Germany’s win of the 2014 World Cup in Brazil wasn’t an accident. Joachim Löw, Germany’s football team manager, explained that the team applied a strategic development and implementation plan during the last 10 years to win the World Cup. In business terms, they applied long-termism for growth, profitability, transient competitive advantage and highest customer value. Germany’s football team created organizational alignment. In other words, they created operational excellence and organizational agility through working with truly effective leadership and strong skilled people.

What is Operational Excellence?

Operational excellence is the design and the performance of the integrated systems and processes that create ongoing improvements and excellence in a company’s strategic, competitive and operational values through speed, flexibility and cross-purpose adaptability, while also focusing on the customer's needs and keeping the employees positive and empowered with strategic purpose.
 
The key parameters of operational excellence are process performance, process outcomes and value generated through company knowledge, organizational structure, technologies, process execution and people in the organization.

What is Organizational Agility?

Organizational agility is the essential enabler of the operational excellence of a high-performance organization in today's hypercompetitive business world to keep growth, profitability, transient competitive advantage and highest customer value.
 
The ability to be agile is directly related to an organization's human performance and the processes and technologies that the organization has in place.

What should you do as a leader to create operational excellence and organizational agility?

 1. Remove shoddy leadership to create an organization that fully focuses on organizational alignment, good communication & collaboration, short and long-term marketing and innovation strategy and effective lean management faster than local and global competitors.
 
2. Align roles and responsibilities and work with the best performers, decision makers and problem solvers. Stay ahead of your competitors by developing the most qualified, capable and flexible workforce within the organization.
 
3. Work with authentic leaders/managers that have true experience, know-how and skills (including high emotional intelligence).
 
4. Establish your organization’s innovation department by creating a strong R&D and customer immersion lab. This will allow you to create new technologies, products, services and networks, which will help you get into new markets before others in your industry.
 
5. Focus on expanding your company’s competitive intelligence. Then, take action faster than your local and global competitors.
 
6. Make a long-term sector and risk management analysis and reconfigure your business accordingly.
 
7. Don't settle for average and/or poor leadership. Doing so will cause you to fail in the long-term.
 
8. Understand your competitive essence. Why should customers prefer your products and/or services?
 
9. Formulate and implement your operational excellence strategy in regards to its structural and executional elements. Ask “Who?” “What?” “When?” “Where?” “Why?” and “How?”.
 
10. Create excellence in complexity management. Develop and implement effective lean strategy.
 
11. When you create your company's long-term marketing and innovation strategy, you should focus on operational excellence, organizational agility, product/service leadership and customer loyalty through building a strong and effective brand management and winning sales strategy.
 
12. Align your operating, innovating and competing models towards achieving strategic management and operational excellence with organizational agility.
 
13. Create regulatory and quality management processes that are strategic and efficient in regards to the company purpose, products and/or services.
 
14. Everyone in the company from top to bottom should know the main objective of the business and take action accordingly. 
 
15. Be transparent and improve transparency by creating a culture of candor in the organization.
 
16. Implement a performance-based, collaborative and innovative culture within the organization.
 
17. Improve executive decision-making speed/quality.
 
18. Initiate a continuous learning and development program to create a high-achieving organizational culture.
 
19. Communicate the company purpose/strategy to achieve understanding, commitment and desired action.
 
20. Produce more, consume less material, use less energy and create less waste whenever possible in your operational procedures. 
 
Innovative manufacturing companies can enjoy a bright and competitive future by working with truly effective authentic leaders/managers and people who have excellent experience, know-how and good personal skills. They will take their business out of the valley of death to the mountain peak of success.