Digital transformation isn’t exactly a thing of the past, but it’s not the future either. Over 60% of the global economy will be digitized within the next year, according to IDC. We’re now living in the post-digital era, where companies are expected to use their newly transformed tech stacks to meet customer expectations for on-demand, personalized products, services, and experiences.
To make this happen, companies need to focus on achieving a new level of Operational Excellence that enables teams to deliver on these optimized digital experiences. As a driver of collaboration, productivity, efficiency, and alignment, work management plays a critical role in organizations’ abilities to achieve Operational Excellence and thrive in the post-digital era.
And according to Wrike’s new Work Management Proficiency Index, one of the primary barriers to organizations realizing their full post-digital potential is a lack of systems integration. This insight is corroborated by multiple sources, including a recent survey of 1,400 executives, which states that data integration is the #1 challenge for enterprises seeking to expand their digital repertoire.
And the deep insights the Index unlocks for organizations don’t end there.
Introducing Wrike’s Work Management Proficiency Index
We’re very excited to introduce Wrike’s Work Management Proficiency Index. It synthesizes years of work management experiences with 20,000+ leading companies and key insights derived from deep data analysis into a simple, structured, and actionable framework. The Index serves as a compass for senior executives to identify their core operational competencies and opportunities for improvement.
Companies are evaluated across seven critical work management areas:
Leadership: What is client success management? Is effective work management an executive priority? Do leaders stand behind and sponsor the time, tools, and tactics it takes to grow effective collaboration, organizational alignment, streamlined workflows, and other work management outcomes?
Ownership: Do projects have clear owners? Do these owners take accountability for their projects and execute them end to end? Are project owners given the autonomy and trust to take full ownership of key initiatives?
Integration: Do the systems within a company’s tech stack “talk to” one another? Does data and information effectively flow across these systems? Are workflows automated across platforms and teams?
Measurement: Does the team measure the impact of their projects and processes on a regular basis? Are performance benchmarks set and consistent workflow evaluation and optimization considered priorities?
Investment: Does the company invest time, money, and resources into deploying and training people to use work management and collaboration tools? Do they continue to invest in adoption and change management once these tools have been implemented?
Efficiency: How efficient are the company’s processes? How effectively are teams expending their resources, prioritizing projects, and making collaborative decisions? Is time wasted on repetitive, mundane, or low-value tasks?
Engagement: Are employees actively engaged in their day-to-day work? Do they feel motivated and inspired, or are they burned out or bored? Do they have the visibility they need to see how their work drives value and fits into larger company goals?
The Index benchmarks companies’ operational effectiveness against industry peers and competitors. It also enables Wrike Customer Success experts to share bespoke action plans with organizations interested in enhancing their Operational Excellence via proven work management strategies.
In addition to lack of systems integration prohibiting companies from achieving their full digital potential, other preliminary insights uncovered by the Index include:
- There was a nine-point delta in Executive Sponsorship between the Emerging and Innovating stages of the Index, making it a leading indicator of work management proficiency.
- Project Ownership showed the highest levels of variability across all segments, suggesting that companies either excel or flounder in their ability to own and execute projects, and making ownership a prime lever for work management proficiency.
- Companies in the Emerging stage had a very high deviation in scores in the Engagement KPI, highlighting the challenge and importance of effective change management during the work management implementation process.
Understanding the Proficiency Index process
Companies that choose to undergo an assessment go through a five-step process:
- Key proficiency indicator (KPI) assessment: Wrike’s team of work management experts evaluates organizations on the seven key indicators of operational proficiency (highlighted above) established based on the feedback, observation, and success of companies across the globe.
- Personalized report card creation: Assessment participants receive a comprehensive report card that grades their KPI competence and details operational strengths, weaknesses, and areas of opportunity. The report card serves as a performance baseline and enables Wrike to work directly with teams to develop a game plan for improvement.
- Competitive index placement: Organizations are placed in one of the four Work Management Proficiency Index stages based on their assessment scores. They’re also benchmarked against similar companies in their industry, as well as other anonymous participants in the Index, to help evaluate competitive gaps and advantages. The four stages are Emerging, Stabilizing, Innovating, and Leading.
- Prescriptive insights delivery: After analyzing an organization’s KPI assessment and Index placement, Wrike provides a prescriptive, step-by-step action plan to take its work management performance to the next level. Wrike works directly with key stakeholders to develop short- and long-term operational goals grounded in proven work management playbooks and best practices.
- Action plan implementation: Wrike’s team of work management experts keep key stakeholders accountable and on target with concrete action plans and periodic business reviews that help drive operational results. Wrike’s professional services team is also available to provide hands-on assistance for specific improvement initiatives.
Pave the way to post-digital success for your company
As digital transformation grows smaller in the rearview mirror, it’s time for organizations to look toward achieving Operational Excellence and thriving in the post-digital era.
Collaborative work management platforms like Wrike not only fundamentally change the way work gets done every day but also dramatically improve companies’ abilities to deliver amazing customer experiences by powering better collaboration, organizational alignment, individual accountability, enhanced productivity, and executive insight into work.
Wrike’s Work Management Proficiency Index enables organizations to focus on the key practice areas that are standing in their way of work management proficiency, and provides them with the tools they need to tackle major challenges — like integrating systems to enable cross-functional collaboration.
If you’re a current Wrike customer interested in receiving a tailored evaluation, please reach out to your Customer Success Manager.
