a way for career

progression beyond seniority
Strong leadership sets the path, How to lead AND manage effectively -
2. Create more senior positions for
ensures we stay on it, holds all to both upwards and downwards - how to
the younger generations
accountability to the vision / execution. be a role model for others.
3. Gender equality as a policy to be
COO Global Innovation Leader
adopted.
Education Faculty

We have lack of good trainers and Numero uno! High expectations. How best to develop leaders at all levels
leaders, so we need to start defining Relentless pursuit. From the Board to absorb the essence of operational
the gap and build the new solutions. Room to the shop floor. excellence as a core capability.
Founder & Owner Founder & President EVP Chief Operations Strategy Officer

58
Digital Transformation

Define and give examples of successes.

Leading trends in Digital Banking. Another good catch-phrase but what Digital transformation in
Vice President does it look like and how do you define healthcare.
success? Nursing
Business Excellence
How is Integration being
Facilitation to get a practical roadmap addressed as well as complexity
to take a company from low level of Another buzz word when a lot of for factors like (Mobility,
digitalization to the best degree companies believe they do it because complexity, scalability)
required for the company to become a they have email. President
competitive advantage in its President
marketplace.
Consultant & Owner

What is clear is that the digital revolution will be as impactful as the industrial revolution. Those
companies that get it will be huge winners. Those that dont will struggle to survive. But what is it?
Companies need to understand that the digital revolution is not tweaking the current product/services,
business model and operational processes to appease customers. Instead it is looking with fresh eyes and
coming up with new business models that serve the new customer demands, and then cherry-picking
elements of the legacy only where they are relevant.
CEO

59
Process Automation
Get rid of old systems!
Lean Consultant
New/ latest best practices in
processes especially in
Automotive industry.
CI Engineer - Lead
Supportive of critical Thoroughly research best
decison-making, includingpractices and commercially
best practice references.available tools, understand
Project Manager risks.
Managing Director

There is TOO much of this. Finding the best way to

The only place Automation
comes ahead of Strategy,
Simplification or Design is in
the dictionary. There are
Magic Quadrants of vendors
pushing automation. You
don't need to!
CEO
How to deal with changing
requirements in process
automation. Best Practices like
ITIL?
President
partner with technology is so New ideas like Software
critical in process Robotics and supporting case
transformation. What studies
models have worked best? Business Excellence Head
Executive VP

I am interesting in this area,

Levels are about correct.
even though my boss stays Impact of human factors in
against it. automation could be more
Industrial Engineering detailed.
Lean & Six Sigma Lecturer

60
This piece brings our 6-part report series to an end. We hope that these snapshots of the
thoughts & perspectives of industry professionals have shed some light on the state of play in
Operational Excellence. To view the whole list of reports, click here.

The results of this survey, Pressing Issues in Operational Excellence, will help to shape both
the focus of content on BTOES Insights, and the focus of the Business Transformation &
Operational Excellence World Summit. If this report has been of interest, you can subscribe to
BTOES Insights for more content focusing on the future of Operational Excellence & Business
Transformation.

All of the topics discussed in the course of this survey will feature heavily in the Business
Transformation & Operational Excellence World Summit (or BTOES17), Mar 21-24, Orlando, FL.
To learn more about BTOES17, click here, or click here to view the full agenda.

If you think you have the answers to some of these questions, or wish to share your thoughts,
get in touch with charlotte.kelly@btoesinsights.com to join BTOES Insights as a contributor,
and help us bring Operational Excellence into the future.

61