Organizations successful at strategy implementation effectively manage six key supporting factors
1. Action Planning
2. Organization Structure
3. Human Resources
4. The Annual Business Plan
5. Monitoring and Control
6. Linkage.
Action Planning
First, organizations successful at implementing strategy develop detailed action plans... chronological lists of action steps (tactics) which add the necessary detail to their strategies. And assign responsibility to a specific individual for accomplishing each of those action steps. Also, they set a due date and estimate the resources required to accomplish each of their action steps. Thus they translate their broad strategy statement into a number of specific work assignments.
Organizational Structure
Next, those successful at implementing strategy give thought to their organizational structure. They ask if their intended strategy fits their current structure. And they ask a deeper question as well... "Is the organization's current structure appropriate to the intended strategy?"
We're reminded here of a client we worked with some years ago. The company was experiencing problems implementing its strategy calling for the development of two new products.
The reason the firm had been unable to develop those products was simple... they had never organized to do so. Lacking the necessary commitment for new product development, management didn't establish an R&D group. Rather, it assigned its manufacturing engineering group the job of new product development... and hired two junior engineers for the task. Since the primary function of the manufacturing engineering group was to keep the factory humming, those engineers kept getting pulled off their "new product" projects and into the role of the manufacturing support. Result – no new products.
Human Resource Factors
Organizations successful at strategy implementation consider the human resource factor in making strategies happen. Further, they realize that the human resource issue is really a two part story. First, consideration of human resources requires that management think about the organization's communication needs. That they articulate the strategies so that those charged with developing the corresponding action steps (tactics) fully understand the strategy they're to implement.
Second, managers successful at implementation are aware of the effects each new strategy will have on their human resource needs. They ask themselves the questions... "How much change does this strategy call for?" And, "How quickly must we provide for that change?" And, "What are the human resource implications of our answers to those two questions?"
In answering these questions, they'll decide whether to allow time for employees to grow through experience, to introduce training, or to hire new employees.
The Annual Business Plan
Organizations successful at implementation are aware of their need to fund their intended strategies. And they begin to think about that necessary financial commitment early in the planning process. First, they "ballpark" the financial requirements when they first develop their strategy. Later when developing their action plans, they "firm up" that commitment. As a client of ours explains, they "dollarize" their strategy. That way, they link their strategic plan to their annual business plan (and their budget). And they eliminate the "surprises" they might otherwise receive at budgeting time.
Monitoring & Control
Monitoring and controlling the plan includes a periodic look to see if you're on course. It also includes consideration of options to get a strategy once derailed back on track. Those options (listed in order of increasing seriousness) include changing the schedule, changing the action steps (tactics), changing the strategy or (as a last resort) changing the objective.
The regular work and operations of the organization have to keep going on while the implementation is taking place. The traditional and significant demands on the time available to managers do not diminish and the wide variety of managerial activities and responsibilities provide ample opportunities for management distractions during the implementation.
Secondly, since structure supports strategy, implementing a new strategy almost always involves changing the systems and structures of an organization. This is a great deal of hard work that requires a motivated workforce and a motivated and hard-working group of top managers. It also requires considerable people management skills to deal with the resistance to change realities that are found in almost all of these strategic initiatives.
Thirdly, it is often necessary to change the executive compensation plan to support the new strategy. Good governance in implementing any new strategy will provide the set of mechanisms that can be used to manage the relationships among the key constituencies in the organization and control the new strategic direction with some assurances that the process will be carried out with integrity.
Lastly, depending on the size and type of the organization there can also be a host of other issues that have to be dealt with. These can be issues such as global considerations, human resource issues, staff and competency development issues, technical issues, customer relationship issues, environmental issues, and other associated management issues, all of which combine to make the strategy implementation process much more complicated and difficult than the strategy selection process.
Bibliography:
www.managementstudyguide.com
www.aiche.org
www.gurowitz.com
Managing strategy implementation by Patric C flood,Stephen j.carroll
Strategy, Implementation and Practice by Amazon.co.uk: Dave Chaffey, Richard Mayer, Mr Kevin Johnston, Fiona Ellis-Chadwick