Book excerpt: The Oliver Wight Class A Standard for Business Excellence is the definitive, comprehensive statement of excellence in business today. Oliver Wight’s Class A Standard is the accumulated practice and experience of Oliver Wight Consultants around the world. It reflects the effort and achievement of thousands of client companies who have used the standard, and the benchmark capability it enables, to differentiate their business. The Seventh Edition will be the standard of business excellence for all businesses. The standard will take the reader through an understanding of business maturity and how to drive increase maturity with corresponding sustainable business benefit. Using the Oliver Wight Proven Path, a journey of “Milestones” focused on strategic priorities that drive you through a series of defined Maturity Transitions, people, behavior and processes all become more aligned and focused. Updated content will include new information on collaboration, segmentation, value chain, analytics, optimization, and planning. Please note: Previous editions of this book were titled The Oliver Wight Class A Checklist for Business Excellence.