Strategy

We believe in involvement and ownership

One of the most important goals with a strategy process is to identify directions for future path choices while establishing frameworks for setting priorities. The strategy process should also give motivated employees a sense of solidarity.

If the strategy plan is to become a living document, the commitment of senior management is not enough. Communicating the content of a strategy does not produce ownership and effective implementation.

In order to make the strategy an integral part of the individual’s day-to-day decision-making processes, as many people as possible must be involved in drawing up the strategy. Our view is that at least those people who are crucial to implementation of the strategy must be part of the process that produces it.

We believe in establishing a strategy language in order to improve communication and increase involvement

Talking about strategy is difficult. There are so many different expressions. Participants in strategy processes waste a lot of time discussing terminology instead of strategy content. The company should therefore introduce a distinct language for discussing future choices. The terminology should be simple enough for the majority of employees to understand what is being said and take part in discussions. Such a language will be of value to the company well into the future. There is little point in introducing such a language if the company does not take a long-term view of its use, however.

We believe in communicating choices and priorities

In order to ensure that a strategy serves as a benchmark, it is important to make the choices clear in the strategy document. We think it makes sense to specify a set of focus areas or perspectives linked to decisions and priorities.

Defining these focus areas is in itself a great way of focusing the mind. It is, for example, possible to assert that an environmental perspective, employee perspective, user perspective or competence perspective is crucial to the future success of the business and define ambitions and goals based on those perspectives. The perspectives should in turn be related to a vision and business concept.

“What you measure is what you get!”

As far as possible, the strategy should be made measurable. Ambitions and objectives relating to different perspectives should be monitored using quantitative measurements. This makes implementation simpler, particularly in large organisations. The monitoring of objectives for all the perspectives will then be summarised in a balanced scorecard. We do not, however, believe in the effectiveness of standardised scorecards produced by external consultants. Here too involvement and ownership are the be all and end all.

We believe in conciousness about the future

All strategy processes should be based on assumptions regarding the future. Changes in customer needs and the implications for the company should be elucidated. We believe that the most effective method is to involve the company’s own employees in this process. A great deal of knowledge and common sense is hidden among the people in the organisation. Apart from which, nothing can compare with what you discover for yourself. It generates commitment and willingness to change.

We believe in competence as a key factor in long-term survival, particularly in a rapidly changing environment

According to our definition, competence is made up of all the resources needed to carry out a task. The tasks become services and products, and those that stand out from the competition in terms of customer utility and cost become the basis for future growth. In this way future success is linked to present competence. The relevant future competence is unlikely to develop naturally in the business, because future competence needs will probably emerge from discontinuous development. That is why the development of such competence has to be rooted in strategic choices.

We do not believe in strategy processes that are owned by consultants

When we facilitate a strategy process, we do not want the process to be fronted by Strategica. The process must be regarded as owned by the senior management. We see ourselves as supporting the senior management group.

In creative phases of the strategy process it is desirable for the senior management to step out of its senior management role and allow itself to be creative together with the rest of the participants in the process. In such phases, therefore, we take the lead in the process.

As the time for conclusions approaches, the senior management reassumes its position in order to communicate its preferences for future choices and to make it quite clear that the responsibility for those choices rests with it.

We do not believe that we administer the truth

There is no one right way of working on strategy processes. Every method has to be adapted to the nature, history and strategic maturity of the organisation. The final process will be developed in collaboration with our clients. We have described some of what we believe in. If we are to support a strategy process, it is of course important that what we believe in strikes a chord.