Comments on: “Execution is the Only Strategy That Consumers See”

By: Lisa Koslow

Lisa Koslow — Tue, 06 May 2008 13:58:27 +0000

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.

By: Bob Turek

Bob Turek — Mon, 05 May 2008 15:33:53 +0000

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?

By: Lisa Koslow

Lisa Koslow — Mon, 05 May 2008 13:56:16 +0000

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.

By: Bob Turek

Bob Turek — Fri, 02 May 2008 21:37:18 +0000

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?

By: Lisa Koslow

Lisa Koslow — Thu, 01 May 2008 16:19:00 +0000

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.

By: Bob Turek

Bob Turek — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 16:47:38 +0000

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!

By: Bob Turek

Bob Turek — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 16:39:35 +0000

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.

By: Sun Tzu

Sun Tzu — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 12:49:08 +0000

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.