Three Strategies to Ensure Strategic Success

Marketing strategies are all about connecting. You may think you have communicated well but in reality, half of the audience did not share your enthusiasm. Or you may be elated by the warm reception to your presentation only to find out that you had the wrong audience. Disconnects are the biggest cause of strategy failure

There are three major disconnects that consistently hinder successful strategy implementation:

1. A Non Inclusive decision making process

An executive of a printing company spends lots of time going through the process of gathering data, analyzing statistics, and recommending solutions. He made an impressive statistical analysis that outlined how the printing company could reduce non value adding processes.

Things look good but the executive made a fatal error. He did not consult the VP in-charge of administration and finance whose department will be affected by his recommendations. Whether that was intentional or not, the executive just earned himself a highly placed skeptic.

Turfs are important in defining strategies. You must be careful not to step on anyone's domain without their knowledge. Surely you wouldn't rearrange a friend's house without their knowing it, right? In the same manner that you wouldn't mess up someone's department without involving them in the process. The key here is acceptance. You have to win them over by enrolling them in the process every step of the way.

2. Ideas That Are Disconnected

Good ideas are always welcome like a breath of fresh air. However, these ideas have to be in line with the realities of the organization. When these ideas are floating in the air, the strategy will be resisted at all levels and they will be dismissed as impractical or worse, nonsensical.

The key here is to do reality checks. Your ideas must be grounded. A colleague in a printing company used to ask a lot of 'what ifs?' At first you get annoyed by the incessant questioning but later on, you would appreciate what she is trying to do. She is just looking at the idea from all angles.

3. Enrolling everybody for Strategy Support

Everybody in the organization must believe in the strategy for it to work. Any strategy needs support to work. When people in an organization don't understand which practical steps are needed to be taken to ingrain the strategy within the company culture, the strategy can fail.

Support may mean establishing internal messaging that reminds people that the strategy is important to revenue generation. If it affects partners, the channel group may need to be given specific responsibilities that will make the strategy effective. Communication is a critical part of getting people to understand the value that results from supporting the strategy.

The author is affiliated with a company that offers printing companies, printing company
http://www.printplace.com