Operating model transformation is triggered when the gap between how a business runs today and what its strategy now demands becomes too wide to close with incremental fixes. A new market, a merger, a digital shift, or a cost imperative can each open that gap.
The work spans the whole model at once. Changing structure without changing processes, or technology without changing decision rights, tends to produce friction rather than progress. Transformation succeeds when the dimensions move in step.
It is also sequenced. Rather than a single switch, most programs stage the shift into waves, protecting current operations while the new model is built up beside them.