Strategy & Execution

Businesses rely on strategies to accomplish goals efficiently and successfully. Strategic execution is a process for implementing a plan that helps define tasks and who completes them.

If you’re a manager or work on a team that develops and implements strategies in the workplace, then learning more about strategy execution and how to do it could be useful.

You’ve set organizational goals and formulated a strategic plan. Now, how do you ensure it gets done?

Strategy execution is the implementation of a strategic plan in an effort to reach organizational goals. It comprises the daily structures, systems, and operational goals that set your team up for success.

Even the best strategic plans can fall flat without the right execution. In fact, the gap between strategic planning and execution is where most businesses fail to reach their strategic goals.

How can you equip yourself and your team to implement the plans you’ve crafted? Here are five keys to successful strategy execution you can use at your organization.

KEYS TO SUCCESSFUL STRATEGY EXECUTION

  1. Commit to a Strategic Plan

Committing to a strategic plan before beginning implementation ensures all decision-makers and their teams are aligned on the same goals. This creates a shared understanding of the larger strategic plan throughout the organization.

Strategies aren’t stagnant—they should evolve with new challenges and opportunities. Communication is critical to ensuring you and your colleagues start on the same page and stay aligned as time goes on.

  1. Communicate Clearly to Empower Employees

Strategy execution is about much more than following plans. Employees will struggle to execute company goals if they don’t understand what’s expected of them. You can’t achieve your strategic goals without your team executing daily, and you can’t expect your team to perform effectively without clearly communicating the strategy. Everyone needs to understand how their role contributes to the company’s strategic goals.

  1. Measure and Monitor Performance

To identify success, you must constantly assess performance. At the beginning of the strategy execution process, you should have determined success in numerical terms. These key performance indicators will help you evaluate performance and progress toward goals. When you set measurable goals, you can track and measure your progress and make necessary adjustments.

  1. Make sure strategy is supported by the Culture of the organization, including its values

Create and maintain the right cultural fit for the strategy. When companies get the culture right–by aligning it to the strategy–there is a much higher rate of success than when culture is not aligned to strategy. The importance of culture is well understood in the business community, but understanding how it can affect the execution of even the most well-crafted business plan is critical.

  1. Align strategy with the roles and duties of the employees as well as the market the organization serves

Have a clear focus on the customer. Irrespective of the number of strategies a company is executing. Ensure that the roles of each employee are clearly specified in the execution of the strategy. One barrier many companies face in strategy execution is that employees’ roles aren’t designed with strategy in mind.

Strategy execution depends on each member of your organization’s daily tasks and decisions, so it’s vital to ensure everyone understands not only the company’s broader strategic goals, but how their individual responsibilities make achieving them possible.

 

CONCLUSION

Strategy execution is the application or implementation of a strategic plan to reach organizational goals. It’s the structures and systems that you use to make your team successful.

Your organization has set goals and created a strategic plan but the best way to make sure you achieve the goals is by executing your corporate strategy.

Strategic planning is a great way to plan for the future, but businesses are at risk of failing to achieve their goals without proper execution.

At Knight and Bishop Consultancy, we are a Growth Business Support and Transformation Services organization with expertise in Organizational Structuring, Business Process Management, Market Access, Performance Enhancement and Capacity Building.