In a world of fast-paced market changes, increasing automation, and rising digital transformation, it feels like small start-ups have increasing power to disrupt markets and perhaps even compete with much bigger companies because of their focus, nimbleness, and lack of legacy systems and capabilities. But, is that really true? Has the pendulum swung in favor of small start-ups or is
Effective strategy implementation is imperative for long-term success. Think of your company as a river. Executives stand at the mouth of the river, and there the water rushes with great strength and purpose, but as the river rolls cross-country the force and power dissipates – branches and tributaries form. Even though critical strategic choices need to be made downstream, the
Many businesses look to shared services to optimize their performance and help them meet the bottom line. When properly designed and implemented, shared services can increase efficiency, cut costs, maximize synergies, improve performance, and/or enhance your services and capabilities. With so much to be gained, it is worth making sure you get the most out of your shared services design.
The medical definition of strategy is, roughly, change that contributes to successful evolution. Think about this in terms of your business. Isn’t that the end goal – successful evolution? What’s notable here is that nature evolves through a series of trials and errors, and the organisms that adapt in more successful ways are the ones that survive. In business you can
It is hard to overstate the benefits of organization alignment. Aligned organizations better implement and realize their strategies, can do more with fewer resources, are faster, and generally perform better in the marketplace. However, it is important to realize that not all alignments are equal in their power to produce the hoped for marketplace results. I have found that there
When designing and implementing an organizational change, we all want to transform as fast as possible. Why waste time doing business the old way when we have identified a better path forward? Despite our wish for speed, the reality is that transformation can be difficult, it takes time to get the whole organization on board, and communicating the change internally
How do you differentiate your products from your competitor’s offerings? How can you continue to grow in a more crowded market? How can you get your products/services to the right customer base? These are the kinds of questions that keep executives up at night trying to find new sources of growth in mature markets. At its core, strategic differentiation is
How often do organizations implement changes developed during strategic planning sessions? While reports vary on the subject, the working reality is that many organizations feel completely overwhelmed with the amount of work they must do to achieve true transformation. How can we refocus our efforts to improve execution success? Unfortunately, not implementing due to feeling over-planned is all too common.
Strategic thinking is essential for an organization to differentiate and ultimately win in the marketplace. However, strategic thinking is much more than the ability to apply data, trends, and themes or envision big ideas. While these skills are certainly important for leaders of an organization, they don’t ensure that these ideas, trends, and themes end up in the organization’s design.
Learn three ways that leveraging Agile principles can help you improve organization design work and unleash the potential of your best employees.