Change remains one of the hardest things for any organization to achieve, and the studies documenting successful change over the years have reported a remarkably stable success rate that leans towards the dismal end of the scale.

This, coupled with the apparently intensifying pace of change has led to no shortage of attempts to rectify the poor success rate of change efforts, and the latest of these has emerged recently from Cambridge University’s Judge Business School.

They have released a report that aims to guide organizations to both recognize the opportunities for transformational innovation, and identifies some strategies to make the most of these opportunities.

Succeeding with transformational change

The study saw senior leaders from a host of international companies in a wide range of sectors interviewed by the authors to try and identify some traits and patterns that underpin successful business model change.

They identified six distinct patterns that they thought were essential to business model innovation:

1. Tailor-made products and services: Meeting customers’ individual needs, such as online retailers’ recommendation services.
2. Sustainability: Minimizing waste and managing resource costs, such as companies which harvest and recycle parts.
3. Jointly owned assets: Boosting efficiency and lowering costs, for example in peer-to-peer businesses.
4. Only paying for service that is used: like car-share companies.
5. Effective monitoring of supply chains: such as support service businesses that use handheld tracking systems to better monitor the supply chain.
6. Using data to easily adapt to customer needs: such as clothing companies that maintain little inventory and can quickly produce new designs to meet fashion trends.

The authors hope that their Six Degree of Innovation will help managers to better understand the forces of innovation and therefore adapt accordingly.

“You can see technology and innovation changing every industry. We’re always trying to better understand the mechanics of innovation, so we can help companies lead their industries. The Six Degrees of Innovation provides a tool for executive teams to adapt their business models and adopt the right technology to succeed,” the authors say.

Learn more about the report via the video below.  For another look at successful change, you might find a report published by McKinsey earlier this year interesting.  I summarized the report for you here.