Accelerating the industrial enterprise

Industrial enterprises (IEs) clearly operate in an environment where accelerated growth is not simple. It means finding the right balance between tomorrow´s growth and today´s business. It requires a deep understanding of emerging technologies alongside a ruthless focus on the ever changing needs of both your customers and your employees.

To gain insight into how IEs can accelerate their growth agendas, Accenture surveyed 1,150 executives globally — 45% of whom were C-level or equivalent — across 12 countries and 8 industries, and identified six “practices”, or groups of activities, that are critical to accelerating growth.

We assessed IEs’ behavior and success in each of those six practices, placing companies into one of four groups: Leaders, Aspirers, Mainstream and Laggards. Leaders are farthest along in the growth acceleration journey and set the pace for the other groups. However, there is still room for improvement for them. Aspirers are on a good way but need to be bolder in their actions and aspirations to catch up. Mainstream as the name says, shows an average performance, but lacks the eagerness and a north star to achieve accelerated growth. Laggards seem overwhelmed by the many challenges to accelerate their growth. They need to overcome their lethargy and start their acceleration journey immediately.

What we found:

Organizations that were one level higher in their growth acceleration journey had, on average:

In general, IEs are focused on growth, but even the Leaders have not reached a growth acceleration potential above four in any of the six growth practices.

Looking at the six practices as an integrated suite of activities that are interwoven and support one another is key to embedding accelerated growth into the DNA of a company.

Take 10 minutes and answer a few questions to assess your organization´s growth acceleration potential and benchmark yourself against others in the industry.

Unlocking accelerated growth will take time and actions on multiple fronts.