Why Operational Transparency Is Key To Business Growth

I encountered an article earlier that talks about “Why Operational Transparency Is Key To Business Growth” and here are some of it:

Enterprise companies face a host of challenges to maintain growth and continue scaling. With rapid innovation increasing, efficiency and agility remain top of mind for business leaders and decision makers. The path to growth is guided by go-to-market (GTM) and annual operations planning (AOP)—which have both traditionally served as the processes for making critical business decisions.

The underlying problem, however, is that these plans have historically been executed in a siloed fashion based on misaligned priorities, outdated data or insufficient intelligence, and subjective perspectives across departments. As such, many enterprises have experienced the cost of relying on these tenets—poor decision making and missed growth opportunities.

Growth Requires An Always-On Approach

In order for enterprises to build their operations plans for growth and scale, they must constantly evolve. In other words, it will need to shift from "annual" to "always."?Organisations that are able to pivot GTM strategies with agility are in the best position to continuously meet and exceed business goals, regardless of changing internal and external conditions. This requires constant communication with various departments and stakeholders as critical decisions are being made—especially when macroeconomics creates the need for fundamental reform.

However, without operational transparency from the start—right when things can be projected to look grim—and frequently to mitigate surprises, this approach can result in cultural uncertainties that aren't positive for any form of growth.

Consistent Data Leave Little Room For Debate

At the core of any successful operations plan, there must be consistent and reliable data. Having benchmarks to reference throughout the year is part of the approach, but if your benchmarks are outdated in relation to current business conditions and other market indicators, they lose their purpose.

Instead, these benchmarks should be established with historical data and real-time intelligence to inform the most holistic GTM and always operating strategies and ensure decisions are being made objectively based on factual information.

A Healthy Company Culture Relies On Transparency

A healthy company culture is at the center of any business success, and a big part of that is operational transparency. Organisations can begin the transition internally by shifting company culture and leadership to align with processes and policies rooted in transparency. This means leaders actively fighting against the “CYA'' mentality and the value of personal recognition being less than finding value in the overall mission and success of the business. In order to do this, recognition should be controlled at an individual level to ensure politics are not in play. In other words, recognition for employees—that take successful or unsuccessful risk, initiative and contribute with high integrity—should be the only way individuals are celebrated publically.

As it is natural for individuals to be personally recognised for their contributions, shifting focus to their role within a team enables a healthier environment and further promotes a collective growth mentality. Moreover, ensuring team leaders are trained to think of feedback as a two-way street enables open lines of communication and further promotes accountability. This sort of culture has a variety of benefits across the board, from employee retention to public perception. But ultimately, it's crucial to uphold operational transparency on a day-to-day basis.

Transparency Drives Unification

The complexities and challenges of operations planning make it prone to the worst kind of politics—silos and unneeded tensions that slow down GTM activities and take away from the goal of growth. With different departments fighting for their piece of the pie, the result is typically business leaders arguing their own personal truths based on self-serving objectives and analysis. The key to growth lies in establishing a single source of truth, which is the entire organisation's "North Star," and unifying teams around it.

Revolutionising the operations planning process is a must for today's enterprises to grow and scale. Not only must plans be amenable to changes in industry and market, but they must also mitigate misaligned priorities within the organisation through transparency. Exercising operational transparency drives unification for teams in the planning process based on a shared vision and promotes confidence that every decision is the right one for that vision.

Want to know more? Head on over to the full article here for more ideas and perspective. Afterwards, why not drop me an email to share your thoughts at [email protected]; or call me on 0467 749 378.

Thanks,

Robert