You can say what you like about management consultants – but working for one of the biggest & best in the world has given me an insight into how to really “do” big & successful business.
I received Accenture’s annual report this week. Usually it goes in the bin after a cursory glance to see if there’s anyone I know in the glossy bit.
This time, I thought it’d be worth a read to see if there’s anything applicable to the small business owner & entrepeneur who can make use of the results of investing millions to research high performing businesses & what makes them successful.
Accenture have defined the 3 key building blocks of high performance as:
Market Focus & Position – resulting in better decisions
Distinctive Capabilities – resulting in better practices
Performance Anatomy – resulting in better mindsets
They state that “High performance businesses continually balance, align and renew the three building blocks…”
I’m going to ignore the first two for now because it’s the 3rd one, which I found most relevant to “us”.
Accenture have found that “High performers:
- Proactively shape & create markets based on an unrelenting pursuit of customer-valued innovation.
- Achieve extraordinary levels of productivity through the way they train, develop, lead & engage their employees.
- Regard information technology as a source of operational excellence and competitive advantage.
- Manage with the help of a ‘selective scorecard’ that highlights key performance indicators.
- Continually find ways to renew themselves & keep their organisations on their toes.
Sorry, sorry, I know there’s a bit of “corporate w*nkerism speak” in there (oops sorry again for the language but that does describe it perfectly)…
But if you can cut through that, there are some useful pointers to use as your own “high performance scorecard” for your business. If you want help translating the corporate speak, drop me a line – I’m still quite fluent in it ;-)
Right, sad enough as it is, “studying” the Accenture annual report on a Sunday morning, I’ve got to pop off and do some more packing & sorting. No more delaying tactics…