Times are changing, and not just for Bob Dylan. Fifty-six percent of the senior executives in large U.S.-based multinationals recently interviewed by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) said their companies had undergone "a great deal of change during the past two to three years. An additional 34% of the 133 executives interviewed said their companies had experienced "moderate" change. Only 10% reported "very little change.
Growth, cost reduction, new technologies, domestic competition and quality improvement were the top five drivers of change in the companies PwC surveyed.
Leadership training, customer relationship management (CRM), simplification, restructuring and Total Quality Management were the five most-used change strategies. Re-engineering, adoption of service-oriented IT architecture and implementation of Six Sigma also were among the most-used strategies. The surveyed companies were using an average of five change strategies as, among other benefits, they sought to lower operating costs, improve customer responsiveness and increase employee productivity.
