Only 3% of UK companies capable of delivering their own strategies, survey finds

An industry survey found 97% of board members and their direct reports at organisations in the UK admitting they need new or additional skills to successfully deliver their strategies.

The ‘Barometer on Change’ survey conducted by business transformation consultancy Moorhouse, currently in its fourth year, also found that 66% of the respondents reported needing these new capabilities to a great or fair extent in 2015, an increase of 6% from 2014.

Such high demand for new capabilities comes alongside a rapidly rising need for businesses to demonstrate greater agility. Nearly seven in ten (69%) reported an increase in the pace and pressure of change, while 80% anticipated this would only rise further over the next three years.

Respondents to Moorhouse’s survey included 200 board members and direct reports drawn from FTSE 250 companies, UK multinationals and major public sector organisations across a variety of industries.

The respondents had a combined spend on change initiatives of £5.1bn (compared to £4.2bn in 2014), with an average project spend per respondent of over £25m, Moorhouse noted.

Richard Goold, partner at the consultancy, said, “Securing future growth absolutely requires the right people with the right skills. For the more than three-quarters of organisations that are looking at acquiring those skills either purely externally or through some external/in-house combination, it will be imperative to ensure that focused recruitment and development efforts help transfer and sustain the required skills for such transformations.”

Those reporting a need for new skills or abilities to a great or fair extent rose from 51% in 2013 to 66% in 2015, while respondents claiming they were ‘very’ or ‘extremely’ confident in their ability to access those skills fell from 47% to just 30% in the same period.

However, Moorhouse said what is not clear is whether this widening gap is the result of "over-eager cost-cutting" in previous years, or a finally expanding economy spurring greater innovation, creating the need for a ‘new generation’ of capability.