What is Strategic Implementation?
Strategic business management takes a vast area in modern business activities. Strategic implementation is the process of executing the plans and strategies of the business. This process should aim to satisfy the long-term goals and objectives of the organization aligning the organizational vision and mission. Simply put, strategic implementation is the process or the activity that ensures strategic planning is executed in the organization.
Strategic implementation can be identified as a technique developed by the business organization to ensure goal attainment. When implementing strategies, the business has to utilize new processes and change the structure of the organization accordingly. The strategic implementation process has to make sure that the employees, resources, systems and organizational culture, and everything related to the business follows the strategies that are implemented in the business.
Strategic implementation can be identified as the driving force for the brand in the competitive market and help the business to achieve competitive advantages. This is identified as a step-by-step process where the strategic managers should follow in order to succeed in implementation.
Steps of Strategic Implementation
01. Define the strategy framework
Strategy is something that is attached to every activity in the business process. It is an action plan that is designed to achieve the long-term goals of an organization. Since goal attainment is the ultimate expectation of any organization, it is important for the business to have a well-defined strategy framework for their activities to guide the business activities.
The strategy framework should be designed in a manner that employees of every level of the organization should understand their role in the strategic framework.
02. Build a strategic plan
The next step of the strategic implementation is to build a well-defined strategic plan for the organization. Based on the framework designed in the initial stage, the strategic managers should build an actual plan that is most suitable for the business process to achieve the vision and mission.
The strategic plan should be built by gathering all the past data, future forecasts, competitor details, and all other available data and by conducting an accurate SWOT and PESTEL analysis for the organization.
03. Define Key Performance Indicators (KPI)
Key performance indicators are considered as one of the oldest but effective management tools as they help the business to successfully measure the progress and focus on the outcome. KPIs help the business to evaluate the performance at several stages of the strategic process and assess the success at reaching the set targets.
There are several factors a business should consider when implementing KPIs.
– Keep the KPIs simple and understandable for everyone in the organization
– Keep the KPI measures easy and quick
– Choose at least one KPI for each strategic objective. It is better to have a number of KPIs not more than 6 or 7 for one strategic objective.
– Consider both monitory and non-monitory aspects when implementing KPIs. Apart from the financial benefits, areas such as quality and productivity also should be considered to measure and improve.
04. Implementing a strategy rhythm
Implementing a strategy rhythm helps the employees of the organization to focus on the strategic plan and recap on the expectations. There is a possibility that the employees get caught up with their day-to-day activities and lose focus on strategic plan achievement. To avoid that kind of situation, the implementation of a strategic rhythm helps the business to keep the employee activities aligned with the goals and objectives. Having consistent meetings, discussing the changes and achievements will help the organization to keep a strategic rhythm.
05. Simple and consistent strategy reports
Once the strategy rhythm is in place, the organization should come up with a way of reporting the progress of strategy implementation. reporting should be consistent and simple for any related party should be able to understand easily. Apart from that, the reports should be accountable and insightful to make the decision-making process easy.
06. Link performance reviews to strategy
Once the above-mentioned steps are achieved, the organization should link their performance reviews obtained through the reporting to the strategy of the organization. The success should be measured and necessary actions should be taken in order to avoid any failures in the strategic implementation.