Bridging the Gap Between Strategy Development and Strategy Execution

In today’s fast-paced business world, crafting a brilliant strategic plan is only half the battle.

The real challenge for most firms, regardless of their size, lies in effectively executing and implementing their strategy.

What Are Some Missteps in Bridging the Strategy and Execution Gap?

In my consulting experience, I have seen many companies try to address this challenge with performance management.

While performance management is crucial for monitoring strategic performance, it does not bridge the gap between strategy and execution.

Similarly, organisations often invest in training and developing employees for specific responsibilities. Yet, results frequently remain unchanged because these initiatives do not address the root cause.

As a result, organisational growth stagnates and employees feel overworked and unappreciated.

Why? Because they strive to achieve greater goals by simply working harder without improving their methods.

The key to effective strategy execution: business process management.

This demonstrates that although performance management and training offer benefits, they do not resolve the problem of strategy execution.

The proven way to close this gap is through a business process management (BPM) approach: continuously improving and reengineering business processes to align with and support strategic goals.

Chasing strategic goals from a business process perspective helps organisations enhance resource allocation and utilisation, ensuring the right resources address the right problems at the right time with the right solutions.

Let’s consider an everyday example:

Consider a teenager who performs poorly in school. Initially, everyone might suggest longer study hours (working more), extra classes (training) and more routine follow-ups (performance measurement).

However, if we examine this from a process perspective, looking at how the individual assimilates information and learns, we might discover they have special needs.

Addressing these needs by aligning the teaching method with their learning process will lead to more significant and sustainable improvements. This is the case with business strategic goals and challenges.

Hence, organisations need to embrace BPM to ensure strategy execution. Avoiding BPM increases the risks of resource wastage and growth stagnation.

It is advisable for organisations to review their business processes as frequently as they review their strategic plans to ensure alignment and support for strategic goals at every point in time.

Adopting a BPM approach is essential for closing the gap between strategy development and execution.

Organisations that embrace BPM will find themselves better equipped to achieve their strategic goals effectively and sustainably.

• Vera Njong is the founder of Akah Consultancy, a qualified industrial engineer and an operational excellence and strategy consultant.