Increasingly complex business challenges require organizations to sharpen their strategy management systems, not merely for survival but for sustained success and growth. Setting objectives, examining the competitive landscape, scrutinizing internal organizational aspects, assessing strategies, and ensuring their systematic implementation are integral components of strategic management.
This points out that professionals aspiring to excel in strategic management must cultivate a diverse set of skills and competencies, but are these enough? In an interview with Performance Magazine, Dana AlSaaïd, the Director of Corporate Performance Management for the Ministry of Economy and Planning in Saudi Arabia, emphasizes that analytical thinking and foresight competencies are critical to gaining a competitive advantage in the field. She also believes that professionals must possess a deep understanding of their industry and its operations to anticipate trends, identify opportunities, and make informed decisions.
However, excellence in strategy should not be confined to a single individual. It can manifest through collaborative efforts and diverse perspectives. Dr. Marc Sniukas, a strategy advisor and leadership coach, said in his interview with Performance Magazine, “Strategy is about collective sense-making, forming a shared view of what is going on, what is needed as a response, and how the organization will do that.”
Hence, having a heightened awareness of the organization’s strategy at the individual level is important. As indicated in The KPI Institute’s State of Strategy Management Practice – Global Report 2023, strategy awareness ensures that all stakeholders comprehend the strategic direction, objectives, and initiatives. It empowers employees, team leaders, and managers to “align their actions and decisions with the organization’s strategic goals,” per the report.
Reality presents a different picture. The report indicates that although 44% of participants agreed with the effectiveness of strategic planning practices, a significant segment (17%) still perceived disconnection from business needs. Findings also reveal that executives exhibit the highest level of strategy awareness at 40%, with middle management following at 16%, and lower management and employees each registering at 7%.
Another essential factor in building a shared understanding is effective strategy communication. According to the report, even if a notable percentage of organizations (31%) aspire to communicate the strategy to all levels, a smaller portion (28%) regards strategy communication as primarily focused on decision-makers only.
Leaders must also strive to develop an internal culture that recognizes the value of competence in strategy management. Jeroen Kraaijenbrink, cofounder of Strategy.Inc, stresses the importance of internalizing strategy within an organization rather than outsourcing it to consultants. He argues that organizations should make strategy an integral, systematic, and routinary business process.
Where should professionals looking to expand their skills start? One important move is gaining insight into the business environment and the current capabilities of one’s organization in strategy management to identify the areas that require additional learning. For instance, the report above reveals that a significant number of professionals rate their capabilities in managing key performance indicators (KPI), especially in the selection process, at the lowest level. With this, the report recommends investing in skills development and acquiring knowledge related to KPI selection, a process that ensures the accurate tracking of strategic objectives to build alignment between measurement and strategy.
Just as strategy adapts to disruptive times, individuals striving for success must also evolve. However, this evolution should not be arbitrary. Professionals must direct their efforts strategically to achieve meaningful skill expansion.
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Editor’s Note: This was originally published in Performance Magazine Issue No. 29, 2024 – Strategy Management Edition.
In an age characterized by rapid technological advancements and market shifts, the importance of strategy—whether corporate or business—cannot be overstated. A well-defined strategy is a roadmap that guides organizations through complex market dynamics and helps them identify opportunities while mitigating risks. Effective planning and execution of this roadmap hinges on a thorough examination of its core concepts. This approach starts with a clear understanding of the relevant terms as well as how concepts differ, complement, connect, and contribute to the entire process.
Business Strategy and Corporate Strategy
Both business strategy and corporate strategy are essential for a company’s success. However, they differ significantly in scope, focus, and decision-making levels.
Business Strategy
Business strategy encompasses the methods an organization employs to achieve its goals within a specific business unit. It serves as a framework for generating value through the production and delivery of goods or services while focusing on effective competition within a particular market. This strategy includes allocating resources to execute the chosen approach as well as making decisions regarding the capabilities and activities crucial for market success. By concentrating on specific units, business strategies enable organizations to respond smoothly to market changes and customer demands.
Corporate Strategy
Conversely, corporate strategy outlines the overall plan for a corporation with multiple business units, focusing on achieving objectives at the highest strategic level. This broader approach manages the business portfolio to create value and ensure alignment with the corporation’s vision. It involves making critical decisions about where to compete across various industries and markets, including which businesses to enter or exit and considerations regarding diversification and strategic alliances. This high-level perspective is essential for guiding the organization toward sustainable growth and profitability.
Despite their differences, both business and corporate strategies are vital for a corporation’s overall success. Combined, they serve as a comprehensive framework for navigating the complexities of the modern business landscape.
Vision and mission statements serve distinct but complementary purposes, together forming a comprehensive framework for an organization’s direction.
Vision Statement
A vision statement articulates an organization’s long-term aspirations and desired future state. It inspires stakeholders by outlining what the organization aims to achieve in the future. Typically broad and aspirational, vision statements paint a clear picture of ultimate goals. For instance, Rockwater Energy Solutions’—a subsidiary of Brown & Root/Halliburton—vision statement is “As our customers’ preferred provider, we shall be the industry leader in providing the highest standards of safety and quality to our clients.”
Mission Statement
In contrast, a mission statement defines the organization’s current purpose and the specific actions it takes to achieve its objectives. It outlines what the organization does, who it serves, and how it operates daily. Mission statements are more concrete and focused, often detailing core values and guiding principles. For example, LinkedIn’s mission is “to connect the world’s professionals to make them more productive and successful.”
Together, the vision statement establishes long-term goals while the mission statement describes current objectives necessary to achieve those goals. This dual framework guides organizational activities and aligns stakeholders toward a common purpose.
Strategic Planning and Operational Planning
Synchronizing strategic planning and operational planning promote consistency in decision-making, but they serve different purposes and focus on varied timeframes.
Strategic Planning
Strategic planning involves outlining the future direction of an entity, which can be an organization, department, or individual. This process includes identifying goals and determining the methods to achieve them.
Typically spanning three to five years, strategic planning is a long-term process that evolves, allowing for annual adjustments. This plan is developed by top management, including the leaders, board members and other executives, while considering the external business environment, such as competition and market trends.
For a strong strategy, strategic planning should adopt a systematic approach. This includes clarifying the organization’s current state, analyzing the external environment, defining its mission and values, developing strategic themes, setting objectives with key performance indicators (KPIs), identifying initiatives, and regularly reviewing the strategic plan to ensure alignment and adaptability.
Operational Planning
Operational planning supports the strategic plan by aligning day-to-day activities with tactical execution. It plays a crucial role in achieving organizational goals through detailed short-term plans specific to departments. An effective operational plan includes several essential characteristics to ensure successful execution. It starts with an introduction and situation report, followed by an overview of tasks, objectives, and overarching goals.
The plan outlines the methods to be used, necessary resources (personnel, equipment, and supplies), and timelines with benchmarks and milestones. It defines the administrative structure, operating budget, and funding acquisition strategy. Roles and responsibilities are clearly specified, including required competencies for personnel. Monitoring mechanisms are established with relevant indicators. Finally, the plan includes provisions for reporting, all contributing to a comprehensive framework that aligns daily operations with strategic objectives.
SWOT Analysis and PESTLE Analysis
SWOT and PESTLE analyses are strategic tools designed to evaluate the internal and external forces affecting organizations. By using SWOT analysis to examine an organization’s internal capabilities and PESTLE analysis to assess its external environment, organizations can develop strategies to proactively address challenges and effectively plan for future initiatives.
SWOT Analysis
SWOT analysis identifies an organization’s internal strengths and weaknesses, as well as external opportunities and threats. This assessment informs strategic decisions by emphasizing strengths, addressing weaknesses, and capitalizing on opportunities while mitigating potential threats.
PESTLE Analysis
PESTLE analysis evaluates external factors influencing an organization, including political, economic, social, technological, legal, and environmental aspects. This framework helps assess a company’s objectives by identifying and analyzing crucial drivers of change in the external environment.
Both SWOT and PESTLE analyses serve as effective starting points for strategy formulation, offering valuable insights for business development and marketing efforts. Conducting these analyses enhances an organization’s understanding of its competitors and provides the insights necessary to gain a competitive advantage. Approaching them requires realism and attention to detail.
OKRs and the BSC
After defining their strategies through strategic and operational planning, organizations must measure progress effectively. Both objectives and key results (OKRs) and the balanced scorecard (BSC) follow a similar process of setting objectives, tracking progress, analyzing results, and making data-driven decisions.
OKRs and the BSC emphasize the importance of establishing clear objectives, promoting transparent communication about goal achievement, serving as strategic tools, and ensuring measurability across all organizational levels. This approach enables the effective communication of priorities throughout the organization.
Objectives and Key Results
OKRs are a goal-setting framework that organizations use to define and track their objectives and associated outcomes. The objectives component outlines what an organization aims to achieve, while the key results specify measurable outcomes indicating progress toward those objectives.
While both OKRs and the BSC are strategic management tools, they differ in several key aspects. OKRs prioritize ambitious, aspirational goals and encourage a bottom-up, decentralized approach to goal-setting and achievement. They often have a shorter-term focus, with quarterly reviews and adjustments. Additionally, OKRs emphasize intrinsic motivation and empower teams to take ownership of their work.
Furthermore, OKRs are best suited for organizations that thrive on innovation, agility, and employee empowerment. They are ideal for fast-paced, dynamic environments where adaptability is key. By focusing on ambitious goals and empowering teams, OKRs can drive significant growth and transformation.
Balanced Scorecard
In contrast, the BSC is a framework aimed at managing strategy in a balanced way across four key perspectives: financial, customer, internal processes, and learning and growth. It offers clarity regarding strategy and ensures that activities are aligned with strategic objectives.
The BSC typically focuses on more traditional, top-down, and centralized approaches to strategic planning and execution. They often involve longer-term objectives and KPIs, and they prioritize a balanced perspective that considers various aspects of value creation. While OKRs are more flexible and adaptable, the BSC provides a more structured and standardized framework for strategic management.
The BSC is well-suited for organizations that prioritize stability, control, and long-term planning. It is particularly effective in regulated industries or large, complex organizations that require a structured approach to performance management.
Knowing the differences between them will enable organizations to choose the right tool for the job and collaborate smoothly, eliminating uncertainty and driving efficiency. With this collective understanding, organizations can steer their roadmaps with goal-driven direction and purposeful synchronization.
In their 1985 paper “Of Strategies, Deliberate and Emergent,” Henry Mintzberg and James A. Waters describe strategic planning as a continuum. There is deliberate strategic planning on one end and emergent strategic planning on the opposite.
Deliberate strategic planning represents a structured, systematic approach to strategy development that emphasizes a planned, intentional, and coherent process whereby organizations set clear objectives and design strategies to achieve them. This approach presupposes a stable environment where goals and actions align closely.
On the other hand, an emergent strategy is more adaptive, arising from patterns of action rather than premeditated plans. While emergent strategies thrive on flexibility and responsiveness, deliberate strategies emphasize clarity, predictability, and alignment with long-term objectives.
Despite the growing popularity of emergent strategic planning, the deliberate approach remains vital for corporations aiming for sustainable success. One of its core strengths lies in the distinct roles it ascribes to top management and middle managers. In the deliberate process, top management acts as architects of the strategy, setting overarching goals and ensuring alignment with the organization’s vision, while middle managers focus on operationalizing these strategies and managing their implementation.
As outlined by J. Scott Armstrong in his paper on the importance of value planning in making strategic decisions, deliberate strategic planning unfolds in four distinct phases, with each phase contributing to securing stakeholder commitment. Before diving into these phases, it is important to recognize that historical data serves as one of the cornerstones of the process. Organizations rely on their data repository to provide past performance metrics and external trends.
Top management can utilize historical data to identify patterns, trends, and benchmarks, which they can then use to design actionable plans. Meanwhile, middle managers can use this data to refine tactical operations, ensuring that daily activities align with strategic objectives. Having a robust data architecture not only allows a company to more accurately analyze what has happened but also to forecast future trends, mitigate risks, and design strategies grounded in evidence rather than conjecture. With this foundation, organizations can proceed through the deliberate strategic planning phases with clear direction.
Defining Long-Term Objectives: The first phase involves defining the company’s long-term goals or ultimate objectives. These goals must align with the aspirations and priorities of various stakeholders, such as employees, investors, and customers. Tools like stakeholder analysis can identify key interests and concerns, while SWOT analysis evaluates the organization’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Furthermore, in later stages of this planning process, the use of SMART criteria—specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound—ensures the clear statement and actionability of goals. By integrating these tools, companies create a foundation for a cohesive strategic vision that resonates across all stakeholder groups.
Generating Strategies: The second phase centers on generating strategies and alternative approaches to achieving these long-term goals. Companies must consider comprehensive strategies that incorporate slack resources—such as additional time, finances, or facilities—to account for uncertainty and enhance the plan’s flexibility. Generating alternative strategies is a crucial practice that bolsters adaptability. Techniques such as brainstorming sessions, unstructured group meetings, and scenario planning encourage creativity and provide contingency options. This phase ensures that the organization has a repertoire of well-thought-out strategies ready to deploy, even in dynamic or unpredictable environments.
Evaluating Strategies: After developing strategies and alternatives, the third phase evaluates their feasibility in relation to the first phase’s objectives. This evaluation process ensures that the proposed strategies are realistic, effective, and aligned with the company’s mission. Methods such as checklists, the Delphi technique, and the Devil’s Advocate approach provide structured ways to scrutinize strategies. For instance, a checklist can ensure that all critical factors, such as resource availability and market conditions, are considered. The Delphi technique harnesses internal expert consensus, whereas the Devil’s Advocate method identifies potential flaws or risks. This rigorous evaluation phase narrows down the list of strategies to those most likely to succeed.
Strategy Monitoring and Implementation: The final phase involves systematically monitoring the results of implemented strategies. Companies should establish a feedback system with clearly defined intervals—such as quarterly or semi-annual reviews—to assess performance and make necessary adjustments. This system must account for changes in external factors, such as economic, technological, geopolitical, and social shifts, as well as internal factors like evolving strengths, weaknesses, and competitive actions. Key performance indicators (KPIs) serve as a critical tool for monitoring progress, enabling organizations to measure outcomes against predefined benchmarks. Integrating KPIs into the company’s performance management system and linking them to the organizational incentive system ensures accountability and motivates stakeholders to align their efforts with strategic goals.
Securing Stakeholder Commitment
A deliberate plan significantly enhances a company’s ability to secure stakeholder commitments throughout the process. A well-structured plan not only communicates the company’s long-term objectives but also fosters a sense of ownership among stakeholders. For instance, engaging stakeholders in the development of alternative strategies allows them to voice their concerns and align their interests with the organization’s goals.
Similarly, an accurate feedback and monitoring system ensures transparency, showing stakeholders how their contributions influence outcomes and incentivizing them to remain invested in the strategy’s success. This is especially crucial in large corporations where the different parts of the organization must work in alignment with the organization’s objective.
Strategic Foundation
Deliberate strategic planning remains an indispensable tool for organizations, offering clarity, structure, and alignment in an increasingly complex business environment. While emergent strategies provide flexibility and responsiveness, deliberate strategies establish a solid foundation that guides decision-making and ensures consistency.
Technology such as big data further enhances this process by equipping organizations with more comprehensive and timely datasets to generate actionable insights, maintain advantages, and refine strategies with greater precision. Furthermore, many companies could benefit from leveraging both approaches, enabling top management to define clear objectives while empowering all levels of management to adapt and innovate. This integrated approach ensures that organizations remain resilient, adaptable, and primed for success in the face of evolving challenges.
Putting up a business in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region is a journey of navigating unique opportunities and challenges. The MENA region presents a dynamic environment for entrepreneurs and established corporations due to its diverse markets, rich cultural heritage, and fast-growing economies. However, thriving in this region requires more than looking outward. It starts with internal clarity—a well-crafted strategy that seamlessly integrates planning, measurement, and execution.
Strategy Planning
According to the State of Strategy Management Practice – 2024 MENA Region Report, 76% of organizations in the region utilize a formal approach to strategic planning and 56% of respondents review strategy annually or every three years. However, while 39% employ a consistent process without relying on a specific methodology, 37% adopt a structured approach based on established techniques and tools.
Based on these statistics, Cristina Mihăiloaie, a Strategy and Performance Management Expert and Chief Operating Officer at The KPI Institute, explained in a webinar that deliberate strategy planning is the predominant approach in the MENA region. Deliberate strategy planning is a structured process in organizations, where a clear strategy is developed through a strong top-down and bottom-up engagement, ensuring high strategy awareness and effective communication.
However, Bori Péntek, a Management Consultant at Systaems who specializes in organizational development and human resource management, believes that deliberate strategy planning is too complicated to achieve success on its own, “Mostly, it offers an illusion of stability that is not there anymore in the external or internal environment. A lot of things have to work very well for the deliberate strategy to work.” Thus, achieving effective strategy planning in the MENA region requires balancing structured formal methods with adaptable informal approaches or emergent strategic planning. Emergent strategic planning allows organizations to adapt to change by prioritizing flexibility and iterative processes over traditional linear methods. Implementing such an approach is also shaped by the organization’s size and unique industry characteristics.
Moreover, identifying potential obstacles early enables proactive risk management. This approach allows organizations to create effective contingency plans that minimize risks and enhance their strategies. Once the plan is established, the focus shifts to strategy measurement—monitoring progress using key performance indicators (KPIs), frameworks, target setting, and automation to ensure objectives are met.
In the MENA region, the balanced scorecard (BSC) continues to be the most widely used performance management system (PMS) with 40% of respondents claiming their organization uses the framework. It is followed by objectives and key results (OKRs) at 34%, which has grown by 70% in popularity compared to last year due to its short-term focus that boosts agility and flexibility. However, many still claim that there is no formal PMS in place (36%), a significant increase from 24% in 2023.
Moreover, a large proportion of organizations in MENA continue to face challenges in working with KPIs, with 32% struggling to select the right KPIs, 20% having difficulty aligning KPIs and targets across the organization, and 17% encountering issues in collecting performance results for KPIs.
With Bori’s experience as a management consultant, she shared, “Irrespective of whether you use BSC or OKRs, you’re going to have these challenges. It’s not about selecting one system and just going along with it. It’s about leveraging the strength of each system by thinking wisely about where they can be used.”
Thus, it is recommended that organizations consider creating a hybrid PMS to overcome challenges related to KPI selection, target setting, and aligning strategic initiatives with broader organizational goals. A hybrid system combines KPIs to track routine business activities with OKRs to assess the success of strategic initiatives. This approach ensures that day-to-day operations are efficiently managed while strategic goals are clearly defined and actively pursued.
Building on strategy measurement, the focus now shifts to execution, where organizations turn plans into results. This phase involves overcoming challenges such as fostering collaboration, integrating new technologies, and adapting to market changes. As globalization and digital transformation reshape industries, translating strategy into results has become more complex. Effective execution also relies on strong project management, initiative prioritization, and organizational agility, ensuring businesses remain adaptable in a dynamic environment.
In the MENA region, most organizations (39%) report success in strategy execution, while a substantial number (44%) remain neutral about their execution capabilities. When asked about the reasons for strategy failure, the top three responses were ineffective cross-functional collaboration (42%), lack of leadership support (40%), slow decision-making and approval (33%), and insufficient resources for projects to succeed (33%).
To address cross-functional collaboration, Cristina advised nurturing the right rituals. “Procedures become quickly obsolete, but rituals are what we do and how we do it, are the unwritten rules that govern the workplace. It’s not necessarily about the work procedure, it is more about how people come together and get things done.”
She also added that it’s important to create multidisciplinary teams rather than work in silos, to have regular performance meetings and use KPIs to understand the business better, to challenge selves constructively, and to promote transparency and collaboration in problem-solving.
The State of Strategy Management Practice – 2024 MENA Region Report can serve as a starting point—a guide to navigating the complexities of strategy planning, measurement, and execution. This report, a collaboration between The KPI Institute and Systaems, explores challenges and success factors in business planning, strategic transparency, performance management systems, KPI deployment, project management, organizational agility, AI adoption, automation, and more. It gathers insights from executives, managers, and strategy experts, while also featuring best practices shared by professionals in the field. Click HERE to download the full report.
With new trends and disruptions arising every day, companies are focusing now on coming up with new innovative ideas before their competitors do. Sometimes, this is done without ensuring whether strategies, operations, people, organizational capabilities, and resources are all aligned together and directed toward the purpose for which they started their businesses.
Of course, companies do know that all of their business elements should be organized and aligned together to reach their purposes. However, some could get lost in the new trending concepts without reviewing strategies and ensuring that their employees’ behaviors and actions are directed by the company’s strategy.
Having a well-documented strategy that looks great in meetings and presentations is not enough. Company leaders and managers should make sure that the strategy is well-communicated throughout the organizations, starting from the CEO of the company to the most junior person in the company; in other words, it should be aligned vertically and horizontally.
Understanding the definition of strategic alignment
Strategic alignment “is the process in which the formerly developed strategy is executed and cascaded throughout the organization. It includes the calibration of the organization’s culture, staff, structure and governance with the strategy.” This means that employees need to witness and become aware of their contributions to the organization’s strategy.
Having all business aspects aligned together is a fundamental state for organizational effectiveness. A common agreement about goals and processes is present in a well-aligned company which occurs at two levels: horizontally and vertically. Horizontal alignment refers to the harmonization of strategic goals and performance measures employed in the different business units. Meanwhile, vertical alignment refers to the transfer of the company’s vision and mission with certain strategic goals down the hierarchy.
Not having a strategic alignment within your business is highly costly; you could lose your key talent employees, valuable customers, resources, and time. Moreover, departments might even work in an isolated zone from the company’s road map wherein each department or entity will be working and making decisions based on their own departmental strategies. Setting a strategy or having a strategic meeting is not a waste of time.
Brightline conducted a survey in 2017 of 100 respondents from large companies and explained that communication throughout the organization and in all directions is fundamental for strategic evolution. The survey illustrated that leaders bolster the two-way flow of information between top executives and people in the company because it is very effective in delivering strategy across the company. David Kamenetzky, Chief Strategy & External Affairs Officer at brewer Anheuser-Busch InBev, explained that “Vertical communication within the business cannot fall into the trap of flowing one way—from the top, it is actually about tapping expertise throughout the organization. You have to do a certain element of consultation and even co-creation. It is about making sure the strategy is and remains right.”
So, what could be done to have a strategic alignment?Below are a few tips that could help in developing a strategic alignment within your organization:
Revisit your strategy and make sure it is well-developed and serves the main purpose of the company. The KPI Institute certified course on Strategy and Business Planning Professional can help with this issue.
Conduct a strategy/strategic meeting that includes all relevant stakeholders(leaders, managers, seniors) for developing/updating and executing your strategy.
Make sure that your leadership and managerial styles serve your strategy. You don’t want to have styles that block the execution of your strategy.
Make sure that communication is clear within your organization and it flows in both directions (top-down and down-top).
Make sure that there is coordination between departments through conducting meetings to ensure that their processes, strategies, and priorities are aligned with the company’s overall business strategy.
Events and company meetings that gather all employees across the organization are important. Those events or meetings could remind the employees of the company’s purpose and strategy as well as their future plans, just to make sure that they are seeing the big picture of their roles.
In conclusion, strategic alignment is a crucial element for business success. Business owners should be aware of its importance and this is the most important step for executing it internally. Making sure from time to time that all your employees are aware of the firm’s main purpose, is not a waste of time. It has a direct positive impact not only on your employees but on your overall business as well.
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Editor’s Note: This article was first published on December 9, 2023 and was last updated on November 9, 2024.
