Throw away existing strategies, create a successful future

For a strategy to work, it should be structured into smaller, shorter-term goals and plans. Middle management adopts goals and creates plans to compete in the marketplace. These tactical objectives become the building blocks of a successful organisational strategy. 

Elements important to organisational strategy include resources, scope and the company’s core competency. Quantifying a strategy’s scope makes for more focused plans. Finally, competitive advantage refers to what a business is best at – its core competency – along with everything it has built up and learned through experience, talent and research.

Organisational strategy could fall into sub-categories strategies such as growth, diversification, integration, restructuring and stabilising.

Many companies adopt a single and clearly defined strategy, however in today’s extremely competitive environment, the most successful companies are those that apply more than one strategy running at the same time – also known as organisational ambidexterity. 

Organisational ambidexterity refers to a company’s ability to juggle today’s business requirements whilst at the same time adapting for tomorrow’s changing demands. Organisations need to use both exploration and exploitation techniques to be successful. In some cases, reinvention means throwing away existing strategies and even best practices. 

Every CEO needs to understand the pressing need for a clear competitive strategy, as well as the need for strategic innovation. In fact, if the management don’t understand this and fail to have a clear idea about how they are going to be distinctly different and how they should differentiate themselves from the competition, they are going to get overtaken.

‘Strategic thinking – a new way’  is one of the modules on the FIPP senior management course, Executive Programme for Innovation and Change (EPIC), coving  this in detail. 

The module, run by Loizos Heracleous, professor of strategy and organisation, examines how leading organisations such as Apple and Singapore Airlines have managed to implement a dual strategy and accomplish sustainable competitive advantage and high-performance at the same time. Participants learn about how to implement this strategy, about the principles you need to follow, and about the kind of leadership it takes to drive your business through this.

FIPP’s Executive Programme for Innovation and Change will generate intense debate; provide useful concepts; actionable insights and helpful tools for strategic leadership and innovations. During the course of the week you will:

• Learn how to adapt for tomorrow’s changing demands

• Find ways in which to nurture innovation within your company

• Discover new solutions to those problems that are difficult to pin down

• Enhance your leadership skills 

View the EPIC timetable for the course taking place 6-10 July in Oxford, UK.

In conjunction with the Oxford University’s Saïd Business School, EPIC aims to build a better understanding of forces at play, and ways in which to drive your business through this period of mammoth change. 

For more information contact Christine Huntingford.

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