Rotman Management — Spring 2017

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67 per cent of Stage 4 companies try to measure the ROI of CI in-

vestments, and they report significantly higher satisfaction—83

to 88 per cent—with CI’s ROI.

In companies with Stage 3 or 4 functions, CI practitioners

and business line partners are much more closely aligned on

the impact, value and importance of CI. As companies progress

through the stages, practitioners and business line managers

become increasingly satisfied with their relationship. By Stage

4, the satisfaction rate is 89 per cent. About 90 per cent of the

executives in our study agreed that by Stage 3, line leaders pull

CI into business decisions more than CI pushes its way in. As

the line invites CI in, business partners’ satisfaction with CI’s

contributions to business decisions increases, jumping to 90 per

cent overall in Stage 4.

Given these results, we would advise executive teams to

explicitly re-evaluate the ROI for CI functions that are mostly

backward looking, descriptive, tactical or confined to marketing.

How to Get Started

Executive teams can take three steps to begin the process of

reaching higher levels of CI maturity:

1.CONDUCT A DIAGNOSTIC. Interview stakeholders, quantitative-

ly benchmark against peers, and observe the ‘life’ of an in-

sight through the parts of the organization and the processes

in which it is identified, amplified, gains influence, and has

impact — or is dampened and dies out.

2.ATTEND ONE OR TWO FACILITATED CREATIVE WORKSHOPS WITH

THE EXECUTIVE TEAM. Apply practical creativity techniques to

achieve shared self-awareness; identify ‘magic points’, in

which the CI function delivers on executives’ aspirations,

and ‘tragic points’, in which CI falls short of its potential.

3.CRAFT AN ACTION PLAN. Develop a strategy for changing

executives’ individual and collective action.

Companies serious about attaining the highest stages of CI ma-

turity should set a target of no more than 24 months. Longer

initiatives do not signal a sufficient commitment to change and

may get bogged down, leading to distraction and change fatigue.

Firms whose CEOs and executives are not committed to

a fundamentally different CI operating model should not un-

dertake the hard work of CI transformation. In companies with

CEOs who do support the transition, however, senior executives

should be updated with regular reports from a steering or strat-

egy committee. They should create an ‘activist’ project manage-

ment structure that ensures functional transformation through

transparency, a ‘single source of the truth’, a focus on results in-

stead of the completion of activities, accountability, accelerated

decision making, and interventions when change initiatives are

off track.

Based on our experience, companies should prioritize three

types of cross-functional initiatives and identify executive spon-

sors and day-to-day leaders for each.

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