According to a new report from Accenture, ‘Change Reinvented: A New Blueprint for Continuous, Meaningful, Successful Change’, the vast majority of global organizations (96%) are planning to invest more than 5% of their total revenues in change initiatives over the next three years. This is up from 31% planning this level of investment just three years ago. At the same time, research for the report indicates that a relatively small proportion of companies have actually mastered the ability to achieve significant value and impact from change initiatives. Amidst radical shifts in ways of working, changes in technology including generative AI, and the constant potential for unforeseeable disruption, the ability to effectively navigate and measure change has become a critical competency for C-suite leaders.
As business leaders are increasingly committed to driving reinvention across the enterprise, Accenture’s report underscores the value of building continuous change capabilities for achieving more predictable, positive impact across the business.
The report reveals key facets of what drives successful change, providing a clear blueprint that links the maturity of change capabilities with value delivered through transformation programs, allowing leaders to build and improve their change capabilities in a systematic manner. The key to navigating change successfully lies in embracing six capabilities of continuous change that high-performing organizations apply consistently to realize positive outcomes for the business and its people.
These capabilities include Foundations, or proven practices known to drive success, as well as Innovations — areas of new thinking and practice enabled by technology, data and AI that are focused on turning insights into action. Together, these capabilities form the foundation of Accenture’s Change Capability Quotient (see below), a robust method that codifies the practice of continuous change and, using data to predict the likelihood of successful change efforts, establishes a connection between the maturity of change capability and performance.
Accenture’s research found that by increasing the maturity of change practices outlined in Change Reinvented: A New Blueprint for Continuous, Meaningful, Successful Change, organizations can transform into dynamic, resilient entities capable of outperforming expectations and achieving meaningful results. These high-scoring organizations are 2.1x more likely to report successful transformations. And, regardless of sector or size, achieve higher, better, faster returns on their change investments — from increased productivity and cost savings, to lasting benefits and improvements in sustainability targets, to leaving their employees feeling net better off. Yet only 16% of the 1,000 organizations surveyed are implementing all six capabilities of change at scale — suggesting there’s more work to be done.
The business context continues to evolve at an unprecedented pace and the need for a more systematic and evidence-based approach to change is clear. Today, all leaders need to be successful at leading change in order to develop culture and activate strategy—it’s fundamental to growth, resilience and innovation.
Karalee Close, global lead of Talent & Organization at Accenture
