Whether you’re approaching innovation as a new venture, an investor or an established corporation, developing and executing an effective strategy is of fundamental importance to your success. Though most companies recognize this, the intensity of the day-to-day reality of launching and growing new products and services frequently means strategy is neglected. Our goal is to enable you to build an effective innovation strategy capability within your organization.
Strategy formulation
The strategy process begins with formulation. We play a facilitative role to help your core team define your strategic objectives, evaluate your current position, explore options, and formulate the optimal strategy. The process typically comprises a series of strategy team workshop sessions, supported by selected analyses to create a fact base for discussion. The results are documented in a strategy summary or business plan that summarizes:
- Mission, vision and goals – what you want to accomplish.
- Product market strategy – which products and services you will offer to which markets.
- Organization – the capabilities you will build, typically including general management, research and development, sales and marketing, operations and customer service, and support services.
- Business model – the economics of the business to optimize revenue, costs and investment.
Strategy implementation
For your strategy to have meaning, it must be translated into tangible implementation plans that are tightly linked across the organization. We work with your strategy team to define:
- Strategic objectives - beginning with defining key objectives at the company or business unit level, which cascade to the rest of the organization in a hierarchy of objectives.
- Key initiatives – the key programs and tasks you will implement to achieve these objectives and execute the strategy, together with the responsibility and timing for each.
- Budgets – developing the short–term capital and operating financial plan for the business.
- Communications – communicating the strategy to all relevant internal and external stakeholders.
Strategic control
Once your implementation plan is developed, you will need a strategic control system to monitor progress against plan. We work with you to establish and manage:
- Metrics – creating a set of financial and non-financial metrics for the business, linked in a cause-and-effect hierarchy, and summarized in an executive dashboard; together with implementing systems to gather data and report progress against the metrics on a regular basis.
- Progress review process – periodic meetings of the strategy team to review progress against plan, and make alterations as appropriate; new products and services typically require a far greater degree of strategic experimentation and flexibility than would be acceptable for more mature businesses.
