“If your team cannot tell your company’s strategy in 50 words or less, your company success will just be a matter of chance” - Avinash Bhandari
Interestingly, companies where executives can tell their strategy in a concise manner tend to be more successful than the ones where the executives cannot.
Coming up with a brief and well articulated “strategy statement” will obviously require business leaders to formulate the detailed strategy first. Once the detailed strategy is formulated, business leaders should craft the “strategy statement that captures its essence” so that it can be widely and easily communicated to and internalised by all employees. This will strengthen the strategy execution process.
Care needs to be taken that the strategy statement, even though concise, must include the following :
- Specific and measurable strategic goals or objectives with timelines
- Scope or domain of the business : the part of the landscape in which the business will operate and the boundaries beyond which it will not venture – customer base, geographic locations, etc.
- Competitive advantages : why should the customer buy the company’s product or service ( value proposition ) and how does the company align its activities to deliver that value proposition.