After years of reengineering, downsizing and optimizing operational
efficiencies, companies are now focusing on new ways to generate distinctive
competitive advantages. Strategic planning is back, but with a difference: it is
no longer the domain of the CEO and senior executives.
Smart organizations are changing the way strategy is handled. To keep the
planning process close to the realities of markets, today’s strategists say it
should include key customers, end-users and suppliers. Such a key element is a
revolutionary step in strategic planning but necessary to help produce what
customers really want.
Robert S. Kaplan and David P. Norton, authors of The Strategy-Focused
Organization, are the originators of the Balanced Scorecard, a system for
measuring strategic performance. They emphasize the importance of making
strategy “everyone’s everyday job.”
Today, strategy is the concern of everyone from the top down through middle
managers, team leaders, and front-line employees. And it is even more so at the
critical interface between customer and company, i.e. customer services, sales
and marketing.
Important concepts covered in the full 2,000-word article:
Why Strategy Is so Important
How it Misses the Boat
Where Should We Put our Efforts (and Why)?
What Do We Bring to the Table?
Do our Capabilities Suit our Position?
How Strategy Is a Continuous Process
Failure to Execute
Measuring Strategy and Fallacies
The Balanced Scorecard
Resources on strategy
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