Is your business looking outwards to beat change?

Only one in four Australian businesses are prepared for change, says a report released yesterday by telco Optus.

The Future of Business report is based upon interviews with over 500 business leaders across 12 industries and exposes a disconnect between managers’ beliefs of how ready their businesses are to confront change and the reality.

Over 400 of the respondents felt ‘confident or highly confident’ in their organisation’s readiness for change while the survey found only 23% of these organisations are actually ‘highly ready’.

Organisations that appeared to be highly ready tended to be outward focused, with almost all of them citing the desire to meet customer needs as the top trigger for transformation, while less change-ready businesses are primarily driven to change in order to reduce costs.

“Change-ready businesses are not only prepared for, but also anticipate and predict change. Disruption is happening everywhere and businesses of every size and in every industry need to be prepared to deal with rapid technological change and shifting consumer expectations,” says John Paitaridis, Optus Business’ managing director.

While the Optus survey doesn’t produce any great surprises it does emphasise how the dynamics of change work, organisations that are outward focused are more likely to identify and understand change than those looking inwards.

Listening to the marketplace and society almost always beats those counting paperclips.

Paul Wallbank is the publisher of Networked Globe, his personal blog Decoding The New Economy charts how our society is changing in the connected century.