INTRODUCTION
Strategy design and execution have been a rough ground for most senior leaders. McKinsey reports that 70 percent of change efforts fall short of desired results. This exceptional low success rate pushes us to understand what keeps going wrong over and over again. The financial drain representing this shortfall is massive. What changes are needed to curtail such levels of financial drain?
The strategic process begins with action plan deliberations, financial projections, plan write-ups for board approval, and target dissemination. Some of the underlisted points may be missed along the blueprint strategic process. We explore some significant strategy omissions as pointed below:
CORPORATE IDENTITY
At best, corporate identity is an impression stakeholders have regarding the actions of the company. The identity may associate the company's products and its pricing with the middle or non-working class. That will be the market niche that drives employees' to work and consumers to buy.
Departing from such emotional allegiances can impact long-term sales, employee attrition and the sale of minority interests. Significant investments in brand, coupled with logo changes and product redesign can be significant.
Short-term profit objectives can get in the way of such investments. But sooner or later, price changes, advertisements and distribution strategies must quickly align with the new identity for the right target market to be served. The new identity and reason for the change must be communicated so consumers do not feel betrayed or rejected.
COMMUNICATING STRATEGY
Staff require a 35 worded strategic statement or less reflecting the prime objective, boundaries and competitive advantages of the business. Using except diagrams to encapsulate the purpose, goals and intentions of the vision will help align their actions. Thereafter, performance reporting takes center stage. It reminds staff of deliverables, goals, KPIs versus current results.
Variance reporting is one of such that must not lose track of strategy, purpose and objectives. As it points out the gaps within the assumptions made, it must also highlight upcoming opportunities and threats perceived. Stress tests may be carried out reflecting on these opportunities and threats to mitigate any risks that may arise through policy directions.
DATA STRATEGY AND GOALS
Avoiding the mistake of labelling goals as strategy is paramount. This is often the case when executives call their strategy a "20/20 plan" referring to the achievement of a 20 percent increase in revenue and a more than 20 percent increase in profits without stipulating what will be done to achieve them.
If strategy must be communicated effectively, then decision support systems (DSS) must be in place to extract, transform and store the data needed to analyze the achievement of these strategic goals and objectives.
DSS is critical for the implementation of a data strategy which specifies the data needs for each role or team. It keeps KPIs, goals and targets with timelines easing the generation of ad-hoc operational and financial reports. Employees can nurture an emotional connection with their goals; but that does not guarantee their belief in them. Current realities must connect with the targets so employees cannot justify their self-limiting belief and fall into a state of situational unawareness.
PROPOSED VALUE AND CULTURE
Strategy must be built around four well-known value propositions: customer intimacy, operational excellence, product leadership and disruptive innovation. The industry life cycle stage may influence managers' choice of the most dominant value. For each value, a culture exists that promotes and helps the dominant value proposed to flourish.
Customer intimacy thrives on a collaboration culture where teams are predominantly market focused to outwit competition, promote growth and evaluate their contributions to the bottom line. Start-ups opting for this value proposition will opt for a clan culture to foster mentorship and high employee engagements.
Operational excellence thrives on control as its culture with a desire cost leadership and stability. Processes are clear and concise as the industry may be highly regulated. Product leadership opts for an adhocracy and competence culture. Its goal is to quickly identify market segments and to creatively serve them. Disruptive innovation champions technological breakthrough for the masses with a cultivation (charismatic) culture where brilliance is needed to self-actualize a project goal.
