Hack:
Innovating business strategy

To innovate strategy we need to have a good undersanding of how it comes about. Hereafter, a glimpse at the approach that I advocate.

As holds true for all business-processes, the strategic planning uses an organized approach to achieve its objective, namely mobilize the live-forces of the organization, and to get them going in a given direction at a given speed.

Let me point out the salient points of this process.

It starts with the strategy fundamentals or the business-model, which features:

° the vision of what we want and what we can vs. the market forces ° the mission & the means (including constraints and critical checkpoints) ° the fundamental success factors (such as the talents, the organizational capabilities, innovation).

The leadership must check whether the strategy fundamentals work in concert with the other 5 <S> of the corporate identity, namely: the Style of the leadership, the Systems of management, the Structures of the organization, and – last but not least – the Shared capabilities. As Peter Drucker said “Culture eats strategy for breakfast”. I would add, like the Chester Cat in Alice in Wonderland, unless the 5 <S> work synergistically, it does not matter what strategy is chosen because any of them will all lead to doomsland.

Now then, the senior and the operations management have to work together on putting the business-model on the road. They take it step-by-step as follows.

-1- The senior management checks & challenges (a) the forecasts submitted by the operations management (b) the results achieved by the previous strategy planning process. So, we are looking at the past inside/out.

-2- The Alert & Innovation Commission submits its report(s) on the happenings & trends that may affect the opportunities & threads of the enterprise. Here we are looking at the future outside/in.

-3- Based on the previous two steps, the senior and the operations management get together to develop the strategic plans and the synergies between the plans, the people, and the strategic projects.

-4- The senior management deploys the strategies. I use a highly participatory approach based on <Hoshin Kanri>. (See Prof. Y. Akao “Hoshin Kanri” or W. A. Sussland “The Innovative Enterprise” 2^nd edition)

-5- Before starting the next round of strategic planning, the approach and the results of the previous strategic planning must be reviewed, improved, innovated.

With the right talents and the right time and the right approach strategy should be well organized. However, these days, strategies may not be valid for long. Thus, it is essential to have well trained people and a well organized approach so that changes can be put into gear timely, deployed timely, and innovations be implemented swiftly.