Bridging the Strategy Design-Delivery Gap: What the Leaders are doing

Harnessing the power of the feedback loops for strategy design and delivery

Designing and delivering a strategy that works: Managing the two faces of culture

Closing the Gap: Designing and Delivering a Strategy that Works

Strategy has little value until it is implemented. In a world where disruption can happen overnight, moving rapidly from strategy design to delivery is critical. Yet too many companies go only halfway, putting their best resources into design and in effect ending up treating delivery as an afterthought. As a result, strategies fail, customers leave, key talent is lost and financial performance suffers. 

Analysing your value chain

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Throughout the industrial age, proprietary capabilities and customer access have long been blocks with which companies have built vertically integrated value chains. While these are still important parts of any organisation, technology has revolutionised the spread of information and given competitors and new entrants easier market access. This has simultaneously challenged many traditional value chains.

From data overload to effective decision-making

This is the age of data. A simple activity like going for a run now involves data collection and analysis through a FitBit wristband with GPS tracking. Recover at a coffee shop, and your caramel macchiato comes with a spreadsheet with 260 pieces of nutritional information. Should you order the grande whole-milk version with 25 grams of sugar and 28 grams of carbs? Or the short with coconut milk and roughly half the calories?

Progress Makers at Work: Building corporate cultures of progress

In today’s era of hyper-innovation and relentless competition, businesses around the world need to attract, engage and nurture individuals that embody a highly valued profile: the progress maker. Today this new breed of change agents has the capabilities to bring to their jobs a heightened global awareness, unprecedented digital empowerment and, increasingly, an innate motivation to do meaningful work with significant impact—both within their own organizations and in society at large.

Bridging the strategy implementation gap

Most companies, however, find this difficult in practice. In prior Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) research, 61% of respondents acknowledged that their firms often struggle to bridge this gap, and just over half of strategic initiatives were completed successfully. To gain a more in-depth understanding of this complex field, the EIU interviewed Joseph Jimenez, CEO of Novartis, and Donald Sull, Senior Lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management, about strategy implementation. To learn more download our article below. 

 

Why get involved in a moonshot?

Scientists who build a career in research are often motivated by the challenge of addressing the world’s toughest, most impenetrable questions. Can we find the cure for cancer? How do we feed every person in the world? Are there alternate universes? Moonshots—ambitious, large-scale research

Securing funding for a moonshot

Centuries ago, much scientific research was supported through the private patronage of wealthy families or the personal funds of the scientists themselves. While family foundations and individual donors still play an important role, today’s researchers lean more heavily on government grants and funding from within their organizations, as well as the support of nonprofit foundations and R&D-driven corporations.

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