Strategy Automation

Gaogaufi Mako, Consultant, InnoLead Consulting

History is replete with success stories of how a sound Strategy has led organisations to profitability and some countries to be victorious at war. We all agree on the importance of strategy and the usefulness it renders to entities amid turbulent conditions and unfavourable circumstances. Strategy helps the organization to ride on its competitive advantage and compound on it.  John D. Rockefeller and the Standard Oil Company rose to prominence in 1860 through his determination to survive the oil market, all this was attributed to his great shrewd Strategy for buying his competitors out of business. In 1882 Rockefeller ultimately had firm control of America’s oil pipeline and was able to dictate the price for crude oil. In 1775, George Washington was appointed the commander of the Continental Army that led America to victory because of his sound Fabian strategy in confronting the British Army.

Against growing competition for resources and the need for accurate and timely decision making, the need to automate our strategies has become more important than ever. Research has indicated that an organization with automated strategies has a higher chance of success than those without Examples of known enterprises that have automated their strategies includes, South African Airways, World Vision Southern Africa and Judiciary of Chile just to mention a few This article will look at some key points why automation of strategy is vital.

1. Real-time information on how the entity is performing against the planned targets. This is so critical because it eases the decision-making When strategies are automated, the decision makers do not have to spend time searching for information that aid with the decision making. The ability to react in real-time to problems is enhanced and as a result, organisational strategic goals stand a better chance of success.

 

2. Accountability is enhanced because different parts of the organisation take more responsibility for their contribution to the organisation strategy. As we all know what is not measured is not done. Automation ensures that initiatives are allocated and tracked in a standardised manner. The moving parts of an organisation are easily held accountable for the responsibilities. Work and expectations are made clear from organisational level to department level as well as individual level.

 

3. Supports the integration of systems. Strategy automation systems can be interfacing with another corporate system to get accurate data with a lower probability of human error distortions. It is well known that reports from spreadsheets and on pieces of papers leave a lot to be desired as far as accuracy is concerned.

 

4. Minimizes rifts and saves time in the organization. It’s such a frustrating thing to move from one department to the other looking for information. Having been involved in the strategy management process in multiples instances, not knowing where to get critical information is not only frustrating but causes tension in the team.

As a critical success factor for this business change, leadership support is key. With leadership steering and championing the automation, the new way of doing things has a greater chance of being inculcated as the culture. In the absence of leadership support, people will tend to run expensive parallel processes of the old way of doing things as in most instances people prefer their old way of working than the perceived stressful new reform. There is always an element of change management that must be considered and planned for if automation is new to an organisation.

In support of this business capability, InnoLead Consulting has partnered with QPR to avail a strategy management solution platform. The solution has a number of modules from Organisational strategy metrics and performance management. This enables breaking down the organization into distinct scorecards contributing to the broader corporate scorecard.

QPR Metrics is a performance management solution that enables all management levels to trace the progress of the Strategic Goals and Performance. It enables viewing the big picture from your Strategy Map to Operational Targets and obtains a flexible performance management capability, satisfying multiple needs, such as strategy and operational performance. More than a performance management solution, QPR Metrics helps organizations gain robust online collaboration capabilities. Employees can add comments and actions to their dashboards while managers translate into action, the insight they gain by following-up the assigned tasks and progress made.

There is an undeniable global shift towards digitisation and the benefits to organisations have proven to be extremely valuable. It would be costly to any organisation to ignore the chance to understand and deal with the complexity of contemporary management as brought on by the global digital environment.

Gaogaufi Mako holds the position of Consultant at InnoLead Consulting offering Management Consultancy and Corporate Training Solutions. He can be contacted on +267 3909102 and innolead@innolead.co.bw

 

Reference

1. https://sloanreview.mit.edu/projects/strategy-drives-digital-transformation/#chapter-7
2. https://www.atkearney.com/documents/10192/4260571/History+of+Strategy+and+Its+Future+Prospects.pdf/29f8c6e8-7cdb-4a25-8acc-b0c39e4439e1
3. http://historyofmassachusetts.org/revolutionary-war-strategies/
4. Tovy, Tal. “George Washington’s Military Genius by Dave R. Palmer.” Michigan War Studies Review, 3 Dec. 2012, miwsr.com/2012-070.aspx
5. https://www.qpr.com/customers

Office of Strategy Management: The Advantages

 

Tshwanelo Nkwe, Consultant, InnoLead Consulting

During one of his visits to Botswana, Michael Porter commended us Batswana, for our ability to develop well-crafted strategies with comprehensive outcomes. However, what is more important is his observation that our execution efforts yield minimal results. Research by Kaplan and Norton, the creators of the balanced scorecard (a widely used strategy and performance management tool), identify the following reasons for organisations’ failure to execute.

 

• 95% of an organisation’s employees are not aware of or do not understand their corporate strategy.
• Management does not dedicate adequate time discussing the corporate strategy
• 75% of incentive systems are not linked to the strategy
• 60% of organisations do not have their budgets linked to the strategy

I am certain that if the employees who are closest to the customers and operate processes that create value are unaware of the strategy, it is unlikely that they will positively contribute to its execution.

Putting a bit of context to the above, some of our local organisations continue to experience the following;

• A lack of a clear process of translating the strategy into the scorecard map and objectives;
• There is a proliferation of strategic initiatives across the organisation with no clear link and impact on organisational performance;
• There are inconsistencies in the way a strategy is tracked, monitored, reported and evaluated, including the inconsistent reporting tools and templates.

The above strongly signal a sense of disintegration between the plan and its execution. For various reasons, some organisations do not have a deliberate and a coherent strategy execution process. Some do not even have strategy implementation plans and are faced with a few stumbling blocks to overcome at the execution phase. I could not agree more as the “Execution problem” is a trend that cuts across organisations of all sizes in various sectors in Botswana, both in the public and private sectors.

Take note that strategy is a continuous process, one that extends beyond the planning phase to include all the activities that are required for effective execution. These typically include;

• Ensuring an effective cascading process to create alignment
• Linking budgets, human capital and processes to the strategy
• Conducting regular strategy meetings to effectively monitor the implementation progress;
• Conducting annual reviews to evaluate the success and relevance of the strategy against the assumptions made at the planning stage.

The question then becomes, “What can be done to ensure that there is a seamless integration of the strategy management processes highlighted above?”

To facilitate the strategy activities, end to end, in a coordinated and integrated fashion, it is paramount to establish a corporate level function that will ensure the effective management of all strategy related activities. This function is called an Office Of Strategy (OSM). This is a role that is instrumental in ensuring that the corporate strategy is fully implemented. It is the strength and engine for successful strategy execution. It helps to achieve and sustain the strategy focus required to drive desired results.

The OSM has 3 main roles, and these entail the Architect, who ensures strategy processes are in place, the Process Custodian, who ensures the strategy processes are aligned with the strategy, and lastly, the Integrator, who interfaces and coordinates other strategy related systems. Using the analogy of an orchestra leader, the OSM ensures that there is alignment and integration to the diversity of the teams and functions. This way, there is a collaborated and unified effort from everyone, each with their unique piece of instrument, to create beautiful melodies and sing together in a seamless and integrated fashion. Now that is quite something to marvel at!

Harvard Business Review states that “A unit with responsibility for the implementation of strategy becomes a convenient focal point for ideas that percolate up through the organisation.” And of course, there are a few organisations locally that have made tremendous strides towards the establishment of the OSMs and are reaping the rewards of it.

Below are some of the benefits derived from the establishment of the OSM:

• Enhances the coordination of the entire process of analysis, development, planning, execution and control of the strategy;
• Closes the gap between strategy formulation and execution, ensuring that they are conducted an integrated way;
• Ensures that corporate-level plans are translated into the plans of the various units and departments through an effective cascading process;
• Allows for effective strategy communication to be disseminated to employees, ensuring that everyone has a consistent view of the end goal;
• Aligns employees’ competency development plans, and their personal goals and incentives, with strategic objectives.
• Applies consistency in ensuring budgets, human resources planning, information technology investments and marketing programs are clearly linked to strategy, and adequate for implementation;
• It institutionalises and standardises the tracking, monitoring and reviewing of the strategy implementation progress, and makes strategic adjustments as required;
• It ensures collection of accurate and credible data for performance reporting, and a continuous scan of the volatile environment organisations operate in to be able to proactively mitigate against potential hindrances;
• It is the central repository for strategy, and therefore improves data management and storage for strategy projects performance
• Coordinates the monthly/ quarterly strategy management/ operational meetings to determine action plans, and follows up after the meeting to assure that the action plans are carried out;
• It allows for better planning and prioritisation projects portfolio in line with the organizational strategic priorities
• It strengthens information reporting on schedules and cost over-runs, which improves the accuracy of planning
• The strategy risks are better monitored from a central point;
• Leadership is kept abreast of strategic issues so that the focus is on learnings adopted: this enhances leadership commitment.
• Communications regarding strategy activities to lower levels become more frequent: this aids in ensuring that everyone embraces the strategy, and takes ownership of their part.
• Strategy execution is accelerated as the discipline of execution is embedded within the organisational culture.

The greatest value of OSM does not only come from the benefits mentioned above but from overcoming the barriers to successful strategy implementation as mentioned earlier. When all the above are attained, there are very high chances that an organization is well on its way to achieving long-term competitiveness. The improvement in the quality of strategy work will definitely position organisations for long-term success.

Tshwanelo Nkwe holds the position of Consultant at InnoLead Consulting offering Management Consultancy and Corporate Training Solutions. She can be contacted on +267 3909102 and innolead@innolead.co.bw