With the ongoing digital transformation befalling almost every industry organizations are rushing to implement processes that will help them ride through the times. A common fallacy that companies are committing is that their sales personnel are not being measured as per the demands of the company’s corporate strategy. They continue to be measured on the lines of their contribution towards the total revenue. While this seems like a sound strategy, until we consider that many of the sales staff are simply re-selling products that have made the company money over years, but have started falling out of favor. So they must instead be measure for selling the right product and not only sales. A percentage of those sales must be for new-economy products or services. Thus alignment of the metrics with overall targets is a must.

Source:http://customerthink.com/are-your-sales-metrics-aligned-with-your-business-strategy/

A common fallacy befalling several organizations worldwide is a latent disconnect between their corporate strategy and its actual execution. A book written explores this fallacy and suggests ways companies have rectified this gap. Unfortunately at a lot of places strategy and execution teams are remote. The strategy team in such places has limited hands-on exposure. It is the task of functional leaders then to close the gap. The former have little idea about the capabilities that are required within the organization to execute such tasks. However, some companies that have bridged the gap such as IKEA have done so because the company founders and top executives had a knack for the real world. It wasn’t just about designing the wonderful furniture, but about actually scaling the entire supply chain to bring it to people’s homes. The idea was simple furniture without any brand innovations, but the execution was terrific. Apple on the other hand is renowned for its innovations and designs. It is little known that during the product development stage of its innovative products, a fashion designer was always near the development lab. The principles of Six Sigma are there to assist people so they must be used in rectifying this seminal strategy- execution divide.

Source:https://hbr.org/ideacast/2016/02/closing-the-strategy-execution-gap?referral=00563&cm_mmc=email-_-newsletter-_-daily_alert-_-alert_date&utm_source=newsletter_daily_alert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=alert_date

It is often wrongly thought that failures in the execution of the corporate strategy have happened because of the inherent flaws in the plan itself. Yet studies have confirmed that it is usually the people concerned who are responsible. In a lot of industries that are constantly changing such as publishing, the execution is of utmost importance. People heading haywire need to be directed to make sure their efforts reach the desired objectives. The Big Arrow strategy can be applied where a product roadmap was created assisted by entire leadership team. Some questions need to be pondered at this stage. They include matters such as whether the strategy applied lead to fulfilling of overall company mission, will the execution be smoother, whether the priorities will be met and whether team members are genuinely passionate about the same. The people who have the highest impact and are most influential must be tracked to get involved at this stage. Also tasks must be allocated for all the team members as appropriate to each of them. The pivotal strength of each teammate must then get assessed along with the key contribution they have made and what kind of game changing interventions they may potentially influence in the future. After this specific management training coaching sessions must be held of thirty minutes’ duration each. Once the execution is completed, data must be collected before individual performances are evaluated. The results must be amplified to record the best practices achieved. The data need not be stored in-house but can even be shared for others’ requirements.

Source:https://hbr.org/2017/01/execution-is-a-people-problem-not-a-strategy-problem?referral=00563&cm_mmc=email-_-newsletter-_-daily_alert-_-alert_date&utm_source=newsletter_daily_alert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=alert_date&spMailingID=16256527&spUserID=OTY0OTMwNTk5NwS2&spJobID=940273836&spReportId=OTQwMjczODM2S0

A lot of organizations are moving on from products or processes to platforms. As part of their now improvised corporate strategy, companies are increasingly adopting platform innovation as a growth tactic. This ‘platform-ization’ is also encouraging A/B Testing, something that traditional operations research rarely did but which today’s platforms such as Google, Amazon, Netflix and Apple lay special emphasis on. This in turn is being driven by the constant virtualization, digitization and ‘network-ification’ in vogue. While process innovation, efficiency and improvement aren’t going away, brands are realizing that wherever possible, platforms must be leveraged. This is especially true for large industries which can scale as the future belongs to platforms and processes that enable such platforms to become more feasible.

Source:https://hbr.org/2016/12/instead-of-optimizing-processes-reimagine-them-as-platforms

Visuals play a massive part in digital marketing today especially when conducted using social media outlets. Infographics for example must be used to represent large scope of data instead of wordy scripts. User or peer generated content is easier to create and more relevant to the online readers than expert commentary. Content must be personalized and tailor-made for specific situations. Though a lot of marketers feel the need to go for original rather than stock photos, this presumption is wrong as a lot of stock photos are among the best in the line and such free resource must be leveraged. Also a lot of people lack photography skills, so instead videos must be used as they anyway have the best engagement. Video or visual content must advertise values that the organization believes in. Graphics must also be posted for general information and not only for direct selling. Memes are emotional attachments or pointers and these must be used to the hilt as long as the humour is relevant, funny and not insensitive. To explain minute aspects, screenshots must be made use of. Finally, for any set of instructions, carefully crafted visuals must be used.

Source:http://www.business2community.com/social-media/10-visual-marketing-tips-master-social-media-engagement-01749702#3X7yyzMK8POKRlc3.97

For most organizations, corporate strategy is distinct from its culture. However, it Starbucks it is the latter that drives the former. It has a relationship-driven, employee-first attitude. At the peak of the Recession, when companies were slashing jobs or reducing HR benefits, Starbucks took up increased investment in employees’ management training with some even inducted for higher education. Instead of being called employees, they are called partners, with even part time employees being provided health coverage and stock options. Such traits have enabled Starbucks to emerge as the “third place” for legions of customers. While most organizations, while trying to improve their culture, eliminate the negative traits, it is focusing on the positive ones that bring maximum benefits.

Source:https://hbr.org/2016/12/how-starbuckss-culture-brings-its-strategy-to-life?referral=00563&cm_mmc=email-_-newsletter-_-daily_alert-_-alert_date&utm_source=newsletter_daily_alert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=alert_date&spMailingID=16239847&spUserID=OTY0OTMwNTk5NwS2&spJobID=940061307&spReportId=OTQwMDYxMzA3S0

Ten great ideas have been identified which mysteriously were initially rejected. The first of those is the telephone which was rejected on the lines of apparently having too many shortcomings. Then there are motor cars which it was predicted would not cause much disruption to the use of horses for transport. Others include the radio, the medicine aspirin, photocopying machines and even computers. Some even rejected the use of sound in movies or the concept of overnight courier services. The ones completing the list are the Nautilus Fitness Machine and remarkably the PC. The lesson learnt from such rejections is that entrepreneurs and innovators must keep plugging on till their idea gets accepted. For investors, they must keep all their options open. Before rejecting any innovation on the basis of personal gut feelings, they must assess it from five perspectives. They must think whether the customer will buy it and whether the technology can be delivered. They must evaluate whether such a business model will pay off for itself. Also they must evaluate the risk of failure or the implications of actual success. Finally they must assess the product against the corporate strategy of the firm, and whether it fits in with the overall scheme.

Source:http://innovationexcellence.com/blog/2016/12/19/10-great-ideas-that-were-originally-rejected/

In order to deduce the perfect corporate strategy and resolve business problems, organizations are now using algorithmic functions. These complex solutions have been devised over enormous quantities of data and past examples studied. It includes a dynamic study of irrational as well as rational behaviour models in businesses. Such models bridge the gap between the canonical theory and the actual practical execution of business targets. Different organizational structures are built to absorb different kinds of shocks. Once problems are properly mapped out, their solutions can be inferred through such complex algorithmic analysis.

Source:http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/algorithmic-foundations-for-business-strategy

The majority of today’s business leaders began their careers at a time when physical assets dominated the net worth of organizations. To cite the 1975 S&P Index, eighty percent of the top five hundred companies’ assets were physical ones like plant, property and equipment. This is in complete contrast to today where four-fifths are intangible properties primarily composed of networks, platforms, Big Data, intellectual property and customer relationships. A lot of the business leaders do not trust intangible assets and thus fall short of a major skills- capital allocation. Every year they keep investing in the same asset category. Also, a lot of investors get scared off as Generally Accepted Accounting Principles dictate that physical assets are given primacy in the world of investment. Thus short terms gains are catered to by investment in them. Broadly speaking there exist four kinds of resource allocators among leaders. There are the Reactors who wish to stick by older norms and do not respond to business innovations in the market. There are Transformers who gradually begin the movement to shift away capital assets from physical to intangible ones. The third category includes the Alignors, who fully understand the modern norms and wish to take away their organizations to that stage, yet are often unable to as they do not prefer to ruffle feathers, instead stick by industry norms. The Disruptors on the other hand are the ones who shift the capital allocation according to market evolution and are proactive in their stance.

Source:https://hbr.org/2016/12/why-leaders-are-still-so-hesitant-to-invest-in-new-business-models

Traditional organizations are modeled on the Roma Legion two thousand years back rather than the ever evolving human brain. This is what is holding human development back. Newer disruptive technologies are causing changes faster than organizations can keep up primarily because they are locked in older versions of work which do not cater to developing networks. A researcher has confirmed that present day inhabitants of the C Suite in most organizations consider strategic thinking to be a lazy aspect as they may themselves have risen up the ladder using working on several fields. Very few organizations are being able to leverage concepts such as Big Data, Artificial Intelligence, Internet of Things or Machine learning to develop innovations. Google, Amazon, Airbnb, Uber, Instagram, Snapchat and Facebook are those few exceptions. Tesla belongs to the future and glimpses of the impending times have already been shown to us. Ironically it is these frontier companies that are slowing down the progress of others as rivals are unable to cope up with their pace of business innovation.

Source:http://www.forbes.com/sites/billfischer/2016/12/17/standing-at-the-dumb-end-of-our-smarter-future/#1865276b3b5f

A lot of genuinely well-intentioned transformative processes fail due to not being well coordinated. Some steps have been identified which can drive effective well coordinate business innovation drives. First of all before plunging headlong into change, it is essential to investigate what changes are currently going on within the business as well as in related organizations. Change must not be enforced, instead it must be eased out through collaborative measures such as practices like ‘change hubs’ being hosted. Efforts must also be made to diminish the impact of uncertainty by rather building organization-wide trust. Time must be kept aside to actually have intimate conversations which those people in charge of being part of the transformations intended. A lot of gains can be made by roping in the services of management consulting professionals. These experts bring to the table a disparate set of benefits which if brought together enable enormous benefits.

Source:https://hbr.org/2016/01/to-get-your-company-to-change-focus-on-one-thing-at-a-time