The process of market-driven transformation

Abstract To compete successfully for the future, corporations need to become proactively market-driven. How to achieve this is the subject of this article in which the author takes readers through the essential overlapping stages of the market-driven transformation process with guidelines as to what needs to be done at each stage using examples from industry to demonstrate. She shows how, although the ideal is for a corporation to move fast, paradoxically it's easier to get people to undergo the changes when things begin to deteriorate. How to handle this involves finding triggers to create ‘strategic discomfort’ and then use new sets of tools and mechanisms which have the power to get people to think differently and build new capabilities and market-driven practices. Because people take on change at different rates, pockets of the organization will be operating at different speeds during the transformation—those out front will act as role models for the rest so that the new ways of working can become institutional. The job of the corporate leader is not only to focus and lead the market-driven transformation through the various stages but also to pull together the various initiatives and projects into one cohesive and sustainable result.