“Execution is the Only Strategy That Consumers See”
The Hindu has an excellent article about innovation that overviews a new book by Ram Charan called “The Game Changer”. In it is a discussion of what makes a great innovative team. What stuck out for me was the role of the executor who makes sure milestones are met. The authors emphasize a great point about strategy and the customer:
“If you don’t execute, the consumer doesn’t care what the strategy was. Execution is the only strategy that consumers see.”
When you combine that statement with the miserable record that most companies have in executing strategies you begin to see why companies fail in this constantly changing business world.
How does your company do in the area of executing strategies? Do you have an innovation team? What are the key roles that are important on the innovation team?
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You’ve nailed this idea very well and this recent post from Strategic Thinking by John A. Warden III highlights the real reasons strategies languish or fail. Unless the execution of the enterprise strategy is everyone’s day job, its chance of success is limited.
Sun- thanks for commenting. I tried to link to the post you suggested but for some reason it links to one of my posts (?) The “every day” job comment is interesting because it assumes that lower levels (tactical) are linked up with the strategies of the company. I’ve found this to be very rare unless there are PMO-like processes that engage with a governance board of executives. This is not to say that it can’t happen; but it is very unlikely to happen without key organizational and process structures in place. Tell me about your experiences with this issue! We need to hear opinions and experiences in order to learn from each other.
Hey everybody (and Sun)- I found the link to Strategic Thinking by John A. Warden III. It’s http://venturist.com/wordpress/?p=22″ . Well worth reading. It has to do with the issue of lower level employees being interested in strategy and being rebuffed by executives. Wow!
Completely agree, that a poorly executed strategy is doomed to fail. However, if the development of the strategy itself is not based on fulfilling an identified consumer unmet need, the strategy is not on target and even if perfectly executed, it too will fail. Check us out on http://koslowmarketing.com to see why the basis of everything we do starts with the understanding of consumer needs.
Lisa- thanks for commenting. I’d love to hear more from you. From a project management point of view, I believe that most companies have a severe imbalance of marketing/demand projects as compared to infrastructure/supply projects, the latter overwhelming the former. This is mainly because “project management” tends to be the IT department’s responsibility vs. a corporate wide PMO-like function that addresses all projects and serves a governance board of executives. What has been your experience in terms of clients that do a good job of managing/balancing projects? Do they have a PMO function or something like it? How do you get a company to focus more on marketing/demand projects?
Bob, It truly is a balancing act. Frequently, it’s the financiers that get in the way of marketing demand projects. All marketers strive for that type of environment, but in these economic times this seems to be taking a back seat to the bottom line. Many of the companies I work with are CPG’s and the PMO function is handled between the Market Research and Marketing teams. They seem to do a really good job.
Lisa- fascinating that financiers can block an individual project. That’s why it is so important for a group of top execs to look at whether a project supports a company strategy; one project will often enable another project or strategy that IS extremely high in value and it might be in another part of the company. If the PMO function is handled by market research and marketing teams, do they consider the “supply/infrastructure” side also? Are this PMO presenting projects to a group of executives who represent all aspects of the company? If not, how do they maintain a balance between supply side and demand side projects?
Bob, the answer is yes to all of your questions, for the most part. Obviously, that is not the case in all companies, but the successful ones all work that way. Even in those that do, sometimes the bottom line is what drives what goes to market, rather than the well thought out strategic planned ideas.