Strategy Development and Implementation

Developing strategy that maximizes shareholder value is a result of a deep and detailed understanding of the economics of the served markets and a superior recognition of and response to opportunities or threats as they arise. Making consistently excellent decisions that maximize shareholder value requires businesses to be able accurately measure the value of its current as well as future products and services to its customers.

"Quality in a product or service is not what the supplier puts in. It is what the customer gets out and is willing to pay for. A product is not quality because it is hard to make and costs a lot of money, as manufacturers typically believe. This is incompetence. Customers pay only for what is of use to them and gives them value. Nothing else constitutes quality." - Peter Drucker

Creating a vision and its supporting strategy is one of the most challenging tasks undertaken by an organization today. In a world that moves at the speed of the internet, work goes on day-by-day, and the urgent and pressing needs of today's problems can be totally absorbing and immediate until the business finds itself in a reactive stance. The absence of a vision and an actionable comprehensive strategic business plan forces the company to spend a lot of time fire-fighting rather than proactively creating value for the company and your customers.

Awareness of the problem is paramount and these symptoms are not business as usual but warnings to management:

• Many initiatives are underway, with much activity producing little results.
   
• Improvement initiatives are not integrated, with each group doing their own thing.
   
• When it comes time to prioritize opportunities and allocate investment dollars, it is unclear how much money to give to which project because it is unclear which will generate the most value now and in the future.
   
• It is hard to tell when you are successful - no roadmap exists to chart your progress.
   
• It is not apparent whether the current activities will take the organization where you need to go, because no one is quite sure where that is.

Breakthrough products and services will never occur in this environment. Breakthroughs come from reaching beyond what we "know" today - and even beyond what we "know what we don't know." Breakthrough thinking comes from discovering the world beyond the business' current beliefs and paradigms by breaking down the business' current reality and eliminating the business' current assumptions.

There is more to be learned in the space of what the business "don't know we don't know" than in the totality of what the business "knows." In this greater space where breakthroughs are found is where companies must excel.

To reach into this greater space, learning must precede thinking. You must seek out a true understanding of customers, markets, competitors and technology. It is essential that you listen to the voice of your customers. Talk to them and understand how they judge value now and in the future.

" Ah yes, Merlin said, ... Now ordinary people are born forwards in Time, if you understand what I mean, and nearly everything in the world goes forward too. This makes it quite easy for people to live, but unfortunately I was born at the wrong end of time and I have to live backwards from in front, while surrounded by a lot of people living forward from behind." - T. H. White

Your business unlike Merlin is living forward from today. When creating value, this condition is often a barrier to breakthrough thinking even in the presence of profound knowledge. Often businesses are so rooted in current processes, systems and culture - "the rat race" - that they find it difficult if not impossible to create breakthroughs.
 

Effective strategies are created when a business can stand in the future and look back, rather than stand in the present and look forward.
 

We at Caplix Partners help you imagine the future as it could be - as you want it to be, and then devise a path back to the present -- one with obvious obstacles that were overcome.

Can we help you? We think so. Tell us what your ideal strategy consultant would do for you.

Resources

Is Profitability Driven by Industry- or Firm-Specific Factors? A New Look at the Evidence Performance separates the extreme winners and losers, that is, the value creators and destroyers, regardless of the industry. - Gabriel Hawawini, Venkat Subramanian, Paul Verdin