Initiatestrategyconsideration

Importantly, execution is part of the strategy, in order to effectively execute strategic initiatives for delivering higher than expected results consistently.

The blurring line of business border and the uncharted frontier of an organization provides both unprecedented opportunities and emergent risks that directly impact the survival of the business. 

In order to craft a good strategy, the corporate management has to have abilities to ask the hard questions and engage in meaningful dialogues constantly. "When is a strategy not a successful strategy?" Part of the issue is that there is usually no coherent strategy.

"One-size fits all" approach would be considered not a good strategy because there is no differentiation: Change is the new normal with increasing speed, organizations across the vertical sectors are faced with fierce competitions and frequent disruptions. Thus, if you are not innovative, you will become irrelevant for the long term. The management needs to ask themselves tough questions: Is "standard" being opposed to "strategic"? Or is a short-term operational view opposite to a long-term strategic view? Logic or creativity, which one is more critical to craft a good strategy? Etc.

Traditional strategy emphasis has been on logic over creativity. But innovation is the light all forward-looking organizations are pursuing, thus, strategy needs to strike the right balance between creativity and standardization. Organizational strategy management best practices need to be flexed to allow strategic thinking to emerge across the organization to improve business agility and competency. A strategy can’t be formulated by purely deductive logic - otherwise, it is a plan which is outdated sooner than what you think of. Thus, there is no such a "one size fits all" strategy.

Strategy is not a strategy if it is based on merely wishful thinking, not backed by solid reasoning: Statistically, strategy management has a very low success rate. Strategy fails if it is not based on internal and external knowledge of the company, not considering organizational capacities, as well as not being based on account of all your operational realities. To oversee strategy development, make sure your strategy has the detail behind it and creates a roadmap that you will deliver on. To accept imperfect knowledge and make assessments of the "As is" position of the business, identify the desirable "To be" state, build and execute a dynamic strategy and the associated change programs that enable the "To be" state to be achieved, with a set of processes and activities that keep it dynamic.

Have senior management involved in the iterative strategy management processes, to make timely adjustment, and maximize the full potential of the digital organization. Capability based strategy has a significantly high success rate. Corporate executives need to assess the condition or suitability of capability to support a well-defined business strategy. Then, go down to a second-tier, oversee the program portfolio tier to build business capabilities.

Strategy is not a strategy when it is not considered internal or external business factors: A dynamic strategy has to consider both the internal environment (talent, resources, processes, capabilities, systems, structure, culture, stakeholders, etc.) and external environment (social, political, economic, technological, industry, market, stakeholders, etc.) If these things are not taken into consideration, it is not a good strategy. It’s important to strengthen the weakest links in strategy management, and determine how each part of the organization, including all of the key functions must "put it all together" to be successful in implementing a good enough strategy.

The strategy is not a strategy when isolated from the business ecosystem. The digital ecosystem is dynamic, hyper-connected, interdependent, expansive. It provides unprecedented opportunities to strike a dynamic balance between the inner and outer business elements; motivate a group of people, including a variety of stakeholders, toward accomplishing shared visions and goals. For many organizations, ecosystems have evolved without much attention or planning. Forethoughtful organizations intentionally plan a purposeful ecosystem for catalyzing innovation and improving organizational maturity.

Effective strategies come in all shapes and sizes. For some organizations, the entire strategy is simply a high-level roadmap with key initiatives and target dates. In others, it could be a comprehensive play book that addresses every imaginable avenue. Importantly, execution is part of the strategy, in order to effectively execute strategic initiatives for delivering higher than expected performance results consistently.

Posted in: Execution,Strategy