Business improvement consulting firm Oliver Wight has launched a new executive guide for senior professionals to its Maturity Model.
Originally developed by Oliver Wight from a Harvard Business School study for the US Government in 1985, the Maturity Model is said to allow organisations to identify their real level of business maturity.
Oliver Wight partner Stuart Harman said: “Attempting to make gains, simply by introducing the latest on-trend initiative, is likely to end only in failure, disillusionment and significant cost. It is vital to make the right improvements at the right time, and in the right order.”
The maturity model characterises businesses as being in one of four key phases of maturity and determines what is required for the organisation to progress from one phase to the next.
“By pitching organisations in the correct phase, the senior executive can truly understand where the business sits, visualise the benefits a structured improvement program can bring, and propagate the journey to business excellence,” says Harman.
Only a handful of organisations worldwide can truly describe themselves as phase four companies, whilst 85 to 90 per cent are in phase one or two. However, the transition from the bottom to the top of phase one can itself bring substantial performance gains, with organisations typically improving from around 70 per cent performance, up to 95.
“Only by accepting the reality of your level of maturity – and that improvement is a long-term journey, not a short-term initiative – can a business begin to prepare itself for the performance levels it aspires to. It then becomes a matter of sequencing the appropriate steps for the improvement journey – once you know where you are and where you want to be, the next step is to understand how to get there,” concluded Mr Harman.
