{"id":4128,"date":"2016-01-06T14:56:46","date_gmt":"2016-01-06T13:56:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.strimgroup.com\/en\/?p=4128"},"modified":"2020-07-11T07:55:12","modified_gmt":"2020-07-11T05:55:12","slug":"strategy-development-execution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.strimgroup.com\/en\/blog\/strategy-development-execution\/","title":{"rendered":"Strategy Development & Execution"},"content":{"rendered":"

It is striking how much confusion there is between strategy<\/strong>, implementation<\/strong>, and execution<\/strong>. Is \u201cstrategy\u201d a matter of making choices about where we want to go, where we play and how we win, of setting goals and actions, about how we create and capture economic value over time? Does it include creating solutions to unforeseen problems and running with unexpected opportunities? Is \u201cgetting things done\u201d what we mean by implementation or execution? Do you \u201cexecute\u201d or \u201cimplement\u201d a strategy?\u00a0 And can you separate these from strategy formation<\/strong>?<\/p>\n

For many business leaders the semantics do not matter. That\u2019s too bad because the semantics should matter.\u00a0 There are meaningful distinctions between strategy, implementation, and execution that are helpful to running a company or business in the real world. Ignoring, blurring, or getting them wrong creates sloppy thinking, deciding, and doing at all levels of an organization.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s start with strategy<\/span><\/h3>\n

To my mind strategy consists of two categories: corporate strategy<\/strong> and business unit strategy<\/strong>. Corporate strategy consists of CEOs and top executives making just three basic choices:<\/p>\n

    \n
  • What should be the capabilities that distinguish the company?<\/li>\n
  • What should be the company\u2019s comparative advantage in adding value to its individual businesses?<\/li>\n
  • What businesses should the company be in?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    These are the fundamental choices that a corporate strategy comprises and they should frame and guide all the decisions that a company\u2019s corporate executives, functions, and staff make every day, including how they run the place, what they buy, what markets they enter, how they measure success, and so on.<\/p>\n

    For a business unit, there are also three key decisions that cannot be delegated by its leader. They are different but no less fundamental:<\/p>\n

      \n
    • Who should be the customers<\/strong> that define our target market?<\/li>\n
    • What should be the value proposition<\/strong> that differentiates our products and services with those customers?<\/li>\n
    • What should be the capabilities<\/strong> that make our business better than any other in delivering that value proposition?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

      These are the choices that a business strategy comprises and they should drive the decisions a business unit\u2019s management team, functions, and staff make every day, including pricing, R&D, where to manufacture, and many more.<\/p>\n

      This brings me to implementation<\/span><\/h3>\n

      Implementing a strategy consists of all the decisions and activities required to turn the two sets of strategic choices I\u2019ve just described into reality.\u00a0\u00a0 If the corporation has the capabilities, enterprise advantage, and business portfolio it wants, its strategy is implemented. If the unit has the customers, value proposition, and skills it has chosen to have, its strategy is also fully implemented.<\/p>\n

      Of course, almost by definition, a strategy can never actually be fully implemented because everything that you necessarily assumed when formulating it \u2014 about customers, technology, regulation, competitors, and so on \u2014 is in a constant state of flux. CEOs and their business unit leaders must continuously evolve their strategies (i.e., those fundamental choices listed above) if they are to remain relevant and competitive. And if that\u2019s the case, there will always be a gap between where their companies are and what their strategies call for. Closing that gap is \u201cimplementation.\u201d Thus, strategy and implementation are running almost continuously in parallel rather than in sequence.<\/p>\n

      What, then, is execution?<\/span><\/h3>\n

      I define the term as the decisions and activities you undertake in order to turn your implemented strategy into commercial success. To achieve \u201cexecution excellence<\/strong>\u201d is to realize the best possible results a strategy and its implementation will allow.<\/p>\n

      Strategy, implementation, and execution<\/strong> are three co-incident determinants of a company or business unit\u2019s ultimate output \u2014 its results \u2014 that are very difficult to parse into their individual effects. When we see a company or business unit producing poor results over multiple years, no one can say for sure whether that\u2019s due to poor strategy, implementation, or execution. But in my experience, it\u2019s very difficult to implement a poor strategy well and doubly difficult to produce excellent results with a poor strategy that\u2019s being poorly implemented.<\/p>\n

      The distinctions\u00a0<\/strong>are not between thinking and doing, deciding and acting, or planning and producing<\/strong>. All of these kinds of activities are involved in all three of strategy, implementation, and execution. Does that make strategy, implementation, and execution the same thing? Absolutely not. They each involve very different specific activities, tools, and people.\u00a0 And when business leaders conflate strategy, implementation, and execution, they usually end up with a lot of the trappings of running a modern-day company or business unit \u2014 such as goals and targets; plans and initiatives; and mission, vision, and purpose statements \u2014 but very little actual strategy, implementation, or execution.<\/p>\n

       <\/p>\n

      Now please share your point of view with us!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      It is striking how much confusion there is between strategy, implementation, and execution. Is \u201cstrategy\u201d a matter of making choices about where we want to go, where we play and how we win, of setting goals and actions, about how we create and capture economic value over time? Does it include creating solutions to unforeseen […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[692,691],"tags":[19,286,285],"class_list":["post-4128","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-strategy-development","category-strategy-execution","tag-strategy","tag-strategy-execution","tag-strategy-implementation"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.strimgroup.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4128","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.strimgroup.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.strimgroup.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.strimgroup.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.strimgroup.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4128"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.strimgroup.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4128\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12352,"href":"https:\/\/www.strimgroup.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4128\/revisions\/12352"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.strimgroup.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.strimgroup.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.strimgroup.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}