business plan strategic pillars

The 6 Pillars of Business Success: A Holistic Look

In the dynamic landscape of modern business, organizations are continually challenged to adapt, evolve, and thrive. Success in this environment requires a comprehensive and interconnected approach that addresses various aspects of the business.

This article explores the six foundational pillars that work together holistically to create a resilient and successful business:

Data and technology
Finance and compliance

Strategic Pillars of an Organization

A successful business relies on foundational elements such as an emphasis on its people, data and technology integration, financial and compliance management, and streamlined operations.

The process of navigating transitions in a business operates distinctively, capable of unfolding at any stage throughout its life cycle, from inception and expansion to maturity. During such transitions, there is often a synchronization with the strategic objectives set by the business.

maps out the pillars, including people, data and technology, finance and compliance, and oeprations

Strategic Planning: The North Star of Business Success

A well-defined and carefully crafted strategy is at the core of every successful business. Strategy serves as the guiding force that shapes the business's direction, goals, and decision-making processes. A robust approach encompasses the business's mission, vision, and values, providing a roadmap for achieving long-term objectives.

To develop an effective approach to strategic planning, the business must thoroughly analyze its internal and external environments. This involves understanding market trends, identifying competitive advantages, and evaluating potential risks. A dynamic strategic plan adapts to changing circumstances, fostering agility and resilience.

Moreover, effective strategic communication throughout the business ensures alignment at all levels. When employees understand how their roles contribute to the overarching strategy, they become more engaged and motivated, driving collective efforts toward common goals.

People: The Heartbeat of Organizational Culture

People are the most valuable asset of any business . A strong organizational culture, shaped by shared values and a sense of purpose, fosters employee engagement, productivity, and satisfaction. Recruiting, developing, and retaining top talent is essential for sustained success.

Effective leaders inspire and empower their teams, promoting collaboration and innovation. Continuous training and development programs help employees acquire new skills, stay relevant in a rapidly changing business landscape, and contribute more effectively to business goals.

Leadership plays a crucial role in creating a positive and inclusive work environment. Moreover, prioritizing diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives reflects ethical values and enhances creativity and problem-solving within the business. A business that values its people and cultivates a strong culture through workforce planning initiatives is better positioned to navigate challenges and achieve long-term success.

Data Analytics and Technology Advisory: Empower Informed Decision-Making

Data and technology are integral to business success in the digital age. Efficient data strategy and advanced technologies empower a business to make informed decisions , enhance operational processes, and gain a competitive edge.

Data Analytics

Implementing robust data analytics allows a business to extract valuable insights from vast datasets. This, in turn, supports evidence-based decision-making, enabling the business to respond swiftly to market changes and emerging opportunities.

Technology Advisory

Additionally, leveraging artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies enhances predictive capabilities and automates routine tasks, freeing up human resources for more strategic endeavors.

Cybersecurity Solutions

Cybersecurity is a critical component of the data and technology pillar. With the increasing frequency and sophistication of cyberthreats, a business must invest in robust security measures to protect sensitive information and maintain the trust of clients and stakeholders.

Finance and Compliance: Navigate the Regulatory Landscape

Financial stability and compliance with regulations are cornerstones of business sustainability. Proper financial management ensures efficient allocation of resources, strategic investments, and sustained profitability. Compliance safeguards the business from legal and reputational risks.

Effective financial management involves budgeting, forecasting, and risk management. A business must have a comprehensive understanding of its financial health, monitor key performance indicators, and adjust strategies accordingly. Transparency in financial reporting builds trust with stakeholders and enhances the business's credibility in the marketplace.

Compliance encompasses various aspects, including tax obligations and audit requirements. Staying abreast of tax laws and regulation changes is essential to avoid legal issues and financial penalties. Regular audits, internal or external, provide an objective evaluation of financial practices and help identify areas for improvement.

Operations: The Engine Driving Efficiency

Operations are the powerhouse of business efficiency, involving the orchestration of all assets—people, processes, equipment, and facilities. The development, care, and strategic utilization of these assets play a pivotal role in steering an organization’s mission, realizing its vision, and achieving business success.

People, as a fundamental asset, contribute to the overall effectiveness of operations. Efficient processes ensure streamlined workflows, eliminating bottlenecks and optimizing productivity. Properly maintained and strategically utilized equipment enhances operational efficiency, reducing downtime and improving output. Well-managed facilities provide the physical space for innovation, collaboration, and execution of strategic objectives.

The holistic approach to operations involves recognizing that every aspect—people, processes, equipment, and facilities—contributes synergistically to the business's overall performance. By prioritizing the development and efficient utilization of these assets, the business can drive day-to-day efficiency and the long-term fulfillment of its mission and vision. Operations serve as the engine that propels the business forward, ensuring all components work harmoniously to achieve strategic goals and maintain a competitive edge in the dynamic business landscape.

Transition: Adapt to Change and Evolution

The transition pillar encompasses significant business changes such as restructuring events, business spin-offs, mergers, acquisitions, private equity involvement, owners selling their businesses, and strategically reinvesting capital. Organizations must be prepared to navigate these transitions in the dynamic business environment.

Restructuring events involve reshaping the business's structure, often to improve efficiency, reduce costs, or adapt to changing market conditions. Business spin-offs, sales, mergers, or acquisitions are strategic moves that can reshape the competitive landscape, provide a succession plan for owners, and create growth opportunities.

Private equity is pivotal in transitions, providing capital and expertise to fuel growth, optimize operations, and enhance value. A business partnering with private equity firms often undergoes strategic transformations to unlock its full potential and achieve long-term success.

Owners selling their businesses also contribute to the transition pillar. Successfully navigating this process involves strategic planning, valuation assessments, and understanding the financial implications of the sale. Individuals may invest the proceeds strategically in new ventures, existing businesses, or diverse investment portfolios .

Change management is crucial during transitions, ensuring that individuals, teams, and the business successfully move to a desired future state. This involves careful planning, effective communication, and addressing the human side of organizational change.

Create a Resilient Business

The six pillars of business success are essential components that work holistically to create a strong and resilient foundation. A business that prioritizes these pillars navigates challenges effectively and positions itself for sustained success in an evolving business environment.

By fostering a culture that embodies these six pillars, a business can build a solid foundation for long-term prosperity.

Additional Resources

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Why Strategic Pillars Matter

Table of Contents

In a world where change is accelerating, we argue that detailed planning beyond a one year time horizon is increasingly impractical . However, the value of long-range vision provided by having Strategic Pillars remains timeless and indispensable.

What are Strategic Pillars?

Strategic Pillars are a key component of the Strategic Pyramid. They connect the high-level aspirations of why you exist and how you envision the future to the detailed plans on what exactly do we need to do to get there. They are aspirational statements of where the organization needs to be on a long-term horizon, generally 3-5 years out. Think of them as the supporting columns of a structure - each pillar represents a fundamental area where the organization must excel to succeed. These pillars translate the lofty ambitions of a company's vision into tangible areas of focus, which then inform specific objectives and initiatives.

Mission - Why does your organization exist?
Vision - What is your long-term vision that your organization will help create?
Values - What is important to you about how you get there?
Strategic Pillars - What are your big high level, and long-term ideas about how you will achieve your mission?
Objectives & Key Results (OKRs) - What specifically do we need to accomplish and how will we measure when it's done?
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) - How do we make sure the organization is healthy and that the day-to-day is working so that we can focus energy on strategy?

Strategic Pillars vs Strategic Themes

We see these as interchangeable concepts - synonyms really. While your OKRs will track the important specific things you need to do, your Strategic Pillars, aka, Strategic Themes are the big ideas behind your organization. By painting these big picture ideas clearly you help ensure that all of the specific work that gets done aligns ultimately to achieving your mission and vision.

Why are Strategic Pillars Important?

Strategic pillars are vital because they provide clarity and direction. They break down the abstract concept of a "mission" into manageable, focused areas, enabling an organization to allocate resources efficiently and measure progress effectively. By establishing clear strategic pillars, companies can ensure that all efforts are aligned with their core goals, fostering unity and purpose across the organization.

Moreover, strategic pillars facilitate better decision-making. When faced with new opportunities or challenges, leaders can evaluate them against their strategic pillars to determine whether they support the company’s overarching goals. This alignment ensures that every strategic objective moves the needle in the right direction.

How to Create Strategic Pillars?

Creating strategic pillars involves a deep understanding of your organization's mission, vision, and competitive landscape. Here is a simplified process to guide you:

Review your mission and vision: Understand the core purpose and the future state your organization aims to achieve.
Conduct an environmental analysis: Identify your strengths, weaknesses, external trends and where you stand compared to competitors and the environment. There are several popular frameworks that support this work (https://www.stratsimple.com/post/the-state-of-strategic-planning-frameworks)
Identify key focus areas: Based on your mission, vision, and environmental analysis- look 3 years out, determine the critical areas where your organization needs to excel.
Validate and refine: Ensure that these pillars are comprehensive yet focused and refine them through feedback from various stakeholders. Revisit these annually, it is good for them to be stable but to be successful it's important to be flexible and change your strategic pillars if your situation changes.
Translate into actional plans: For each pillar, define specific, measurable objectives that, if achieved, will signify success in that area. We believe that OKRs are the best solution for planning and executing your strategic plan. (https://www.stratsimple.com/post/okrs-vs-kpis)

How Often Should Strategic Pillars Change?

We believe the best practice is to re-evaluate your Strategic Pillars annually, but always with a long-term perspective of 3-5 years into the future. It is a good thing if they stay consistent, but it is critical that there be flexibility to change if circumstances warrant.

Strategic pillars should strike a balance between providing a stable direction and allowing for flexibility to adapt to significant shifts in the market, technology, or customer behavior. They serve as the constants in your strategic equation, guiding decision-making and resource allocation over multiple years. Yet, the specific objectives and initiatives under each pillar are more fluid, adjusting as needed to reflect changes in the organization's internal and external environments.

Key Triggers for Revisiting Strategic Pillars

Major Shifts in the Market or Industry : Significant changes, such as new technologies, regulatory shifts, or emerging competitive threats, might necessitate a reevaluation of your strategic pillars.
Changes in Customer Needs and Preferences : If customer behavior or preferences change substantially, it might be time to reassess your pillars to ensure they align with these new realities.
Organizational Changes : Significant internal changes, such as mergers, acquisitions, or shifts in your mission and vision, can prompt a review of your strategic pillars.
Performance Against Goals : If your organization consistently misses its strategic targets, this could indicate that your pillars no longer align with the most effective path to success.

How are Strategic Pillars and OKRs connected?

Strategic pillars and OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) share a symbiotic relationship, with each playing a pivotal role in the strategic planning and execution process within organizations. Strategic pillars represent the core areas of focus that an organization must excel in to achieve its long-term vision and mission. These pillars provide a structured framework for strategic prioritization and resource allocation, ensuring that all efforts are aligned with the overarching goals of the organization.

OKRs, on the other hand, operationalize these strategic pillars by breaking them down into specific, measurable objectives and key results. This goal-setting framework allows organizations to set ambitious targets and track progress towards these targets with clarity and precision. OKRs embody the actionable steps and measurable outcomes that contribute directly to the achievement of the strategic pillars, offering a clear roadmap for execution.

Strategic Pillar Do's and Don'ts

Revisit them annually
Assure alignment with Mission, Vision, and Values
Involve key stakeholders in evaluating and setting them
Make them clear, concise and inspirational

Don't:

Build tactical plans for how you will achieve your 3-5 year plan that will then sit on a shelf or quickly be irrelevant and out-of-date.
Have too many of them, just like OKRs the sweet spot is 3-5.
Avoid fluff and filler words
Avoid being overly wordy in describing them.
Treat them as your highest level OKRs

6 Steps to Make Your Strategic Plan Really Strategic

Graham Kenny

You don’t need dozens of strategic goals.

Many strategic plans aren’t strategic, or even plans. To fix that, try a six step process: first, identify key stakeholders. Second, identify a specific, very important key stakeholder: your target customer. Third, figure out what these stakeholders want from you. Fourth, figure out what you want from them. Fifth, design your strategy around these requirements. Sixth, focus on continuously improving this plan.

Why is it that when a group of managers gets together for a strategic planning session they often emerge with a document that’s devoid of “strategy”, and often not even a plan ?

Graham Kenny is the CEO of Strategic Factors and author of Strategy Discovery . He is a recognized expert in strategy and performance measurement who helps managers, executives, and boards create successful organizations in the private, public, and not-for-profit sectors. He has been a professor of management in universities in the U.S. and Canada.

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Business strategy |
7 strategic planning models, plus 8 fra ...

7 strategic planning models, plus 8 frameworks to help you get started

15 must-know strategic planning models & frameworks article banner image

Strategic planning is vital in defining where your business is going in the next three to five years. With the right strategic planning models and frameworks, you can uncover opportunities, identify risks, and create a strategic plan to fuel your organization’s success. We list the most popular models and frameworks and explain how you can combine them to create a strategic plan that fits your business.

A strategic plan is a great tool to help you hit your business goals . But sometimes, this tool needs to be updated to reflect new business priorities or changing market conditions. If you decide to use a model that already exists, you can benefit from a roadmap that’s already created. The model you choose can improve your knowledge of what works best in your organization, uncover unknown strengths and weaknesses, or help you find out how you can outpace your competitors.

In this article, we cover the most common strategic planning models and frameworks and explain when to use which one. Plus, get tips on how to apply them and which models and frameworks work well together.

Strategic planning models vs. frameworks

First off: This is not a one-or-nothing scenario. You can use as many or as few strategic planning models and frameworks as you like.

When your organization undergoes a strategic planning phase, you should first pick a model or two that you want to apply. This will provide you with a basic outline of the steps to take during the strategic planning process.

[Inline illustration] Strategic planning models vs. frameworks (Infographic)

During that process, think of strategic planning frameworks as the tools in your toolbox. Many models suggest starting with a SWOT analysis or defining your vision and mission statements first. Depending on your goals, though, you may want to apply several different frameworks throughout the strategic planning process.

For example, if you’re applying a scenario-based strategic plan, you could start with a SWOT and PEST(LE) analysis to get a better overview of your current standing. If one of the weaknesses you identify has to do with your manufacturing process, you could apply the theory of constraints to improve bottlenecks and mitigate risks.

Now that you know the difference between the two, learn more about the seven strategic planning models, as well as the eight most commonly used frameworks that go along with them.

[Inline illustration] The seven strategic planning models (Infographic)

1. Basic model

The basic strategic planning model is ideal for establishing your company’s vision, mission, business objectives, and values. This model helps you outline the specific steps you need to take to reach your goals, monitor progress to keep everyone on target, and address issues as they arise.

If it’s your first strategic planning session, the basic model is the way to go. Later on, you can embellish it with other models to adjust or rewrite your business strategy as needed. Let’s take a look at what kinds of businesses can benefit from this strategic planning model and how to apply it.

Small businesses or organizations

Companies with little to no strategic planning experience

Organizations with few resources

Write your mission statement. Gather your planning team and have a brainstorming session. The more ideas you can collect early in this step, the more fun and rewarding the analysis phase will feel.

Identify your organization’s goals . Setting clear business goals will increase your team’s performance and positively impact their motivation.

Outline strategies that will help you reach your goals. Ask yourself what steps you have to take in order to reach these goals and break them down into long-term, mid-term, and short-term goals .

Create action plans to implement each of the strategies above. Action plans will keep teams motivated and your organization on target.

Monitor and revise the plan as you go . As with any strategic plan, it’s important to closely monitor if your company is implementing it successfully and how you can adjust it for a better outcome.

2. Issue-based model

Also called goal-based planning model, this is essentially an extension of the basic strategic planning model. It’s a bit more dynamic and very popular for companies that want to create a more comprehensive plan.

Organizations with basic strategic planning experience

Businesses that are looking for a more comprehensive plan

Conduct a SWOT analysis . Assess your organization’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats with a SWOT analysis to get a better overview of what your strategic plan should focus on. We’ll give into how to conduct a SWOT analysis when we get into the strategic planning frameworks below.

Identify and prioritize major issues and/or goals. Based on your SWOT analysis, identify and prioritize what your strategic plan should focus on this time around.

Develop your main strategies that address these issues and/or goals. Aim to develop one overarching strategy that addresses your highest-priority goal and/or issue to keep this process as simple as possible.

Update or create a mission and vision statement . Make sure that your business’s statements align with your new or updated strategy. If you haven’t already, this is also a chance for you to define your organization’s values.

Create action plans. These will help you address your organization’s goals, resource needs, roles, and responsibilities.

Develop a yearly operational plan document. This model works best if your business repeats the strategic plan implementation process on an annual basis, so use a yearly operational plan to capture your goals, progress, and opportunities for next time.

Allocate resources for your year-one operational plan. Whether you need funding or dedicated team members to implement your first strategic plan, now is the time to allocate all the resources you’ll need.

Monitor and revise the strategic plan. Record your lessons learned in the operational plan so you can revisit and improve it for the next strategic planning phase.

The issue-based plan can repeat on an annual basis (or less often once you resolve the issues). It’s important to update the plan every time it’s in action to ensure it’s still doing the best it can for your organization.

You don’t have to repeat the full process every year—rather, focus on what’s a priority during this run.

3. Alignment model

This model is also called strategic alignment model (SAM) and is one of the most popular strategic planning models. It helps you align your business and IT strategies with your organization’s strategic goals.

You’ll have to consider four equally important, yet different perspectives when applying the alignment strategic planning model:

Strategy execution: The business strategy driving the model

Technology potential: The IT strategy supporting the business strategy

Competitive potential: Emerging IT capabilities that can create new products and services

Service level: Team members dedicated to creating the best IT system in the organization

Ideally, your strategy will check off all the criteria above—however, it’s more likely you’ll have to find a compromise.

Here’s how to create a strategic plan using the alignment model and what kinds of companies can benefit from it.

Organizations that need to fine-tune their strategies

Businesses that want to uncover issues that prevent them from aligning with their mission

Companies that want to reassess objectives or correct problem areas that prevent them from growing

Outline your organization’s mission, programs, resources, and where support is needed. Before you can improve your statements and approaches, you need to define what exactly they are.

Identify what internal processes are working and which ones aren’t. Pinpoint which processes are causing problems, creating bottlenecks , or could otherwise use improving. Then prioritize which internal processes will have the biggest positive impact on your business.

Identify solutions. Work with the respective teams when you’re creating a new strategy to benefit from their experience and perspective on the current situation.

Update your strategic plan with the solutions. Update your strategic plan and monitor if implementing it is setting your business up for improvement or growth. If not, you may have to return to the drawing board and update your strategic plan with new solutions.

4. Scenario model

The scenario model works great if you combine it with other models like the basic or issue-based model. This model is particularly helpful if you need to consider external factors as well. These can be government regulations, technical, or demographic changes that may impact your business.

Organizations trying to identify strategic issues and goals caused by external factors

Identify external factors that influence your organization. For example, you should consider demographic, regulation, or environmental factors.

Review the worst case scenario the above factors could have on your organization. If you know what the worst case scenario for your business looks like, it’ll be much easier to prepare for it. Besides, it’ll take some of the pressure and surprise out of the mix, should a scenario similar to the one you create actually occur.

Identify and discuss two additional hypothetical organizational scenarios. On top of your worst case scenario, you’ll also want to define the best case and average case scenarios. Keep in mind that the worst case scenario from the previous step can often provoke strong motivation to change your organization for the better. However, discussing the other two will allow you to focus on the positive—the opportunities your business may have ahead.

Identify and suggest potential strategies or solutions. Everyone on the team should now brainstorm different ways your business could potentially respond to each of the three scenarios. Discuss the proposed strategies as a team afterward.

Uncover common considerations or strategies for your organization. There’s a good chance that your teammates come up with similar solutions. Decide which ones you like best as a team or create a new one together.

Identify the most likely scenario and the most reasonable strategy. Finally, examine which of the three scenarios is most likely to occur in the next three to five years and how your business should respond to potential changes.

5. Self-organizing model

Also called the organic planning model, the self-organizing model is a bit different from the linear approaches of the other models. You’ll have to be very patient with this method.

This strategic planning model is all about focusing on the learning and growing process rather than achieving a specific goal. Since the organic model concentrates on continuous improvement , the process is never really over.

Large organizations that can afford to take their time

Businesses that prefer a more naturalistic, organic planning approach that revolves around common values, communication, and shared reflection

Companies that have a clear understanding of their vision

Define and communicate your organization’s cultural values . Your team can only think clearly and with solutions in mind when they have a clear understanding of your organization's values.

Communicate the planning group’s vision for the organization. Define and communicate the vision with everyone involved in the strategic planning process. This will align everyone’s ideas with your company’s vision.

Discuss what processes will help realize the organization’s vision on a regular basis. Meet every quarter to discuss strategies or tactics that will move your organization closer to realizing your vision.

6. Real-time model

This fluid model can help organizations that deal with rapid changes to their work environment. There are three levels of success in the real-time model:

Organizational: At the organizational level, you’re forming strategies in response to opportunities or trends.

Programmatic: At the programmatic level, you have to decide how to respond to specific outcomes or environmental changes.

Operational: On the operational level, you will study internal systems, policies, and people to develop a strategy for your company.

Figuring out your competitive advantage can be difficult, but this is absolutely crucial to ensure success. Whether it’s a unique asset or strength your organization has or an outstanding execution of services or programs—it’s important that you can set yourself apart from others in the industry to succeed.

Companies that need to react quickly to changing environments

Businesses that are seeking new tools to help them align with their organizational strategy

Define your mission and vision statement. If you ever feel stuck formulating your company’s mission or vision statement, take a look at those of others. Maybe Asana’s vision statement sparks some inspiration.

Research, understand, and learn from competitor strategy and market trends. Pick a handful of competitors in your industry and find out how they’ve created success for themselves. How did they handle setbacks or challenges? What kinds of challenges did they even encounter? Are these common scenarios in the market? Learn from your competitors by finding out as much as you can about them.

Study external environments. At this point, you can combine the real-time model with the scenario model to find solutions to threats and opportunities outside of your control.

Conduct a SWOT analysis of your internal processes, systems, and resources. Besides the external factors your team has to consider, it’s also important to look at your company’s internal environment and how well you’re prepared for different scenarios.

Develop a strategy. Discuss the results of your SWOT analysis to develop a business strategy that builds toward organizational, programmatic, and operational success.

Rinse and repeat. Monitor how well the new strategy is working for your organization and repeat the planning process as needed to ensure you’re on top or, perhaps, ahead of the game.

7. Inspirational model

This last strategic planning model is perfect to inspire and energize your team as they work toward your organization’s goals. It’s also a great way to introduce or reconnect your employees to your business strategy after a merger or acquisition.

Businesses with a dynamic and inspired start-up culture

Organizations looking for inspiration to reinvigorate the creative process

Companies looking for quick solutions and strategy shifts

Gather your team to discuss an inspirational vision for your organization. The more people you can gather for this process, the more input you will receive.

Brainstorm big, hairy audacious goals and ideas. Encouraging your team not to hold back with ideas that may seem ridiculous will do two things: for one, it will mitigate the fear of contributing bad ideas. But more importantly, it may lead to a genius idea or suggestion that your team wouldn’t have thought of if they felt like they had to think inside of the box.

Assess your organization’s resources. Find out if your company has the resources to implement your new ideas. If they don’t, you’ll have to either adjust your strategy or allocate more resources.

Develop a strategy balancing your resources and brainstorming ideas. Far-fetched ideas can grow into amazing opportunities but they can also bear great risk. Make sure to balance ideas with your strategic direction.

Now, let’s dive into the most commonly used strategic frameworks.

8. SWOT analysis framework

One of the most popular strategic planning frameworks is the SWOT analysis . A SWOT analysis is a great first step in identifying areas of opportunity and risk—which can help you create a strategic plan that accounts for growth and prepares for threats.

SWOT stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Here’s an example:

[Inline illustration] SWOT analysis (Example)

9. OKRs framework

A big part of strategic planning is setting goals for your company. That’s where OKRs come into play.

OKRs stand for objective and key results—this goal-setting framework helps your organization set and achieve goals. It provides a somewhat holistic approach that you can use to connect your team’s work to your organization’s big-picture goals. When team members understand how their individual work contributes to the organization’s success, they tend to be more motivated and produce better results

10. Balanced scorecard (BSC) framework

The balanced scorecard is a popular strategic framework for businesses that want to take a more holistic approach rather than just focus on their financial performance. It was designed by David Norton and Robert Kaplan in the 1990s, it’s used by companies around the globe to:

Communicate goals

Align their team’s daily work with their company’s strategy

Prioritize products, services, and projects

Monitor their progress toward their strategic goals

Your balanced scorecard will outline four main business perspectives:

Customers or clients , meaning their value, satisfaction, and/or retention

Financial , meaning your effectiveness in using resources and your financial performance

Internal process , meaning your business’s quality and efficiency

Organizational capacity , meaning your organizational culture, infrastructure and technology, and human resources

With the help of a strategy map, you can visualize and communicate how your company is creating value. A strategy map is a simple graphic that shows cause-and-effect connections between strategic objectives.

The balanced scorecard framework is an amazing tool to use from outlining your mission, vision, and values all the way to implementing your strategic plan .

You can use an integration like Lucidchart to create strategy maps for your business in Asana.

11. Porter’s Five Forces framework

If you’re using the real-time strategic planning model, Porter’s Five Forces are a great framework to apply. You can use it to find out what your product’s or service’s competitive advantage is before entering the market.

Developed by Michael E. Porter , the framework outlines five forces you have to be aware of and monitor:

[Inline illustration] Porter’s Five Forces framework (Infographic)

Threat of new industry entrants: Any new entry into the market results in increased pressure on prices and costs.

Competition in the industry: The more competitors that exist, the more difficult it will be for you to create value in the market with your product or service.

Bargaining power of suppliers: Suppliers can wield more power if there are less alternatives for buyers or it’s expensive, time consuming, or difficult to switch to a different supplier.

Bargaining power of buyers: Buyers can wield more power if the same product or service is available elsewhere with little to no difference in quality.

Threat of substitutes: If another company already covers the market’s needs, you’ll have to create a better product or service or make it available for a lower price at the same quality in order to compete.

Remember, industry structures aren’t static. The more dynamic your strategic plan is, the better you’ll be able to compete in a market.

12. VRIO framework

The VRIO framework is another strategic planning tool designed to help you evaluate your competitive advantage. VRIO stands for value, rarity, imitability, and organization.

It’s a resource-based theory developed by Jay Barney. With this framework, you can study your firmed resources and find out whether or not your company can transform them into sustained competitive advantages.

Firmed resources can be tangible (e.g., cash, tools, inventory, etc.) or intangible (e.g., copyrights, trademarks, organizational culture, etc.). Whether these resources will actually help your business once you enter the market depends on four qualities:

Valuable : Will this resource either increase your revenue or decrease your costs and thereby create value for your business?

Rare : Are the resources you’re using rare or can others use your resources as well and therefore easily provide the same product or service?

Inimitable : Are your resources either inimitable or non-substitutable? In other words, how unique and complex are your resources?

Organizational: Are you organized enough to use your resources in a way that captures their value, rarity, and inimitability?

It’s important that your resources check all the boxes above so you can ensure that you have sustained competitive advantage over others in the industry.

13. Theory of Constraints (TOC) framework

If the reason you’re currently in a strategic planning process is because you’re trying to mitigate risks or uncover issues that could hurt your business—this framework should be in your toolkit.

The theory of constraints (TOC) is a problem-solving framework that can help you identify limiting factors or bottlenecks preventing your organization from hitting OKRs or KPIs .

Whether it’s a policy, market, or recourse constraint—you can apply the theory of constraints to solve potential problems, respond to issues, and empower your team to improve their work with the resources they have.

14. PEST/PESTLE analysis framework

The idea of the PEST analysis is similar to that of the SWOT analysis except that you’re focusing on external factors and solutions. It’s a great framework to combine with the scenario-based strategic planning model as it helps you define external factors connected to your business’s success.

PEST stands for political, economic, sociological, and technological factors. Depending on your business model, you may want to expand this framework to include legal and environmental factors as well (PESTLE). These are the most common factors you can include in a PESTLE analysis:

Political: Taxes, trade tariffs, conflicts

Economic: Interest and inflation rate, economic growth patterns, unemployment rate

Social: Demographics, education, media, health

Technological: Communication, information technology, research and development, patents

Legal: Regulatory bodies, environmental regulations, consumer protection

Environmental: Climate, geographical location, environmental offsets

15. Hoshin Kanri framework

Hoshin Kanri is a great tool to communicate and implement strategic goals. It’s a planning system that involves the entire organization in the strategic planning process. The term is Japanese and stands for “compass management” and is also known as policy management.

This strategic planning framework is a top-down approach that starts with your leadership team defining long-term goals which are then aligned and communicated with every team member in the company.

You should hold regular meetings to monitor progress and update the timeline to ensure that every teammate’s contributions are aligned with the overarching company goals.

Stick to your strategic goals

Whether you’re a small business just starting out or a nonprofit organization with decades of experience, strategic planning is a crucial step in your journey to success.

If you’re looking for a tool that can help you and your team define, organize, and implement your strategic goals, Asana is here to help. Our goal-setting software allows you to connect all of your team members in one place, visualize progress, and stay on target.

Related resources

How Asana uses work management to optimize resource planning

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9 steps to craft a successful go-to-market (GTM) strategy

The 5 steps of the strategic planning process

An illustration of a digital whiteboard with a bullseye diagram and sticky notes

Starting a project without a strategy is like trying to bake a cake without a recipe — you might have all the ingredients you need, but without a plan for how to combine them, or a vision for what the finished product will look like, you’re likely to end up with a mess. This is especially true when working with a team — it’s crucial to have a shared plan that can serve as a map on the pathway to success.

Creating a strategic plan not only provides a useful document for the future, but also helps you define what you have right now, and think through and outline all of the steps and considerations you’ll need to succeed.

What is strategic planning?

While there is no single approach to creating a strategic plan, most approaches can be boiled down to five overarching steps:

Define your vision
Assess where you are
Determine your priorities and objectives
Define responsibilities
Measure and evaluate results

Each step requires close collaboration as you build a shared vision, strategy for implementation, and system for understanding performance.

Related: Learn how to hold an effective strategic planning meeting

Why do I need a strategic plan?

Building a strategic plan is the best way to ensure that your whole team is on the same page, from the initial vision and the metrics for success to evaluating outcomes and adjusting (if necessary) for the future. Even if you’re an expert baker, working with a team to bake a cake means having a collaborative approach and clearly defined steps so that the result reflects the strategic goals you laid out at the beginning.

The benefits of strategic planning also permeate into the general efficiency and productivity of your organization as a whole. They include:

Greater attention to potential biases or flaws, improving decision-making
Clear direction and focus, motivating and engaging employees
Better resource management, improving project outcomes
Improved employee performance, increasing profitability
Enhanced communication and collaboration, fostering team efficiency

Next, let’s dive into how to build and structure your strategic plan, complete with templates and assets to help you along the way.

Before you begin: Pick a brainstorming method

There are many brainstorming methods you can use to come up with, outline, and rank your priorities. When it comes to strategy planning, it’s important to get everyone’s thoughts and ideas out before committing to any one strategy. With the right facilitation , brainstorming helps make this process fair and transparent for everyone involved.

First, decide if you want to run a real-time rapid ideation session or a structured brainstorming . In a rapid ideation session, you encourage sharing half-baked or silly ideas, typically within a set time frame. The key is to just get out all your ideas quickly and then edit the best ones. Examples of rapid ideation methods include round robin , brainwriting , mind mapping , and crazy eights .

In a structured brainstorming session, you allow for more time to prepare and edit your thoughts before getting together to share and discuss those more polished ideas. This might involve brainstorming methods that entail unconventional ways of thinking, such as reverse brainstorming or rolestorming .

Using a platform like Mural, you can easily capture and organize your team’s ideas through sticky notes, diagrams, text, or even images and videos. These features allow you to build actionable next steps immediately (and in the same place) through color coding and tagging.

Whichever method you choose, the ideal outcome is that you avoid groupthink by giving everyone a voice and a say. Once you’ve reached a consensus on your top priorities, add specific objectives tied to each of those priorities.

Related: Brainstorming and ideation template

1. Define your vision

Whether it’s for your business as a whole, or a specific initiative, successful strategic planning involves alignment with a vision for success. You can think of it as a project-specific mission statement or a north star to guide employees toward fulfilling organizational goals.

To create a vision statement that explicitly states the ideal results of your project or company transformation, follow these four key steps:

Engage and involve the entire team . Inclusivity like this helps bring diverse perspectives to the table.
Align the vision with your core values and purpose . This will make it familiar and easy to follow through.
Stay grounded . The vision should be ambitious enough to motivate and inspire yet grounded enough to be achievable and relevant.
Think long-term flexibility . Consider future trends and how your vision can be flexible in the face of challenges or opportunities.

For example, say your vision is to revolutionize customer success by streamlining and optimizing your process for handling support tickets. It’s important to have a strategy map that allows stakeholders (like the support team, marketing team, and engineering team) to know the overall objective and understand the roles they will play in realizing the goals.

This can be done in real time or asynchronously , whether in person, hybrid, or remote. By leveraging a shared digital space , everyone has a voice in the process and room to add their thoughts, comments, and feedback.

Related: Vision board template

2. Assess where you are

The next step in creating a strategic plan is to conduct an assessment of where you stand in terms of your own initiatives, as well as the greater marketplace. Start by conducting a resource assessment. Figure out which financial, human, and/or technological resources you have available and if there are any limitations. You can do this using a SWOT analysis.

What is SWOT analysis?

SWOT analysis is an exercise where you define:

Strengths: What are your unique strengths for this initiative or this product? In what ways are you a leader?
Weaknesses: What weaknesses can you identify in your offering? How does your product compare to others in the marketplace?
Opportunities: Are there areas for improvement that'd help differentiate your business?
Threats: Beyond weaknesses, are there existing potential threats to your idea that could limit or prevent its success? How can those be anticipated?

For example, say you have an eco-friendly tech company and your vision is to launch a new service in the next year. Here’s what the SWOT analysis might look like:

Strengths : Strong brand reputation, loyal customer base, and a talented team focused on innovation
Weaknesses : Limited bandwidth to work on new projects, which might impact the scope of its strategy formulation
Opportunities : How to leverage and experiment with existing customers when goal-setting
Threats : Factors in the external environment out of its control, like the state of the economy and supply chain shortages

This SWOT analysis will guide the company in setting strategic objectives and formulating a robust plan to navigate the challenges it might face.

Related: SWOT analysis template

3. Determine your priorities and objectives

Once you've identified your organization’s mission and current standing, start a preliminary plan document that outlines your priorities and their corresponding objectives. Priorities and objectives should be set based on what is achievable with your available resources. The SMART framework is a great way to ensure you set effective goals . It looks like this:

Specific: Set clear objectives, leaving no room for ambiguity about the desired outcomes.
Measurable : Choose quantifiable criteria to make it easier to track progress.
Achievable : Ensure it is realistic and attainable within the constraints of your resources and environment.
Relevant : Develop objectives that are relevant to the direction your organization seeks to move.
Time-bound : Set a clear timeline for achieving each objective to maintain a sense of urgency and focus.

For instance, going back to the eco-friendly tech company, the SMART goals might be:

Specific : Target residential customers and small businesses to increase the sales of its solar-powered device line by 25%.
Measurable : Track monthly sales and monitor customer feedback and reviews.
Achievable : Allocate more resources to the marketing, sales, and customer service departments.
Relevant : Supports the company's growth goals in a growing market of eco-conscious consumers.
Time-bound : Conduct quarterly reviews and achieve this 25% increase in sales over the next 12 months.

With strategic objectives like this, you’ll be ready to put the work into action.

Related: Project kickoff template

4. Define tactics and responsibilities

In this stage, individuals or units within your team can get granular about how to achieve your goals and who'll be accountable for each step. For example, the senior leadership team might be in charge of assigning specific tasks to their team members, while human resources works on recruiting new talent.

It’s important to note that everyone’s responsibilities may shift over time as you launch and gather initial data about your project. For this reason, it’s key to define responsibilities with clear short-term metrics for success. This way, you can make sure that your plan is adaptable to changing circumstances.

One of the more common ways to define tactics and metrics is to use the OKR (Objectives and Key Results) method. By outlining your OKRs, you’ll know exactly what key performance indicators (KPIs) to track and have a framework for analyzing the results once you begin to accumulate relevant data.

For instance, if our eco-friendly tech company has a goal of increasing sales, one objective might be to expand market reach for its solar-powered products. The sales team lead would be in charge of developing an outreach strategy. The key result would be to successfully launch its products in two new regions by Q2. The KPI would be a 60% conversation rate in those targeted markets.

Related: OKR planning template

5. Manage, measure, and evaluate

Once your plan is set into motion, it’s important to actively manage (and measure) progress. Before launching your plan, settle on a management process that allows you to measure success or failure. In this way, everyone is aligned on progress and can come together to evaluate your strategy execution at regular intervals.

Determine the milestones at which you’ll come together and go over results — this can take place weekly, monthly, or quarterly, depending on the nature of the project.

One of the best ways to evaluate progress is through agile retrospectives (or retros) , which can be done in real time or asynchronously. During this process, gather and organize feedback about the key elements that played a role in your strategy.

Related: Retrospective radar template

Retrospectives are typically divided into three parts:

What went well.
What didn’t go well.
New opportunities for improvement.

This structure is also sometimes called the “ rose, thorn, bud ” framework. By using this approach, team members can collectively brainstorm and categorize their feedback, making the next steps clear and actionable. Creating an action plan during a post-mortem meeting is a crucial step in ensuring that lessons learned from past projects or events are effectively translated into tangible improvements.

Another method for reviewing progress is the quarterly business review (QBR). Like the agile retrospective, it allows you to collect feedback and adjust accordingly. In the case of QBRs, however, we recommend dividing your feedback into four categories:

Start (what new items should be launched?).
Stop (what items need to be paused?).
Continue (what is going well?).
Change (what could be modified to perform better?).

Strategic planners know that planning activities continue even after a project is complete. There’s always room for improvement and an action plan waiting to be implemented. Using the above approaches, your team can make room for new ideas within the existing strategic framework in order to track better to your long-term goals.

Related: Quarterly business review template

Conclusions

The beauty of the strategic plan is that it can be applied from the campaign level all the way up to organizational vision. Using the strategic planning framework, you build buy-in , trust, and transparency by collaboratively creating a vision for success, and mapping out the steps together on the road to your goals.

Also, in so doing, you build in an ability to adapt effectively on the fly in response to data through measurement and evaluation, making your plan both flexible and resilient.

Related: 5 Tips for Holding Effective Post-mortems

Why Mural for strategic planning

Mural unlocks collaborative strategic planning through a shared digital space with an intuitive interface, a library of pre-fab templates, and methodologies based on design thinking principles.

Outline goals, identify key metrics, and track progress with a platform built for any enterprise.

Learn more about strategic planning with Mural.

About the authors

Bryan Kitch

Tagged Topics

How to hold effective strategic planning meetings

Tactical vs. strategic planning: Why you need both

5 effective strategic planning models for your business

Agile documentation: Examples and best practices

The ROI of teamwork: How to quantify the value of better collaboration

How to conduct a strategic analysis

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Strategic Pillars

Strategic pillars: a tool to help you articulate your strategy.

Strategic Pillars are one of the most popular strategy models used as part of an annual strategic planning process . Put simply, they are the battlegrounds your company must focus on and win. Here you will learn how to create your Strategic Pillars and operationalise their delivery, ensuring there is not a strategy and execution divide.

How You Are Going To Win

Channelling resources and serving customers better than your competition.

Strategic pillars are about channeling your resources towards winning the battles that allow you to serve you customers better than anyone else – and ultimately move closer to your vision.

Why should you dedicate time and energy to discover you strategic pillars? Because at the heart of every inspiring organization is a clear sense of purpose – a ‘why.’ This purpose drives you, and you strategic pillars are a key part of the roadmap that guides you towards it. They represent the key areas that we must excel in to make your vision a reality.

But to identify these pillars, you need to do the necessary work. It requires a deep understanding of your purpose, your vision, your customers, and your competitive landscape. It demands that you ask challenging questions and make difficult decisions.

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Force Multipliers

Download a full preview of Force Multipliers, written by ZOKRI co-founder Matt Roberts.

Force Multipliers takes you through a revolutionary Business Operating System (BOS) to overcome growth plateaus and supercharge scaling efforts. A blend of practical strategies and real-world insights designed to streamline operations and enhance strategic agility.

Pinpoint Customer Value
Develop Winning Strategy
Importance Of Keeping Score
Aligning People & Culture
Developing OKR Competency
High Performing Rituals & Habits

Once you identified these strategic pillars, you must focus your resources towards them. You must choose your battles wisely, concentrating your efforts where we can make the most significant impact. This focus allows you to serve our customers better than your competitors and move towards your vision more effectively.

How do we identify our strategic pillars and focus our resources?

You start by understanding your winning aspiration? What do you propose to be best at? Which also means that you need to understand your customers, the value that need from you. What are their needs? How can you serve them better than anyone else? What is your Value Proposition and in what segment is it going to be focused? Answering these questions will help you identify the areas where we need to focus our resources.

You also need to understand your competitive landscape. Who are your competitors? What are they good at? Where are they lacking? This understanding will help us identify where we can excel and differentiate yourself.

Finally, you need to focus your resources. This means making hard decisions. You can’t do everything, so you must choose the battles that we can win and that will make the most significant impact.

Think Of Strategic Pillars As Battlegrounds You Must Win

Strategic pillars are the key areas of focus or priorities that an organization chooses to achieve its long-term vision. They are also often called ‘Battlegrounds’.

Strategic themes or pillars are the broad areas of focus that underpin your overall business strategy. They represent the key priorities for your organization over a given period of time — typically one year — and provide guidance on where resources should be allocated.

For example, if one of your strategic pillars was “Simplicity & Value,” then all initiatives related to improving your products would fall under this pillar. This could include things like implementing new features, training staff members on best practices for interacting with customers, or conducting surveys to gather feedback from customers about their experiences.

By defining these overarching themes upfront as part of the planning process, everyone within the organization has clarity around what’s most important at any given moment in time. This helps ensure alignment across teams so that everyone is working towards common objectives rather than pursuing individual agendas.

Put simply, Strategic Pillars are the building blocks upon which your strategy is built, helping to guide decision-making and resource allocation across the business.

How you decide on your pillars is a social process. In and across teams, in the markets you want to play, and for the customers you want to serve in those markets, you need to work out and propose to serve them better than your competition.

To arrive at your objectives that can be clustered and prioritized to form your pillars you should have considered a range of challenging questions, questions like:

Customer : What would delight your target customers and how would you do that better than your competition?
Advantage : How can you create and sustain a competitive advantage so competitors don’t try to enter your market?
Capabilities : What capabilities or competencies do you need to improve or acquire?
Issues : What is performing badly, which processes are not working properly, what are the major issues being faced that are holding you back?
Opportunities : Which opportunities are being missed?

Do’s and don’ts to consider when defining strategic pillars

Do’s:.

Ensure alignment with your organization’s vision, mission, and values.
Involve key stakeholders in the process.
Make the pillars clear, concise, and actionable.
Regularly review and update your strategic pillars based on changes in the business environment.

Don’ts:

Avoid having too many strategic pillars, as it can dilute focus and resource allocation.
Don’t ignore emerging trends or changes in the business environment.
Avoid being too vague or overly ambitious in your strategic pillars.

Strategic Pillar Examples

Google’s strategic pillars.

Organize the world’s information.
Make it universally accessible and useful.
Focus on long-term innovation.

Amazon’s Strategic Pillars

Customer obsession.
Long-term thinking.
Operational excellence.

Microsoft Strategic Pillars

Create more personal computing.
Reinvent productivity and business processes.
Build the intelligent cloud platform.

Apple’s Strategic Pillars

Design and innovation.
User experience and simplicity.
Integration of hardware, software, and services.

Tesla Strategic Pillars

Accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy.
Develop cutting-edge technology.
Improve affordability and accessibility of electric vehicles.

Airbnb Strategic Pillars

Create a sense of belonging.
Drive sustainable growth.
Foster trust and safety within the platform.

IBM Strategic Pillars

Focus on high-value segments of the IT market.
Leverage data and AI for business transformation.
Deliver innovative solutions through a hybrid cloud platform.

Strategic Pillar Recap

Think of Strategic Pillars as the three of four areas of focus your business has decided to focus on as a results of a strategic planning process . They are often referred to as the ‘battlegrounds you must win.

Like all forms of strategy the role of Strategic Pillars is simple. To focus and align the people, productivity and resources in the company on the areas that will help the company maximize growth by serving you target customers better than the competition.

You should see Strategic Pillars are an opportunity to clearly articulate your strategy to your teams so that they might create OKRs that support and align with them – more that that it a moment.

Execution is the achilles heel of Strategy

Simply having a strategy is not enough; you need to be able to execute that strategy effectively if you want your business to succeed.

One way of doing this is by using strategic themes or pillars together with OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) and KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) alongside OKR trainers . In this article, we’ll explore what these terms mean and how they can help you achieve your goals.

Research by Kaplan and Norton found that only 10% of organizations successfully execute their strategies. Organizations should align their strategies with objectives, measures, targets, and initiatives, which in turn can improve execution and overall performance.

Introduction and Context Setting:

Briefly explain the purpose and objectives of the workshop.
Provide an overview of the current market landscape, competitive dynamics, and industry trends.
Discuss the importance of strategy in achieving a sustainable competitive advantage.

Analysing Internal Capabilities

Engage the leadership team in a discussion about the company’s unique strengths, core competencies, and resources.
Identify any areas of competitive advantage or distinctive capabilities that set the company apart.
Consider the team’s perspective on how the company can leverage these internal strengths to create value for customers.

Assessing External Opportunities and Threats

Encourage the team to explore the external environment, including market trends, customer needs, and emerging opportunities.
Conduct a SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) to identify potential areas of growth and challenges.
Discuss how the company can align its offerings and value proposition with the identified market opportunities.

Defining Strategic Priorities

Facilitate a discussion on the team’s vision for the company’s future and its long-term goals.
Ask the team to prioritize strategic areas that align with the company’s strengths and market opportunities – Strategic Pillars.
Encourage the team to consider trade-offs and make choices regarding where to focus resources and efforts.

Crafting a Value Proposition

Help the team articulate a clear and compelling value proposition that resonates with customers and differentiates the company from competitors.
Guide the team in identifying the unique benefits, features, and experiences that the company can deliver to its target customers.

Formulating Actionable Strategies

Facilitate the development of specific strategies and initiatives to achieve the defined strategic priorities.
Encourage the team to think creatively and explore innovative approaches.
Discuss potential risks and challenges associated with each strategy and explore mitigation plans.
ZOKRI guides and platform the outcomes from these conversations.

Establishing Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and Metrics

Work with the team to define measurable objectives and key results that align with the strategic priorities.
Identify appropriate KPIs and metrics to track progress and evaluate the success of the strategies.
Discuss how the team can implement a system for ongoing monitoring, measurement, and adjustment based on performance data
ZOKRI will platform this for you.

Alignment and Execution

Emphasize the importance of aligning the entire organization around the strategic priorities.
Discuss ways to communicate and cascade the strategy throughout the company.
Agree the values and behaviours that need to be lived in order to ensure that your vision, strategy and goals are going to be achieved.
Explore methods for fostering accountability, collaboration, and a culture of strategic execution
All of this is done in ZOKRI

Continuous Learning and Adaptation

Highlight the need for ongoing learning, feedback loops, and adaptation in today’s dynamic business environment.
Encourage the team to develop mechanisms for collecting feedback, learning from failures, and making strategic adjustments as necessary – this is automatically done in ZOKRI.

Wrap-up and Next Steps

Summarize the key outcomes and action items from the workshop.
Discuss next steps for further refining and communicating the strategy.
Offer ongoing support and guidance as needed.

What are OKRs?

The purpose behind creating OKR’s is twofold: firstly it provides directionality toward achieving desired results while secondly providing transparency into progress made along those lines throughout execution phases thereby enabling course correction when necessary based upon feedback received from stakeholders.

What Are KPIs?

KPIs, or Key Performance Indicators, are metrics that help you track progress towards your goals. They provide a way to measure the success of specific initiatives and ensure that they’re aligned with broader strategic objectives.

For example, if one of your strategic pillars was “employee engagement,” then some potential KPIs might include things like employee satisfaction scores, turnover rates among high-performing employees (indicating retention), or productivity levels across different departments within the organization.

By tracking these key performance indicators over time and comparing them against benchmarks set by industry standards or internal targets established during goal setting sessions held annually between management team members such as CEO’s/COO’s/CFO’s etc., department heads/managers/supervisors/team leads etc., it becomes possible to identify areas where improvements can be made in order to achieve desired outcomes more effectively while also providing transparency into progress being made along those lines throughout execution phases thereby enabling course correction when necessary based upon feedback received from stakeholders

How Do Strategic Themes/Pillars Work With OKRs And KPIs To Execute Your Strategy?

Strategic themes/pillars work together with OKRs and KPI’s because they provide directionality toward achieving desired results while simultaneously ensuring alignment across teams so everyone is working towards common objectives rather than pursuing individual agendas.

OKR’s define measurable outcomes required for success against each objective identified during annual goal-setting sessions held between management team members such as CEO’s/COO’s/CFO’s etc., department heads/managers/supervisors/team leads etc.. This provides clarity around what needs doing at any given moment in time which helps keep everyone focused on their respective tasks without getting sidetracked by other priorities competing for attention elsewhere within an organization.

Finally, using relevant data points tracked via various types of software tools enables organizations not only monitor but also analyze trends related specifically back down through all levels of management hierarchy thereby enabling course correction when necessary based upon feedback received from stakeholders.

In conclusion, using strategic themes or pillars together with OKRs and KPIs is an effective way to execute your strategy because it provides directionality toward achieving desired results while simultaneously ensuring alignment across teams so everyone is working towards common objectives rather than pursuing individual agendas.

By tracking progress against these metrics over time, organizations can identify areas where improvements need to be made in order to achieve their goals more effectively which ultimately leads them closer towards success!

Discover An 8 Step Strategic Planning Process That Helps You Ignite & Sustain Business Growth

Introduction To Strategy Planning

Startling Numbers

Overview Of Each Step

Preparing To Plan

Values & Guiding Principles

Customer Value

Where Can We Play and Win

Table Stakes vs Wow Moments

What Do We Know

What Is Our Winning Strategy

Which Goals Do We Need To Commit To Next?

Having The Right People In The Right Roles

What Management Systems Are Required For Strategy Execution

Launch Your Strategy

Expert Help & Support

Forcing The Selection

Step Change Thinking

ZOKRI Features

Full List Of Features

For Strategic Planning

For OKR Management

For Other Goal Frameworks

For Culture Management

For Performance Management

Implementation Support

Common Use Cases

All-in-one Cohesive Approach

Creating Organizatoinal Alignment

Strategic Pillars, Goals & KPIs

Leveraging KPI Scorecards

Proactive Culture Management

Employee Performance Reviews

OKR Software For Startups

The Science of ZOKRI

Implementing AI

Knowledge Hub

OKR Software

Mastering the building blocks of strategy

Left unchecked, market forces continually conspire to deplete profits. Powerful business strategies can counteract those tendencies, but good strategy is difficult to formulate. 1 1. A 2011 McKinsey survey asked executives to evaluate their strategies against ten objective tests of business strategy. It found that 65 percent of companies passed just three or fewer tests. For more, see Chris Bradley, Martin Hirt, and Sven Smit, “ Have you tested your strategy lately? ,” McKinsey Quarterly , January 2011. Indeed, the latest McKinsey research (see “ The strategic yardstick you can’t afford to ignore .”) finds that a very small number of companies create most economic profit. 2 2. What’s left over after subtracting the cost of capital from net operating profit. The research also shows that a significant number of good companies outperform even in so-called bad industries, where the average economic profit is less than the market average.

How do they do it? In other words, where do powerful strategies come from? Sometimes it’s luck, or good timing, or a stroke of inspiration. In our experience, it’s also possible to load the dice in favor of developing good strategies by focusing on the core building blocks that often get overlooked. One is the need to gain agreement—before creating strategy—on the essential decisions and the criteria for making them. Another is to ensure that the company is prepared and willing to act on a strategy once it is adopted. Too much of what passes for strategy development, we find, consists of hurried efforts that skip one or more of the essentials. The resulting strategies are often flawed from the start.

It’s also easy, though, to go too far in the other direction and make the creation of strategy a rigid, box-checking exercise. Appealing as a formula-driven approach might be, it ignores the truth that strategy creation is a journey—and an inherently messy one at that. Proprietary insights are hard to come by. Shaping keen insights into good strategies requires deep interpersonal engagement and debate from senior executives, as well as the ability to deal with ambiguity in charged and often stressful circumstances. When would-be strategists overlook these dynamics, they cover the essentials in name only. Consequently, they miss opportunities and threats, or create great paper strategies that remain unfinished in practice.

In this article, we’ll outline a middle path—an end-to-end way of thinking that views the creation of strategy as a journey, not a project. This method, developed through our work with some 900 global companies over the past five years, can help senior executives approach strategy in a rigorous and complete way. We’ll also describe some principles that strategists should keep in mind as they use the method to ensure that their strategic-planning processes embody the spirit of debate and engagement, which, in turn, yields inspiration. By better understanding both the method and how to get the most out of it, companies can boost the odds that the strategies they create will beat the market.

Do justice to strategy’s building blocks

Most companies we’re familiar with demonstrate a variety of good habits when they create strategies, and they get many things right. But what they miss can be critical. Consider these examples:

a technology company that prided itself on analytical rigor but never accurately diagnosed how difficult it would be for a targeted customer group to provide reasonable returns
a beer company that rightly focused on industry structure in its core business but made a losing bet on a related business—wine—after failing to forecast declining returns stemming from structural shifts there
a telecommunications company’s strategy team, which recognized the importance of involving senior managers but ended up alienating them by holding a series of time-consuming workshops that focused on alignment around strategic choices, though the full set of choices hadn’t yet been identified

These problems don’t have to happen. We find that companies do better when they ground all their strategy-development efforts and processes in an understanding of the building blocks of strategy. These straightforward modes of activity (exhibit) track the progression of a strategy from its roots as an idea through its emergence as an operational reality.

The building blocks of strategy help companies make strategic choices and carry them through to operational reality.

One central building block is deep insight into the starting position of the company: where and why it creates—or destroys—value (diagnose). Executives also need a point of view on how the future may unfold (forecast). By combining insights into a company’s starting position with a perspective on the future, the company can develop and explore alternative ways to win (search) and ultimately decide which alternative to pursue (choose). With the strategy selected, the company needs to create an action plan and reallocate resources to deliver it (commit).

These five core building blocks are book-ended by two others. One is an initial block (frame) to ensure that the team properly identifies and agrees to both the questions asked and the decisions made as the strategy is developed. The final block (evolve) is dedicated to the constant monitoring and refreshing of the strategy as conditions change and new information becomes available.

To some extent, the building blocks simply represent a thorough list of activities that all good strategists perform. And while all are important and should be included in the creation of strategy, slavishly following this or any other framework won’t bring success. Depending on the situation, some blocks will be more critical than others and therefore require more attention (see sidebar, “Re-create, recommit, and refresh”).

Re-create, recommit, and refresh

For a number of years, we, our colleagues, and many others who are engaged in the practice of strategy have been pointing out how ill-suited traditional strategic-planning processes are to the dynamism and pace of 21st-century business life. Less clear is what should happen to many organizations’ well-oiled approaches. Shut them down? Morph them into budgeting and operational-planning processes? Use them to synthesize the valuable insights emerging from more frequent strategic dialogues involving larger numbers of executives?

The building blocks of strategy shed fresh light on what strategic planning should and shouldn’t try to do. For starters, we’d emphasize that periodically—perhaps as often as every three to five years, if new competitors arrive or markets unexpectedly shift—companies must re-create their strategies. This cannot be accomplished through typical planning processes, as it requires broader skills, wider engagement, and more flexibility to make big strategic choices than they allow. So forget about strategic planning when you need to revamp your strategy; instead, take a more immersive strategy-development approach using all of the seven building blocks described in this article.

At the other end of the spectrum is what we would describe as the need to recommit organizations to established strategies. Traditional strategic planning is tailor-made for this purpose, and thinking about the task in these terms helps elevate it above the glorified budgeting exercise into which some processes lapse. Two of the building blocks we have described in this article—commit and evolve—are useful reminders of what any such strategic- planning process should accomplish: the constant monitoring of strategy, the reallocation of resources, the alignment of management on strategic priorities, and the creation of targets, budgets, and operational plans.

Between these two extremes lies the strategic refresh, which is particularly relevant for organizations where a lot of valuable, ongoing strategy dialogue takes place among members of the top team. Such engagement can highlight nagging issues that might one day necessitate a strategic redo but certainly merit attention now. For example, if signs suggesting that one or more key assumptions have become less valid emerge from strategic dialogues at the business-unit level, it might be time to update the company’s perspective on long-term trends. This exercise could be elevated in importance by making it a core theme of the upcoming strategic-planning process. In such situations, it’s a good idea to check all seven building blocks quickly, with an emphasis on understanding the strategic implications of underlying changes. If they are big enough, that could be a red flag signaling the need to re-create the strategy and thus to elevate the discussion beyond strategic-planning parameters.

For a closer look at how to improve strategic planning, see “ Managing the strategy journey ” and “ Dynamic management: Better decisions in uncertain times .”

That’s why taking some time to frame issues at the outset is so important. When strategists do so, they are better able to identify the real choices and constraints facing their organizations and to see which building blocks are likely to matter most given the situation at hand. Unfortunately, many executives feel that taking the time to frame strategy choices thoughtfully and to decide where to focus strategy-development efforts is a luxury they don’t have.

We’ve seen evidence of this pressure firsthand and in the responses to an executive survey we’ve been conducting as part of an ongoing research project. Fully two-thirds of the 200 executives we’ve surveyed so far report that they feel rushed to provide outputs in their strategic-planning processes. This pressure is understandable in today’s always-on, fast-changing environment, but it can be hazardous to a company’s strategic health. That’s especially true in the all-too-common situations when it’s not immediately obvious what factors will determine the success or failure of a change to strategy.

A financial-services institution in the Asia–Pacific region, for example, was investigating a growth opportunity involving the creation of an online business. Changing the company’s focus in this way would be a big undertaking, but the upside potential was large. Moreover, the members of the strategy team could already see that demonstrating the channel’s significant potential to the top team would be straightforward. Before doing that, however, they stepped back to spend some time thinking through the idea’s broader strategic context—framing, in other words.

When they did, they saw a serious risk of cannibalization for one of the company’s existing businesses. The new venture would also require substantial funding over the next three to five years before it contributed financially. This had important implications, and the team’s members needed to convince themselves that the risk was worth taking. Moreover, if the company made the move, would it stick with the effort when the time came to provide funding for people and technology?

Instead of steaming ahead with analytical work to prove the potential, the team recognized that it would be critical to invest a disproportionate amount of time and effort to the commit building block. The strategy team did this, in part, by developing a powerful multimedia concept prototype to capture the imaginations of the top team and the executives representing key support functions. The team’s focus on gaining commitment was prescient; the prototype and the communication around it helped convince the leaders that the concept was so compelling for consumers that if the company didn’t cannibalize its existing business, a competitor would probably come up with the idea. The effort also helped motivate the leaders of the finance and IT functions to support the new offer. The company launched it in record time, to promising early results in both customer acquisition and levels of customer engagement.

In retrospect, the team credits the conversations and debates held during this framing period as necessary to identify and resolve the potential stumbling blocks related to the organization’s strategic direction. Although messy at times, this activity helped build an organizational commitment to the strategy and its importance to the company.

Myth-bust your story

A focus on strategic building blocks also can help companies develop penetrating insights. While “insight” conjures up visions of research, data crunching, and “aha” moments, real strategic insight also rests on a seemingly mundane and easy-to-overlook factor: a thorough understanding of how and why a company, its competitors, and others in the industry value chain make money. Absent dumb luck, a strategy that doesn’t tap directly into such an understanding will underperform.

The difficulty, as professor Phil Rosenzweig of the International Institute for Management Development has explained so well, 3 3. See Phil Rosenzweig, “ The halo effect, and other managerial delusions ,” McKinsey Quarterly , February 2007. is that a company’s performance—good or bad—creates strong impressions that powerfully shape the way people perceive strategies, leaders, cultures, and organizational effectiveness. A commodity company, for instance, might falsely attribute its strong performance to the efficiency of its operations. Yet despite its efficiency, the economics of those operations could be swamped by market-structure changes that have significant pricing implications or by unexpectedly volatile demand.

One way senior executives can address the challenge, we find, is explicitly questioning received corporate wisdom—much as the popular US television show MythBusters does when it takes apparent axioms, urban legends, and popular assumptions and (in entertaining fashion) tries to prove or disprove them. In the creation of strategy, this approach means dispassionately identifying the elements that contribute to performance, while discounting any factor contaminated by perceptions of the company’s supposed greatness. It also requires a curiosity that’s woefully lacking in some strategic-planning processes. Nearly eight in ten executives we surveyed, for example, say that the processes of their companies are more geared to confirming existing hypotheses than to testing new ones.

To see how these dynamics play out in practice, consider the experience of a global retailer that was revisiting its strategy after the previous one had delivered five years of strong earnings. The positive results, most in the company believed, reflected good execution and the success of a recent initiative to refresh the store format. Still, the leader of the business felt there could be more to the story and worried that continuing along the same path might not produce the same results in the future. To determine what was actually driving performance, the leader met with the company’s strategy team, as well as other executives.

This was time well spent. The resulting discussions sparked important insights—revealing, for example, that while overall performance was good, there were problems under the surface. On the positive side, the company was steadily improving its margins and winning customers from a higher-cost competitor. Nonetheless, the solid network growth at the top-line level appeared to be masking a worrisome decline in the productivity of older stores. The big drag on performance, the team discovered, was the loss of mainstream customers to a cheaper competitor, which careful analysis showed to have an unassailable advantage on cost. Increasing promotional activity had so far seemed to stem the march of this aggressive rival, but the retailer was running out of steam and hitting practical limits. Significant changes would be necessary.

Let them grapple

This realization was the product of more than just number crunching. The thoughtful argument and debate surrounding the analysis from day one played a vital part in generating the insights. In our experience, many companies forget this truth when they create strategy. Instead, they put too much emphasis on preparing documents and completing analyses and not enough on stimulating the productive debates that lead to better decisions.

Getting executives to grapple with the issues can be a messy process, and the debates may be quite personal. After all, formulating good strategies typically involves revisiting fundamental and deeply held beliefs about a company’s past and future, and people tend not to shift their views without a fight. 4 4. We also know that executives exhibit a number of biases that lead them to be overconfident about their beliefs and adept at finding facts to confirm them and reject challenges. To learn more about addressing this problem, see Dan Lovallo and Olivier Sibony, “ The case for behavioral strategy ,” McKinsey Quarterly , March 2010. But without the necessary fights, and without the use of carefully designed decision-making techniques, companies may end up with rubber-stamped strategies whose flaws are exposed during implementation—or afterward, by competitors.

When companies find ways to get executives grappling—throughout the strategy-development process—with the choices that matter, they make better, less biased decisions. They also improve the likelihood that the relevant stakeholders will be on board when the time comes to make and act on choices. 5 5. The importance of gaining social support for a strategy is often overlooked. Fully 62 percent of executives in our survey say that their strategy processes focus on the strategy itself, not on building a support base of influencers who will drive implementation.

To exemplify our point, let’s look again at the retailer’s strategy team as it engaged with the company’s broader leadership group to share its observations. Most strategy teams interact with decision makers by presenting management with a summary report and recommendations. But this team understood that senior managers needed time to debate the issues themselves and reach their own conclusions—and that such collective discussions would improve the resulting strategy.

Because the senior managers had a very hands-on attitude, the strategy team designed a series of weekly meetings called think tanks to let them work through a profit-deconstruction exercise illuminating the company’s past. In each session, the analysis was tabled after a certain point, and the management team’s members took turns drawing out conclusions or identifying further questions that needed answering. The strategy team was prohibited from bringing any conclusions of the analysis to these meetings, much to its discomfort. This ensured that company leaders were invested in the decision-making process and could challenge the strategy team with new ideas.

Through a series of small-group meetings, the leadership team (with analytical help from the strategy team) debated the reasons for the company’s past success and how to continue it. By unpacking these complex dynamics together, the leadership team arrived at an accurate, sharp diagnosis: the company needed to restore mainstream shoppers’ trust in its prices. The result was a simple, focused strategy for delivering “value” products and reinforcing that market position with customers. Furthermore, because the management team was deeply involved in the diagnosis, its members had a strong incentive to drive implementation.

Don’t leave the strategy unfinished

In conversations with senior executives, we occasionally hear some version of this saying: “I’d rather have a good strategy and great execution than vice versa.” We believe that this attitude reflects confusion about what great strategy is. Such a strategy creates a path for action and is inherently incomplete without it. Yet many companies fail to get the conditions for successful implementation right, and fully two-thirds of the executives in our survey admit that their companies struggle with the issue.

It’s a crucial struggle. No strategy, however brilliant, can be implemented successfully unless the people who have the most important jobs know what they need to do differently, understand how and why they should do it, and have the necessary resources. An added challenge, of course, is that strategic choices often involve big changes over long, three- to five-year time frames.

Finishing a strategy, therefore, requires creating tangible, proximate goals that connect to the longer-term strategy. It’s easy to create a high-level list of next steps and things to do differently on Monday morning. It’s much harder to roll back the future and connect it to the present so that people understand what they need to do differently and actually do it.

When companies fail to set proximate goals, the results can be disappointing. An Asian telecommunications company, for example, had landed on an intriguing and counterintuitive strategy involving two big shifts: it wanted to move its target customer base from big business to the midmarket and to standardize its products rather than provide customized service to large clients. Making the changes work, however, would require salespeople to start saying no to new business from large and complex clients so that the company could redirect its efforts to midmarket customers. The short-term pain (lower revenues and higher costs) would ultimately lead the company to a market-beating position.

The management team understood and encouraged the shift and was ready to act. But the strategy team did not do enough to prepare the organization for the moves, instead spending its time on detailed initiative-planning exercises. Absent any effort to translate the company’s strategic desires into proximate goals for its employees, those employees balked at the changes.

Sales managers, for example, not only viewed saying no to larger customers as a short-term loss for the business but also were simply not as excited about pursuing midmarket customers with simpler needs. They understood the strategy intellectually and believed the analysis, but their skills, incentives, and ways of working and even thinking had not changed. Without such changes, they couldn’t connect the necessary steps to a longer-term goal and naturally reverted to their old ways, creating a backlash that inevitably undermined the strategy. Only afterward did the team recognize the kinds of activities that might have helped—for example, changing the salespeople’s goals, resetting the overall budget to acknowledge the transition from one customer segment to another, and using the reallocated funding to generate a new product-development road map.

Creating strategy in today’s environment of complexity, ever-changing priorities, and conflicting agendas is a daunting task. Yet when senior executives invest the time and effort to develop a more thorough, thoughtful approach to strategy, they not only increase the odds of building a winning business but also often enjoy a positive spin-off: the gifts of simplicity and focus, as well as the conviction to get things done.

Chris Bradley is a principal in McKinsey’s Sydney office, where Angus Dawson is a director and Antoine Montard is a senior expert.

The authors wish to thank Matthew Chapman, Pia Mortensen, and Victoria Newman for their contributions to the development of this article.

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The strategic framework so powerful, Amazon uses it to scale

If you were to go around your company, would everyone be able to recite 3-4 strategic focuses of the business? The concept of strategic pillars is a simple way to focus and align your team with the strategy of the business. It’s a concept many businesses skip over before moving to more tactical ideas and initiatives.

Amazon (which does everything from running server farms to owning Whole Foods) may seem like an odd choice to illustrate how to focus, create alignment and scale. However, you’ll see their seemingly-random activities actually support their strategic pillars.

What are strategic pillars?

Strategic pillars are simply the 3-4 strategic battlefields that your business needs to win in, no matter what else happens.

As Matt Laessig, COO and co-founder at data.world explains, “I’m a big fan of the Strategic pillars concept, which is really essential to a strategic planning framework. Strategic pillars truly represent the essential dimensions around the company’s long-term success. These are the most strategic battlefields that you need to win on.”

Businesses, like Amazon, use strategic pillars to replace complicated business plans. “We’re long past the time where you wrote a hundred-page business plan that was this magical guide to how you’re going to win in the competitive marketplace. Strategic Pillars are very durable over time,” Matt said.

What are the most common strategic pillars?

The most common strategic pillars typically have something to do with the following four areas:

Smart Growth – Not just growth at all costs.
Being a great place to work
Having Customer Empathy or Customer Centricity
Operational excellence

While these are terrible names for the actual pillars, you get the idea. Apple focused on “Design and Simplicity” as their customer-centric pillar, for example. Each Pillar should have deep meaning to the organization. But these four areas are a great place to start.

Why only 3-4 Strategic Pillars?

It’s a natural tendency to feel like you’re “missing something” and add more pillars. However, there are many studies that show the more initiatives you have, the LEAST likely you are to achieve ANY of them. Resist the tendency to add more strategic pillars.

How Often Should You Change Strategic Pillars?

Bryon Jacobs, CTO and co-founder at data.world, was introduced to the concept of strategic pillars while he was at HomeAway , “I was at HomeAway for 10 years. The most important aspect about strategic pillars was how the pillars never changed. We went through a lot of a lot of different iterations as a company – from a relatively small company growing very quickly, making a lot of acquisitions, to going public in 2011. The strategic pillars changed exactly once, by adding one, in that 10 year period.”

“Where I really saw the power of strategic pillars was when we had to add a strategic pillar. We basically said, ‘this set of things that we never change, that we built the business on, we’re going to change them.” Because we were so constant, the one time we did add a pillar, it was able to move what had become a pretty large organization almost overnight,” Bryon said.

Strategic Pillars Examples – Amazon

Amazon is one of the most straightforward examples of the strategic pillars concept. Their strategic pillars are:

Largest Selection: Amazon wanted to have the best selection, guaranteed to be able to find the product you wanted.
Lowest Price: Amazon wanted to have the best price, giving you no reason to go somewhere else to buy the same thing.
Fastest, Easiest Delivery: Amazon knew that if they had every product at the lowest price, the only hurdle would be ensuring a fast, reliable delivery.

You can see this strategy being a consumer of Amazon’s. The fastest, easiest delivery was one of the reasons Amazon created the Amazon Echo – it’s a new way to quickly order the products you want. Since Amazon already had the lowest price and largest selection, you wouldn’t think twice about ordering a product from an Amazon Echo.

What about Amazon’s recent purchase of Whole Foods ? It helps Amazon provide more selection (fresh food), do it at a lower price (power of scale) and improve delivery (they now have over 400 stores to deliver from).

How to combat a competitor’s strategic pillars

Once you start to see what a business like Amazon is focused on, you can devise your strategy around their strategic pillars.

Anthony Bucci , co-founder and former CEO of RevZilla , an e-commerce site for motorcycle parts and accessories, explained it like this, “Can we be the Cirque du Soleil to everybody else’s Barnum & Bailey? Where everybody in the industry focusing on an endless aisle (selection), speed of delivery and discounted price? We decided we were going to be price competitive, but we’re never going to be the cheapest. We’re going to focus on service because people need help to choose protective products that are expensive, especially online.”

Buying motorcycle gear can be complicated. It’s not a commodity like toilet paper. Every product is unique with features that work for some riders and don’t for others. Knowing this, RevZilla decided doubled down on customer service. It was common for RevZilla customer service to spend over an hour on the phone (listen to Anthony’s podcast for the full story ) to help someone pick the right jacket. Based on their customer service experience, they helped create video content to inform the customer (check out RevZilla’s YouTube Channel ) to scale the experience. They also used technology to help the customer experience, too.

Compare and contrast RevZilla’s strategic pillars with Amazon’s:

3 Steps to make strategic pillars effective within your organization

There are three ways to make strategic pillars effective within your business and to make sure they stick.

The power of repetition over time. “You really need to repeat it over and over and over. Whether it’s in quarterly all hands or whether it’s an executive update to the team the progress that you’re making,” Matt said. Any time you can repeat the strategic pillars, repeat it.
Report on Metrics and Milestones. “The more you repeat, and repeat your progress against certain metrics and milestones that are relevant to your strategic pillars, the more likely the strategic pillars will stick,” Matt said.
Alignment. “Everybody in the organization should be able to look at what they’re working on and see which Strategic Pillar they are supporting with their work,” Matt said. The more you can align someone’s every-day activities and workload, the more likely you’re are going to achieve your strategic pillars.

When to start creating strategic pillars within your business

While pillars eventually become very durable, early in your journey you’re probably still trying to figure a lot of things. You can define your strategic pillars too early.

“Until you realize what are going to be your key levers for success and your real competitive differentiators, you don’t know enough to really put strategic pillars in hard,” Matt explained. In his current startup, data.world, “we started having these conversations about what should our strategic pillars be pretty early. But we didn’t cement anything. Maybe once a quarter we would ask, “What have we learned? How has this evolved? What we have recently decided are our strategic pillars for going forward, you can see the ancestry from our earlier conversations,” Matt said.

How do you start with strategic pillars?

The process can seem intimidating or awkward, but the results will be worth it. Any easy way to start is by making it an agenda at your next offsite. Ask your team: “If we only had to focus on 3 things, what would those three things be?” If you’ve got more than 4 people, break up into different, small groups. Have them report back to everyone. Make sure to have them consider what you will be saying “no” to as a result of focusing on only 3 pillars.

You’ll be surprised at how aligned you already are and by great ideas that arise. It doesn’t cost anything but time. But it will pay dividends over the life of your business.

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What's a Business Strategy Map & Why Is It Important?

A business team discussing strategy at a table with a laptop on it

19 Dec 2023

Setting and achieving business goals and objectives is essential to strategy execution. It can be challenging to direct employees, allocate resources, and measure performance without doing so.

Despite the importance of goals and objectives, companies struggle to map them out. According to the Phoenix Business Journal , only 51 percent of organizational leaders attempt to develop goals, and just six percent revisit them regularly.

One tool that can help ensure your goals aren’t only achievable but also create long-term value is a business strategy map.

Access your free e-book today.

What Is a Business Strategy Map?

A business strategy map is a visual tool that helps outline your company’s objectives. It aligns actions and resources to achieve strategic goals and tells an end-to-end story about how your organization intends to create value and implement ideas.

“A strategy map illustrates the cause and effect relationships that underpin your strategy,” says Harvard Business School Professor Robert Simons, who teaches the online course Strategy Execution .

An effective strategy map needs two components:

Arrows showing cause-and-effect relationships between value objectives
Goals expressed as action verbs that illustrate what you’re striving for

Its main objective is communicating how your business intends to create value alongside a balanced scorecard —a tool designed to help track and measure non-financial variables at your organization.

“The balanced scorecard combines the traditional financial perspective with additional perspectives that focus on customers, internal business processes, and learning and development,” Simons says in Strategy Execution . “These additional perspectives help businesses measure all the activities essential to creating value.”

While a balanced scorecard is crucial to effective strategy execution, you must first create a strategy map.

“Without a strategy map, your balanced scorecard is really just a list of measures,” Simons says. “And those measures may or may not tie back to your intended strategy.”

If you struggle to execute strategy, here’s an overview of how to create a business strategy map for your organization.

Related: 5 Strategy Execution Skills Every Business Leader Needs

How to Create a Business Strategy Map

1. define your company’s core values.

Before outlining your company’s objectives and goals in a strategy map, you need to understand what core values they support.

Core values communicate your business’s larger purpose by:

Inspiring employees to feel proud of where they work
Guiding behaviors when making tough decisions

Your core values should be a framework for your strategy map's goals. This ensures stakeholders and employees are more likely to buy into strategic initiatives .

For example, Google’s mission statement focuses on making the world's information universally accessible and useful. As a result, the company’s goals of improving search algorithms and user interfaces, developing products and services that promote accessibility, and investing in new areas of technology all align with its values.

Perhaps your company values sustainability, in which case goals like transitioning to carbon-neutral production or utilizing recycled materials in products would be more likely to garner your team’s support.

With so many types of goals, it’s crucial to understand what aspects of your business strategy should appear on your map.

2. Establish Goals

Your strategy map should touch on the four perspectives a balanced scorecard typically tracks, which are:

Financial: Creating economic value for your company and its stakeholders
Customer: Fostering brand loyalty with your target audience
Internal business process: Ensuring value creation for customers through your products or services
Learning and growth: Investing in human capital and infrastructure resources to meet goals

In Strategy Execution , Simons recommends establishing goals from the bottom (learning and growth) to the top (financial). Doing so helps you reflect on how perspectives build on each other to create value for your business.

A graphic showing an example strategy map and balanced scorecard with the financial, customer, process, and learning and growth perspectives

While it can be tempting to establish a financial goal first, the preceding perspectives directly impact whether it’s realistic.

For example, if you work at a retail company, its financial success may rely on factors like brand loyalty and customer service, which are driven by the customer perspective. However, improving the customer experience often requires changing internal processes, such as improving warehouse efficiency for faster shipping times.

This is why it’s better to start at the bottom of your strategy map and focus on learning and growth. Since other goals aren’t possible without a well-trained warehouse staff that understands new technologies and processes, it’s critical to establish realistic goals at the bottom before considering financial benchmarks.

Working from bottom to top also ensures that the balanced scorecard’s measures link to actionable steps for achieving organizational goals.

“Without a strategy map to tell a story, people in your organization will have no clue where those measures came from,” Simons says in Strategy Execution . “They'll be asking themselves, ‘How do I know if those are the right measures?’”

Strategy Execution | Successfully implement strategy within your organization | Learn More

3. Ask for Feedback

Asking for feedback is an important step in strategy execution—particularly when drafting a strategy map.

Getting diverse perspectives on your strategy map can offer insights into goals’ strengths and weaknesses. It can also expose gaps you may not be aware of, such as:

Ineffective job design
Lack of risk management
No employee buy-in

By asking for feedback, you can keep employees engaged , motivated, and invested in your strategic planning .

According to a study by management consulting firm Gallup , companies with highly engaged business units generate 23 percent greater profitability. They also have less turnover.

4. Revise and Refine

Much like your business strategy, you must revise and refine your map as circumstances change. If your organization is effective at managing risk, then modify your strategy map to address new market challenges.

“Competing successfully in any industry involves some level of risk,” Simons says in Strategy Execution . “But high-performing businesses with high-pressure cultures are especially vulnerable. As a manager, you need to know how and why these risks arise and how to avoid them.”

A strategy map can help address challenges such as:

Shifting market conditions
Emerging disruptive technologies
Evolving customer needs

By continuously revisiting your strategy map's goals, you can integrate new insights and feedback from your team to achieve long-term objectives. Revisions don’t need to result in major changes; in some instances, they can lead to the creation of an entirely new strategy map.

“What matters, in the end, is that you’ve formally drawn the cause and effect relationships that illustrate how your business creates value,” Simons says in Strategy Execution .

How to Formulate a Successful Business Strategy | Access Your Free E-Book | Download Now

Start Mapping Out Your Strategy Execution

Creating a strategy map helps align organizational goals and guide decision-making throughout the strategy execution process. While it’s best to do so during the early stages of strategy implementation, it’s never too late to start.

Taking an online strategy course can help you build a strategy map, no matter where you are in the process. Through an interactive learning experience, Strategy Execution enables you to draw insights from real-world business examples to create one that aligns with your company’s mission and goals.

Want to learn about more tools you can use to execute strategy? Explore Strategy Execution —one of our online strategy courses —and download our free strategy e-book to jumpstart your journey to implementing strategy successfully.

About the Author

Strategic Pillars: What Are They, Why They Matter

In business, the term “strategic pillars” describes the critical areas of focus that will help an organization achieve its goals.

While there is no one-size-fits-all approach to defining strategic pillars, certain elements are essential for all businesses.

By understanding what strategic pillars are and why they matter, you can ensure that your organization has a solid foundation to build success.

What are strategic pillars.

What is Strategic Planning ?

Importance Of Mission and Vision Statement

Importance Of Values And Goals

Why Do Strategic Pillars Matter?

What are the three types of strategic pillars, how do you ensure your organization’s strategic pillars.

How Do You Ensure Your Strategic Pillars?

What Is Your Strategic Organizational Pillar?

What are the four components of an effective strategic pillar?

What Are The Five Main Strategies For Ensuring Your Strategic Pillars?

When Is It Necessary To Change An Existing Strategic Pillar?

How should your strategic pillars be used as a management tool to motivate others, how should your strategic pillars be used to guide your company’s future direction, how do you ensure that your strategic pillar aligns with the organization’s overall strategy, remember a few key things when aligning your pillar with the company strategy follows:, strategic pillars: what are they, why they matter, and how you can ensure them-conclusion.

A company’s strategic pillars are the foundation of its success. They provide guidance and focus for all business decisions, big and small.

Three Key Components Of a Successful Company:

People : People are a company’s most important asset and must be aligned with the company’s mission and values.

Products: Its products must be innovative and meet the needs of its customers.

Processes. Processes must be efficient and effective.

A company’s strategic pillars provide the framework for achieving these objectives. They are the guiding principles that inform every decision made by the company, from product development to marketing to customer service. By clearly defining its strategic pillars, a company can ensure that everyone is working towards the same goals and that every decision supports the overall strategy .

What is Strategic Planning?

Strategic planning is a process that organizations use to set priorities, allocate resources, and assess risks.

Strategic planning aims to create a road map for the organization that aligns with its mission and vision.

Strategic Planning Steps

1. define the organization’s mission and vision- strategic planning steps.

The mission statement should answer the question, “What does our organization do?” The vision statement should answer the question, “What do we want to achieve?”

2. Conduct a SWOT analysis- Strategic Planning Steps

This stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. This analysis will help identify internal and external factors impacting the organization’s ability to achieve its goals.

3. Set priorities- Strategic Planning Steps

The organization must decide which areas it wants to focus on. The company may decide to concentrate on creating new goods or services, or it may concentrate on raising the quality of its customer service.

4. The organization can allocate resources- Strategic Planning Steps

This could mean hiring more staff, increasing marketing efforts, or improving technology.

5. The organizations can assess risks- Strategic Planning Steps

The organization must assess the risks of achieving its mission and vision.

Some of the most common risks that organizations face include the following:

Product quality problems

Inadequate technology

Insufficient funding

Not having enough customers

A lack of leadership

All of these risks are real risks. The question is whether the organization is taking any action to manage them. An organization must take action to manage risks to avoid being exposed to various risks. These risks may lead to a poor reputation and the organization’s failure.

A company’s mission and vision statements are essential tools that provide direction and guidance for the organization. The statements help to define what the company does, what it wants to achieve, and how it plans to get there.

Mission Statement Importance

A mission statement is a written statement of what a business or organization tries to achieve. It defines the goals and objectives of a company, organization, or group and includes a set of values and principles.

It should clearly define the mission of the company, organization, or group. It can help explain the purpose of the company, and it can help communicate the company’s goals and objectives to customers and employees.

It will help to build a strong sense of identity and purpose, and it will help to develop a culture of loyalty within your organization.

A mission statement may also serve as a guide for internal policies and procedures. However, a mission statement is not a legal document. It does not have to be signed by anyone and cannot be used to enforce any law.

Vision Statement Importance

A vision statement is an essential part of the business. It is a short description of the business and its goals and serves as a guide for employees and customers.

The vision statement helps you stay focused on your long-term goals and provides a sense of purpose to your employees. It also serves as a marketing tool that attracts new customers and keeps existing customers satisfied.

A well-written vision statement will help define your business and what it wants to become. It will also allow you to demonstrate what you can do and how far you’ve come.

By creating a vision statement, you’ll also ensure that your employees clearly understand their roles in your company. Finally, your business can use a well-crafted vision to strengthen the foundation of your business.

A well-defined mission and vision can help to focus an organization and keep it on track. It can also give employees a sense of purpose and direction and help attract customers and partners who share the same values.

Importance Of Values And Goals- pillars of strategy

The business world is constantly changing and evolving, making it more critical than ever for companies to have a clear strategy. A corporation’s design must be based on values and objectives that direct all choices.

Values provide a moral compass for a company and its employees. They help to shape the culture and define what is essential to the organization.

Goals, on the other hand, are tangible targets that a company strives to achieve.

Values and goals form the strategy pillar supporting all other aspects of a company’s operations.

Investing in values and goals helps to create a long-term vision for the company. It also allows companies to adapt quickly to changes in their industry or marketplace. Most importantly, it enables companies to serve their customers and stakeholders better.

Strategic pillars are the foundation of any business strategy . They help determine which activities to focus on, how to market your business, and even what to sell. They provide guidance and direction for companies to achieve their desired outcomes. They help to shape the entire industry.

There are four main reasons why strategic pillars matter:

They ensure that everyone in the organization works towards the same goal.

They provide a clear roadmap for businesses to follow.

They help businesses to focus on their core competencies.

They improve decision-making by providing a framework for evaluation.

Strategic pillars are one of the most critical aspects of business success. But what are they, exactly? Hubspot says strategic pillars are “the essential building blocks that create a strong foundation for your business.”

They include your mission, vision, values, and core beliefs. These pillars can help your business to thrive, and they can also make it challenging to attract and keep the right employees.

Strategic pillars are essential when it comes to marketing. With a strong brand, your customers will know what to expect from your company.

3 Types Of Strategic Pillars

The three types of strategic pillars are the following:

Growth pillars Are focused on increasing revenue and market share. They typically have higher risks but also offer the potential for higher rewards.

Profitability pillars focus on improving margins and generating positive cash flow. Offer more stability than growth pillars but may provide less upside potential.

Return on Investment pillars

Are focused on maximizing shareholder value. They seek to balance risk and reward to achieve the highest possible return on investment .

The pillar type right for your business depends on your goals and objectives. Growth-oriented companies may prioritize the growth pillar over the profitability pillar, while businesses that seek to maximize shareholder value may focus more on the return on investment pillar. The key is to align your strategic pillars with your overall business strategy.

Strategic pillars are a core element of an organization’s structure and should be a key consideration when building a strategy.

Without these pillars, a strategy will not stand the test of time. However, there is a risk of having too many pillars; the risk is that they will need to be distinct enough to keep the strategy cohesive.

Here are some suggestions for ensuring that your organization’s strategic pillars are different and intense.

Identify your organization’s key business drivers.

Your strategic pillars should support these business drivers.

Decide how the business drivers of your organization will be evaluated.

Create a definition of your organization’s competitive advantage. It should focus on what makes your organization distinctive and different from its competitors.

Define your organization’s long-term goals and objectives.

These should be based on your strategy; What are your organization’s strategic pillars?

What is your organization’s competitive advantage? What are your long-term goals?

Define your organization’s key business drivers.

Your strategic pillars should support these business drivers. Define how your organization’s business drivers will be measured.

Create a definition of your organization’s competitive advantage.

It should focus on what makes your organization distinctive and different from its competitors.

Define the metrics that measure your organization’s key business drivers and competitive advantage.

Defining your organization’s culture

What are your long-term goals? What are your objectives? How will you measure progress toward achieving these goals?

Now that your goals are in place, it’s time to start defining your organization’s culture. Your culture is the glue that holds your organization together. It’s the core of who you are as an organization. It’s the driving force behind everything your organization does. Without a culture, nothing else really matters.

How Do You Ensure Your Strategic Pillars are Right?

Strategic pillars are the basic building blocks of a business. They are the foundation on which your entire organization rests. With them, you will have much to build upon. So how do you ensure that you have the right strategic pillars? Start by asking yourself a few questions.

Is your company growing and evolving? If not, consider revamping your strategy.

Are your products and services meeting customer needs? If not, it may be time to look at your product or service offerings and make changes where necessary.

Do you focus on what’s important to your customers and business? If you still need to, consider reevaluating your priorities.

Are you executing your strategy? If not, why not?

Once you’ve identified the areas where you need improvement, you can take action and begin making changes.

An organization’s strategic pillar is the foundation of its success. The guiding principle drives everything from product development to marketing and sales. An organization will stay strong and eventually succeed with a solid strategic pillar.

So what makes a solid strategic pillar?

There are three key characteristics:

1. A relevance to the organization’s core competencies- Strategic Organizational Pillars

The strategic pillar should be based on the company’s unique strengths. It should be something that the company is good at and that differentiates it from its competitors. For example, Apple’s core competency is designing, so its strategic pillar could be “Design matters.”

2. A differentiation from the competition- Strategic Organizational Pillars

It means that the strategic pillar should set the company apart meaningfully. This could be through a unique product or service, a new market position, or a new way of doing business. For example, Amazon’s core competency is online retail, so its strategic pillar could be “Customers matter.”

3. Sustainability over time- Strategic Organizational Pillars

It means that the strategic pillar will mostly stay the same over time. When the strategic pillar changes, it should be based on a deep understanding of the company’s current state and how it will evolve.

What Are The Four Components Of An Effective Strategic Pillar?

A well-designed strategic pillar can help your business succeed in today’s market and tomorrow’s. At the same time, a poorly designed pillar can significantly damage our business.

Here are four critical components of an effective strategic pillar:

A clear and inspiring vision

It sets a direction for an organization and inspires employees to achieve it.

Measurable and attainable goals

It gives employees a sense of ownership and keeps the organization moving forward.

Aligned initiatives

Ensure that everyone is working towards the same goal.

Metrics to track progress

Help identify areas of improvement and keep everyone accountable.

What Are The Five Main Tactics For Ensuring Strong Strategic Pillars?

1. build your core competency- tactics for ensuring strong strategic pillars.

When you want to ensure that your strategic pillars are strong, one of the main strategies you can use is to build your core competency. When building your core competency, ensure your strengths are within your business. When you are doing this, you are guaranteeing that your business is performing well.

2. Be flexible- Tactics For Ensuring Strong Strategic Pillars

Another way to ensure that your strategic pillars are strong is to be flexible. Flexibility will allow you to take advantage of your business and industry changes. As long as you are flexible, you can adapt to different situations.

3. Get ahead of the competition- Tactics For Ensuring Strong Strategic Pillars

Getting ahead of the competition is essential to ensure that your strategic pillars are strong. You should constantly be developing your business and your industry. You ensure you are always one step ahead by getting ahead of the competition.

4. Take advantage of technology- Tactics For Ensuring Strong Strategic Pillars

You should use technology to ensure that your strategic pillars are strong. Using technology can ensure that you are always ahead of the competition. When using technology, you can use social media to your advantage.

5. Put your business in the hands of experts- Tactics For Ensuring Strong Strategic Pillars

Another way to ensure that your strategic pillars are strong is to put your business in the hands of experts. When you put your business in the hands of experts, you ensure that it performs at its best.

Experts will be able to develop your business and ensure that you are always ahead of the competition.

It is necessary to change an existing strategic pillar when the company’s environment changes, its goals change, or its competitive advantage changes.

The environment in which a company operates can change for many reasons. In addition, technology can disrupt an industry, new competitors can enter the market, and consumer preferences can change. When these things happen, adjusting the company’s strategy may be necessary.

The goals of a company can also change over time. As a company grows, it may expand into new markets or product categories. Or, as a result of changes in the external environment, the company may need to focus on different goals to remain successful

Three types of strategies that companies use to adapt to changing environments:

A. transformational strategies- types of strategies for dynamic environments.

Transformational strategies allow companies to respond quickly and effectively to changing market conditions.

B. Emergent Strategies- types of strategies for dynamic environments

Emergent strategies are used when the environment is too complex for a one-size-fits-all approach.

C. Reactive Strategies- types of strategies for dynamic environments

Reactive strategies are used when the environment demands a high level of certainty.

Use your Strategic Pillars to Motivate

Many people struggle with motivating others. So, when it comes to encouraging others, you should use your Strategic Pillars as a management tool. First, you should ensure you are using your Strategic Pillars effectively.

Identify Your Strategic Pillars

The first is to identify your Strategic Pillars. This will help you understand which pillar you are good at and which you need to work on. You should also use your Strategic Pillars to help you with your development.

Work on the Pillar That You are Weak In

Once you have identified your Strategic Pillars, you should use them to help you work on the pillar in which you are weak. So, if you lack communication skills, you should work on your communication skills. This will help you to develop yourself, and it will also help you to motivate others.

Use the Strategic Pillars to Manage Others

Once you have developed and improved your communication skills, you can use your Strategic Pillars to motivate others. So, if you need to improve at communicating, you should ensure you are using your communication skills.

Manage Yourself with the Strategic Pillars

You should also use your Strategic Pillars to manage yourself. This is because you need to use your Strategic Pillars to develop yourself. So, you should use your Strategic Pillars to help you to improve yourself.

1. Strategy- Use Strategic Pillars to Guide Your Future

Strategy is an integral part of your business. It is the foundation of your company’s existence. There is no plan if there is no strategy. There is no way to accomplish your goals without a plan. You won’t advance without a plan.

2. Focus- Use Strategic Pillars to Guide Your Future

Focus is important because it gives you direction. Without focus, there is no way to know where you are going or how you are getting there. Without focus, you can quickly lose sight of the big picture.

3. Structure- Use Strategic Pillars to Guide Your Future

The structure is the backbone of your business. It gives your business its foundation. Without structure, there is no way to keep track of all the activities you are doing. With structure, you will be able to meet deadlines.

4. Leadership- Use Strategic Pillars to Guide Your Future

Leadership is important because it gives your business its personality. Without supervision, there is no way to attract the best people. With supervision, you will be able to motivate others.

5. Execution- Use Strategic Pillars to Guide Your Future

Execution is getting from where you are today to where you want to be tomorrow. It is the only way to get from your current position to your desired position. With execution, you will be able to achieve your goals.

It is vital to ensure that your strategic pillar aligns with the company’s overall strategy to be successful.

Make sure that you have a clear understanding of the company’s vision and mission. What are they trying to achieve? What are their core values? Once you understand this, you can start to align your pillar with these goals.

Take a look at the company’s current situation. Where are they at right now in terms of their strategy? What are their priorities? Make sure that your pillar aligns with these as well.

Think about the future. Where does the company want to be in 5 or 10 years? What goals do they have?

In conclusion, the strategic pillars are the three main areas of focus that guide an organization’s strategy and decision-making. They provide a framework for setting goals, measuring progress, and making decisions.

By understanding the strategic pillars, organizations can ensure that their strategies are aligned with their goals and that they are progressing toward their objectives.

Strategic PILLARS: What Are They, Why They Matter, and How You Can Ensure Them-Recommended Reading

Strategy & Execution equal Fit – Benjamin Wann.com

116 Strategic Questions to Ask Senior Leaders- With Sample Answers

Strategic Questions to Ask Leaders on Communication

Career Strategy Success Tips – Benjamin Wann.com

Frequently Asked Questions

Q1: what are strategic pillars.

A: Strategic PILLARS are a strategy-driven approach to creating, managing, and executing a company’s growth. Strategic PILLARS is a method for companies to create and implement their growth plans.

Q2: Why should we care about strategic pillars?

A: We should care about strategic pillars because they allow us to become better managers. The strategic pillar approach provides a framework for analyzing our company’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.

Q3: What is the difference between a strategic pillar and a strategic plan?

A: A strategic pillar is a statement about what the company wants to achieve in the future, whereas a strategic plan is a more detailed outline of how the company intends to get there.

Q4: Why is the Strategic PILLARS method different from traditional planning methods?

A: The Strategic PILLARS method differs from traditional planning methods because it’s based on the principle of self-organization. It is designed to allow the company to create its growth plan based on the principle of self-organization.

Q5: Why are Strategic PILLARS different from traditional planning methods?

A: Traditional planning methods are based on the principle of central planning. The Strategic PILLARS method is based on the principle of self-organization.

Q6: What is the difference between a strategic pillar and a strategic goal?

A: A strategic pillar is a statement about the company’s goals. A strategic goal is a statement about how the company intends to get there.

Q7: Why do we need to create strategic goals and strategic pillars?

A: Creating strategic goals and pillars is essential for any company to grow. Strategic goals and pillars are statements about what the company wants to achieve. These statements are then used to create a growth plan.

Q8: What is a growth plan?

A: A growth plan is a detailed outline of how the company intends to get there.

Q9: What is a growth strategy?

A: A growth strategy is a specific way to achieve a goal. It is a statement about how the company intends to get there.

Updated: 4/19/2023

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Strategy Pillars Template

Identify the core business objectives.

1 Short-term (1 year or less)
2 Medium-term (1-3 years)
3 Long-term (3+ years)

Conduct competitive analysis

1 SWOT analysis
2 Porter's Five Forces analysis
3 Competitor website analysis
4 Market research reports
5 Customer surveys

Define strategic priorities

Identify key performance indicators (kpis), create initial draft of the strategy pillars template, approval: initial draft.

Create initial draft of the strategy pillars template Will be submitted

Refine strategy pillars template based on feedback

Identify strategies to achieve each pillar, map out the resources needed for each strategy, establish timelines and milestones, assign responsibilities for each strategy, review budget implications, approve: budget review, integrate the strategy pillars into the business plan, present the strategy pillars to key stakeholders, approval: stakeholders.

Present the strategy pillars to key stakeholders Will be submitted

Review and adjust strategy pillars

Develop an implementation plan for the strategy pillars, monitor and report on progress regularly, continuously review and update strategy pillars, take control of your workflows today., more templates like this.

Center for Simplified Strategic Planning

Strategic Planning →

The Five Pillars of Strategic Planning

Strategic Planning Expert Robert W. Bradford

Strategic planning has been done many different ways. Some work, and others don’t. I’ve heard people talk about planning processes that are deeply detailed and months long, and I’ve heard of planning processes that are done in a couple of hours with post-it notes and tinker toys. My own take on strategic planning is based on experience drawn from working with hundreds of companies over the years, and I’ve paid particular attention to three outcomes from strategic planning:

-What was the effect on the PROFITS of the company?

-What was the effect on the SALES of the company?

-How much of what was committed was EXECUTED?

Based on the experiences of those who fared best in these three areas, here are a few key things you NEED in your strategic planning:

Assumptions

You can do anything you want, but without the five items above, you will end up with either a bad plan or a bad outcome. With the five items above, very little that you add can greatly improve the plan quality or the effectiveness of execution.

Let’s examine each of these separately:

Far too often, I’ve seen companies try to strategize based upon opinions, feelings and presumptions. There is simply no substitute for data – but strategically useful data is hard to find (and often expensive). Anything you can do to improve your repository of strategically useful data is likely to pay back in your planning process.

While we desperately attempt to avoid assumptions in our daily lives, temporary estimates about the future are completely inevitable in strategic planning. The key to making assumptions and using them well is to do so consciously, and remember that they are subject to revision in the future.

Direction is the heart of strategy – in my definition, strategic planning is the planning of a direction that will focus the organization’s resources to the best possible effect. Almost no one skips this.

There are two downsides to commitment. One is that commitment creates accountability – which is only a downside when you want to avoid it. The second is that commitments that aren’t backed up with resources and execution damage the credibility of the plan and the management team. The simple solution to this problem is to fix it with good, resource-based execution planning, but the tedium of that process can prevent companies from doing so.

The Achilles heel of the entire strategic planning process, execution must be planned fairly meticulously with ample resources allocated to the expected efforts. Any execution which is going to be strategically useful will require a significant amount of time and/or money, or else its strategic utility will be short-lived. Because many strategists shy away from anything that some might call micro-management, I often observe poor execution planning in companies that are doing strategic planning without professional help.

I’d strongly recommend you take a look at your current strategic planning process. Are all five of these areas covered? If so – congratulations, you’re much more likely to get good results from your planning than most companies. If your strategic management is missing any of these items, you might want to take a closer look at Simplified Strategic Planning, a battle-tested methodology that assures you will cover the critical pieces with an appropriate investment of time.

To learn ways to take your strategic planning to the next level please listen to our webinar: Why my strategic planning isn’t working .

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The 4 Pillars of Strategic Decision-Making: A Comprehensive Overview

Discovering the essence of corporate strategy.

The essence of corporate strategy can be distilled into four key elements: resource optimization, structural configuration, portfolio synthesis, and considered compromises. Using practical examples, these elements can steer corporate leaders toward astute judgments.

For example, a keen focus on innovation in the biotech industry requires assembling teams with a breadth of expertise. By embracing these elements, firms can refine their strategic activities, resulting in comprehensive business portfolios whose collective value exceeds that of their individual components.

Defining the Four Core Pillars of Strategy

Pillar 1: planning and structure.

The initial pillar entails establishing a robust framework for channeling resources effectively, shaping the enterprise’s architecture, harmonizing various business sectors, and evaluating potential compromises between peril and payoff. A practical instance might be the resource distribution among promising business units to spur growth. The structural aspect allows for seamless support of strategic goals.

Portfolio deliberation is the tactical selection of focus areas, and careful consideration of tradeoffs is vital for balanced strategizing. Collectively, these factors crystallize the central tenets of strategic planning and structural exactness.

Pillar 2: Inclusive Decision-Making Process

The second pillar emphasizes the integration of diverse viewpoints and a structured approach toward strategic conclusions. Ensuring everyone involved has the opportunity to contribute, as seen in companies that actively seek diverse insights, leads to healthier strategic outcomes and mitigates the risk of uniform thinking.

Documenting the process and justifications underpins defensibility and accountability for the choices made, offers defensibility in planning, and expedites modifications in response to emerging dynamics or new participants.

Pillar 3: Documentation and Accountability

This pillar underpins the strategic process with meticulous recording and justificatory practices, fostering steadfastness and consistency in decision-making. The approach mandates comprehensive documentation, reinforcing transparency, underpinning accountability structures, and swiftly accommodating fresh insights or collaborators.

Embedding a participatory framework in the decisional fabric can dramatically enhance corporate strategies’ size, scope, and success rate, as it amalgamates the collective wisdom and directional insight of all stakeholders.

Pillar 4: Execution and Defensibility

The fourth pillar lies at the juncture of actionability and justifiability. It is concerned with translating strategy into tangible outcomes through accountable practices and transparent processes. Ensuring that decision-making entails inclusive dialogue and collective agreement builds a stronger foundation for operational initiatives, acknowledging all potential viewpoints and rationales.

This garners wider acceptance and adherence to the agreed-upon course of action, thus fortifying the executability and defendability of strategic decisions.

Crafting Strategic Pillars to Dominate Key Areas

Guidelines for shaping effective strategic pillars.

Fostering a strategic framework that begets significant corporate advancement hinges on integrating diversity, emboldened innovation, and unwavering accountability. Varied team compositions bring holistic perspectives, while an audacious stance propels enterprises to pioneer sectors like biotech with groundbreaking initiatives. Innovative nerve centers generate extraordinary value by staying ahead in fast-paced markets.

Building in answerability ensures that every action taken is rooted in ethical and equitable practices, promoting firm-wide adherence to strategic paths paved.

Essential Do’s When Defining Strategic Pillars

When shaping strategic directives, drawing upon varied resources, erecting structures for value creation, harmoniously managing the asset ensemble, and astutely navigating risk-reward equations—companies that exemplify resource allotment, such as investing in emergent sectors, witness compounded growth. Designing an organizational framework that supports strategy, like Walmart’s logistical efficiency, adds immense value.

Assessing the synergy between business segments is fundamental, similar to Procter & Gamble’s brand stewardship. Balancing exploration and consolidation is key to sustainable expansion.

Critical Don’ts to Avoid in Strategic Pillar Creation

In formulating strategic pillars, avoiding subjective preferences, underrepresenting varied perspectives, shunning daring initiatives, and forgoing transparent and accountable principles is critical. For instance, companies should eschew favoring projects based merely on executive predilections and instead use data to back decisions. Promoting varied inputs wards off homogenous thinking, and a penchant for risk can open novel growth avenues.

Firms lacking clear structures for decision justification can encounter organizational resistance and frustrating strategy execution.

Strategic Pillar Insights from Leading Corporations

Elucidation of smart decision-making emerges from corporate vanguards such as Google, using prudent resource distribution, flat hierarchical structures for cross-pollination of ideas, strategic focal points, and calculated compromise between risk and potential. Amazon showcases adept management of an intricate business array, aligning its expansive resource pool and its structural agility with innovation to maintain market dominance.

Microsoft and Apple each exemplify the strength of organizing and calibrating business segments to reflect the company’s overall vision, continuously weighing alternatives for progressive growth.

Turning Strategies into Victories: The Role of Execution

Translating strategic pillars into tangible triumphs necessitates emphasizing growth potential, the richness of perspectives, the courage to innovate, and the essence of innovation, much as the biotech industry exemplifies these attributes. Incorporating transparency and responsibility in the strategic fabric strengthens its aptitude for accurate execution.

Critical, too, is aligning such strategies with comprehensive objectives, using OKRs and KPIs to synchronize high-level goals with measurable outcomes. This alignment allows successes to be tracked and for strategies to be dynamically refined in pursuit of optimal performance.

Linking Strategic Pillars with Organizational Objectives

Ensuring that strategic tentpoles harmonize with overarching organizational goals is a delicate balancing act. It involves marrying OKRs and KPIs with the key indicators of a well-rounded strategy: inclusive growth, cultural vibrancy, the courage of vision, and the propulsion of innovation. Incorporating feedback and critical data into decision-making processes can mark the difference between stagnation and success.

Clear communication channels and collective contributions validate and solidify strategies, anchoring them deeply into the enterprise’s pursuit of value maximization.

Strengthen Your Foundations: Overview and Recap

The cornerstone of wise corporate strategizing rests upon four robust pillars: diversity and pioneering audacity fuel the ever-important flame of innovation. Reflecting this approach, biotech entities forge ahead by creating ecosystems that marry diverse expertise with the boldness to challenge norms. Added to this are the critical facilitators of transparency and participatory governance, which streamline and validate strategic choices.

Adopting this multidimensional approach ensures that the collective corporate environment not only sets ambitious goals but also possesses the steadfast means to achieve said milestones.

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Strategic Plan

People. purpose. action: growing ourselves to grow others.

At Georgia Southern University, our strategic plan details how we are growing ourselves to grow others — investing in our people and clearly defining our goals, objectives and actions, all to have the greatest impact on our students and the communities we serve.

At its core, we are in the business of transforming lives. This plan is the result of extensive collaboration to set our vision, define our mission and articulate a strategy for achieving goals that are consistent with the core values of the institution.

Strategic Pillars

The University Strategic Plan goals, objectives and actions are designed around five structural themes–our Strategic Pillars:

Pillar 1: Student Success

Georgia Southern University is dedicated to helping students reach their full potential. Through engagement with the institution and exposure to a student-centered approach, students are able to thrive, reach their goals, and complete their degrees. By providing access to resources for support, as well as strong curricular and co-curricular opportunities, the University promotes the intellectual, personal, and professional development of students. Each student is challenged to define what success means to them and to follow customized, well-supported pathways to success.

Pillar 2: Teaching and Research

Teaching and research are the keystones to advance knowledge, foster creativity, inspire innovation, and improve quality of life. Georgia Southern University will increase investment in research programs, faculty development, and current technologies that enhance the faculty as teacher-scholars and support their ability to model best practices for students. As a result, faculty can improve student learning, prepare students to compete in the global marketplace, and enhance student success by providing access to a complete experiential learning environment that develops students into holistic critical thinkers who contribute as productive citizens to societal enrichment.

Pillar 3: Inclusive Excellence

Georgia Southern University celebrates diversity in all its forms. All populations will feel valued and respected, regardless of race, gender, ethnicity, religion, national origin, age, sexual orientation or identity, education, or disability. In addition, the University will capitalize on distinctive, unique campus cultures while encouraging strong institutional unity.

Pillar 4: Operational Efficiency, Effectiveness and Sustainability

Georgia Southern University will implement robust policies, procedures, and practices to ensure current and future sustainability, highlighting financial management, risk management, and employee satisfaction.

Pillar 5: Community Engagement

Community engagement is critical to ensure that Georgia Southern University’s impact extends far beyond the geographic boundaries of its multiple campuses. The University is committed to being a strong partner with community members, area organizations, U.S. military, and local companies. By deepening strategic relationships, expanding cultural opportunities, and encouraging community members to engage, the University will distinguish itself as a valued partner and community resource.

Last updated: 2/28/2024

Mission and Values
About the Strategic Plan
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Planning Process
President’s Advisory Committee
Leadership Institute
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Quarterly Tasks: 90-Day View
Employee Engagement Survey
Student Satisfaction Inventory (SSI)
University at a Glance
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University Statutes
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Creating a Winning AI Business Strategy: 8 Steps

Wondering how AI can transform your business? Begin with our 8 strategic steps to a winning AI business plan.

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Developing a competitive artificial intelligence business strategy has quickly become an essential leadership strategy as AI has grown into an indispensable business tool.

Businesses from all different industries are incorporating new enterprise AI use cases in their workflows to improve products and disrupt their respective industries. To keep up with the competition, business leaders need to develop an AI business strategy that addresses their unique business model while helping them keep pace with industry-wide digital transformations.

In this guide, we’ll walk you through eight key steps of crafting a top AI business strategy. We’ll also cover some of the greatest benefits and biggest challenges that come with adopting AI as part of your business’s operational framework.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Identify Current Performance and Technology Gaps

Artificial intelligence tools and strategies can be infused throughout your business operations, but chances are, there are a few key areas where AI will make the highest-value impact in your organization.

To determine where these gaps are, start by looking at your legacy tools and applications, as well as any performance data or support tickets that indicate recurring problems with those systems. Additionally, assess the size and quality of different departments and teams, paying close attention to any resources they’re missing that would make their work more efficient.

Finally, look at things from the investors’ or customers’ perspective and ask this question: What current performance gaps are impacting their experience or the bottom line?

Asking these questions, completing a deep audit of your current resources and processes, and documenting your most crucial gaps is an important first step toward determining which AI solutions, partners, and investments are most strategic for your business.

To develop a plan to improve performance, it’s critical to create metrics. The chart above illustrates the various metrics that can be used to estimate the ROI of an AI investment. Source: Gartner

2. Research the AI Technology and Services Landscape

Once you’ve decided which areas of your business could most benefit from AI tooling and strategy, it’s time to look at the AI technology landscape and what it has to offer.

Depending on your internal skill sets and budget, you may choose to invest in:

A free AI tool , an open-source solution, or a fine-tuned existing AI model
A managed large language model
Or even build your own generative model (though this is a particularly resource-intensive and expensive approach)

There’s also a wide range of prebuilt AI tools that won’t require you to adjust any deep learning algorithms or training data. Instead, you’ll simply work with the vendor or their platform to adjust the AI to your specific needs. You’ll also need to determine if you want to invest in more generic AI solutions — such as chatbots, copilots, and AI automation tools — or if you’re interested in a more specialized solution that is designed for your industry or a enterprise specific use case .

All of these approaches are valid but may not be the best route for your business. To make the best possible investment, spend some time researching leading AI vendors , big and small, assessing their individual products, longterm roadmaps and goals, and the additional resources they provide to support their customers.

It’s also valuable to look at customer reviews on third-party review sites, ratings from technology research firms, and the investors that are currently backing some of these technologies. Through each of these portions of your research, return to this question: Does what I’ve learned about this vendor, product, or service align with our business’s goals and way of doing things?

3. Set SMART Goals for AI Adoption

You’ll likely have a basic idea of your AI adoption goals and desired outcomes at this point, but you’ll stand the best chance of reaching those goals if you spell them out. There are several different ways to do this, but SMART goals provide a straightforward and highly objective way to measure how well you’re staying on track.

SMART goals are:

Specific: The goal should very clearly state what you want to accomplish and on what timeline. It’s important to include numerical measures of progress and deadlines so everyone understands what the goal is. For example, “increase online conversion rate for sales of personalized AI product recommendations by 10% in the next eight months” is a highly specific SMART goal.
Measurable: Again, numbers are important for these types of goals, because you’ll only know if you’re on track if there’s a way to measure your progress toward milestones. In the example we’ve listed above, the numbers are all there, and the team can easily track which conversions are happening due to AI-powered recommendations.
Achievable: AI adoption will fall apart if you don’t set realistic goals for your team to act on. In the case listed here, this goal should be achievable if enough team members are aware of and committed to resourcing it.
Relevant: Just because AI can do a certain task doesn’t mean that it’s the most efficient way to use it in your business. Be sure to set goals that are relevant to your business operations and longterm revenue goals, or else you’ll end up wasting time on a less-valuable project. This SMART goal is only valuable for businesses that are hoping to increase their product revenue in this way.
Time-bound: SMART goals should include a realistic timeline for completion. In the details or subtasks that roll up into this goal, consider including monthly or weekly check-ins so progress and bottlenecks can all be assessed.

Your team may have one or several SMART goals like this one, depending on how many AI projects you’re working on at once. A helpful way to organize and visualize all of these goals as part of a bigger picture is through a planning roadmap. And while these goals may look a little different, it’s worthwhile to spell out any AI ethics or compliance goals too, so your team won’t forget about them in the middle of implementation.

4. Partner With Strategic AI Vendors

AI vendors come in all shapes and sizes. There are massive enterprises that were some of the earliest pioneers of AI technology, there are small AI startups that focus on a specific product or use case, and there’s companies that do a little bit of everything for AI products and services.

While it isn’t realistic to research every AI company out there, it’s smart to look at a variety of players to see who would be a strategic partner for your business. In many cases, the biggest name isn’t the most aligned or experienced with what you want to do.

The best way to ensure your AI investments work across all departments and functions is to bring key leaders, managers, and stakeholders from each group into the decision-making process. Consider having them complete a demo or trial period, share their perspective on what is and isn’t working with their current tech stack, and gain more operational data to secure a well-informed partnership or a well-rounded purchase.

5. Develop and Follow an AI Implementation Plan

Realistically, you’ve already completed several steps in creating your AI implementation plan, especially if you were thoughtful while writing out your AI adoption goals. Now, it’s time to figure out the exact details for executing a successful AI rollout.

You’ll want to first prep all key aspects of your internal operations — tools, data, and teams — for AI adoption. With your existing applications and data, this step may involve cleaning up or reformatting data so it works with new tools. With your teams, you may need to take some time to share your tooling and timeline decisions with them so they know where they fit into the AI implementation schedule.

Several examples of AI action or implementation plans can be found online, but ultimately, you know what makes the most sense for your team. Source feedback from your employees, talk with your vendors about what’s possible, and don’t be afraid to adjust your plan if needed along the way.

6. Create Cross-Functional AI Training and Change Management Programs

AI business strategies, no matter how strategic, will fall apart if your teams are unaware of or uninvested in your hoped-for outcomes. That’s why it’s important to train all employees on how AI will impact their role and how they can best use it for success. This can be a particularly sensitive step in an AI business strategy, as some employees may fear they are being replaced by AI.

To address and mitigate these fears, make sure that your change management program offers retraining and professional development resources that can help these employees feel confident if they need to up-skill. Fortunately, many AI vendors provide customers with extensive knowledge bases, learning resources, and even training academies and certifications that can help. These resources are available at all times, so when new employees come aboard or existing employees need a refresher, go back to these resources to keep things running smoothly on all fronts.

7. Track AI Performance Metrics

During and after AI implementation, your business should regularly track AI performance through the metrics that matter most to you. For example, if you’ve adopted an AI healthcare assistant or agent, your metrics may look something like this:

Patient satisfaction with AI agent interactions
AI agent’s response timeliness
AI agent’s response accuracy
AI agent’s adherence to HIPAA and privacy standards
Number of patient interactions with AI agents over time

However, if you’ve invested in an AI data analytics platform to support your marketing and sales teams, your metrics may be more like this:

Quality of predictive insights
Quantity of predictive insights
Relevance and actionability of AI recommendations
User satisfaction with AI and data explainability
Performance speed and accuracy with larger datasets

As you can see, these metric sets are quite different from each other. But they’re similar in that they each focus on both quantitative and qualitative measures of success. Regardless of what type of AI tool you use, be sure to select a wide variety of useful metrics and measure often; these measurements will help you determine if an AI app needs updating or a team needs retraining for better outcomes.

8. Adjust AI Solutions and Plans Periodically

What AI looks like today is not what it will look like tomorrow. And what your business looks like today is not necessarily what it will look like tomorrow or a month from now. Additionally, the AI tooling and regulatory landscape is changing at a rapid and constant rate, so it’s important to keep your AI implementation and adoption plans iterative and agile.

If you adopt and test AI solutions on an iterative basis while also keeping up with how AI and industry-specific regulations are evolving — as well as how your customers and the general public’s views on AI ethics and usage change over time — you’ll be prepared to shift your approach quickly and keep your company aligned with the best possible outcomes.

For a deeper understanding of AI compliance issues, read our guide: AI Policy and Governance: What You Need to Know

7 Benefits of AI Business Strategy Planning

The potential benefits of AI grow significantly when AI is accompanied by an effective business strategy. These are just a handful of the benefits that come with comprehensive AI business strategy planning:

More strategic AI adoption and usage: An AI business strategy plan provides clear details about who should use what AI tools, when and why they should use them, and how they should use them most effectively. This comprehensive plan helps your whole team adopt the right solutions and ensure they actually get used in a way that consistently benefits the business.
AI risk management and disaster recovery planning: An AI strategy doesn’t just cover what tools you’ll be using but also delineates what structures and safeguards will need to be established for success. The preplanning that comes with AI business strategy leads many business leaders to prepare a more effective risk management and disaster recovery plan, which may even extend beyond your AI tools to better protect the rest of your business applications and operations.
Responsible and ethical approach to AI adoption: AI business strategies help you to think about all of the ways AI can impact your business, both good and bad. Proactive planning and ideating for AI is the best way to ensure you make responsible and ethical decisions that consider the needs of your employees and customers alike.
Cross-functional and cross-disciplinary AI adoption: Without an AI business strategy, individuals or individual departments may adopt AI tools without much thought given to who else could benefit from these technologies. An overarching AI strategy helps the entire business identify useful tools and how they can be used effectively in different roles and divisions of the company.
Competitive edge: Businesses that flesh out their AI strategies will have a clear picture of what they want to accomplish and what steps they need to take to get there. While other competitors may simply start using AI and run into performance issues or bottlenecks due to poor planning, businesses with an AI strategy will avoid many of these pitfalls and pass their competitors quickly.
Automation and productivity support: An AI strategy assists leaders in identifying where current performance gaps or challenges are hindering productivity in the business. From there, they can select the AI software that is most likely to solve these issues, automate complex workflows, and otherwise improve the day-to-day operations of the business.
Enhanced customer experience and customer insights: Businesses typically start their AI journey with internal solutions to help their employees’ productivity, but with an AI business strategy, they may more quickly identify how AI can improve customer experiences.

7 Common Challenges of AI Business Strategy Planning

AI business strategy planning is a difficult process, especially if you don’t get the right people and solutions in place from the outset. These are some of the most common mistakes and challenges that businesses face when working on AI business strategy plans:

Making smart cross-functional AI investments: Technology investment decisions are often made from the top down. But with AI technology that is designed to be embedded and incorporated into multiple parts of business operations, this approach may mean you invest in a tool that is not a good fit for certain employees’ day-to-day responsibilities. To avoid this, you should create a cross-functional decision-making team for AI business strategy planning.
Preparing internal data and operations for AI: Many organizations spend all of their time researching and selecting the right AI tool for their business but never consider all of the work that should go into preparing their data, workflows, and other business assets for AI. Businesses that fail to prepare their data for AI may end up with poorly-trained or ineffective AIs, or worse, an AI that has been exposed to PII or PHI in a noncompliant manner.
Setting and sticking to reasonable AI goals: AI is an exciting business prospect, and many business leaders are tempted to implement AI solutions across their operations all at once. However, this method can lead to implementation errors and limited utility, as you’re giving your teams minimal time to edit and fact-check AI additions. It’s a good idea to set iterative AI implementation goals, giving your team a chance to learn how these solutions work and optimize them before moving on to the next big thing.
Considering AI from important ethical and privacy angles: Whether you’re in a highly regulated industry or not, working with AI can be risky because of how some of these models train with and otherwise expose private data and business processes. Businesses should steer clear of AI companies that are unable or unwilling to explain their data collection and training processes; they should also work closely with these vendors to determine what additional AI privacy security safeguards need to be added to protect their data when using AI tools.
Identifying and enforcing change management best practices: Businesses often make the mistake of subscribing to an AI tool and then letting it collect dust while employees continue to manage their workflows as usual. To make sure AI investments are threaded through your operations effectively, you must first determine what AI should support and why and how this support should be offered. From there, it’s important to train and retrain all impacted workers on how to work with AI in their roles.
Addressing new security challenges: Because of how AI technology works with data and complex training algorithms, these models can expose your data and operational infrastructure to new security risks. Many businesses fail to prepare for these new attack surfaces, which can lead to severe breaches and data theft or loss.
Staying up-to-date on changes in AI technology and regulations: The AI technology landscape — and the regulations that are trailing just behind — seems to change on a minute-by-minute basis. If your organization doesn’t keep up with these changes, you may find yourself in a position where you’re using a tool or working with a company that is operating unethically or is noncompliant with regulations that impact your organization. It is your responsibility to stay abreast of regulatory changes and confirm that your AI vendors and tools are in alignment.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Why do you need an ai strategy.

Businesses need an AI strategy because investing in AI technologies can be an expensive, risky, and time-consuming practice. Going in with clear objectives and a strategic framework for AI investment will help your team identify the best solutions and get them operational with minimal hassle. This strategy will also help you determine if AI companies, technologies, and methodologies align with your organization’s culture, long-term goals, and ethical and legal expectations.

What Is an Example of an AI Strategy?

An example of an AI strategy is the structured framework, objectives, and measured steps that go into an AI implementation project like deploying a customer-facing AI chatbot on your e-commerce site.

To do this effectively, your organization should follow an AI strategy to get the right stakeholders involved, establish a clear overarching goal, set up objectives and deadlines, determine steps and initiatives to move in that direction, and define metrics to measure the overall success of this strategic implementation.

In the case of the example listed here, this will involve actions like:

Involving marketing, sales, IT, and product team stakeholders in decision-making
Setting a goal for how you want the AI chatbot to interact with customers and pass off conversations to human agents
Developing the steps and investments your organization needs to reach this goal
Measuring the AI solution’s success with metrics like response accuracy, response speediness, and customer satisfaction

How Do You Implement AI into Your Business?

You should implement AI into your business through an iterative and ongoing strategic process. As business priorities, budgets, stakeholders, and the AI landscape change over time, it will be important to watch for these shifts and make changes to your AI tooling strategy accordingly. Taking measurable, distinct steps in your AI adoption journey will make it easier to pivot.

Bottom Line: Developing an AI Business Strategy That Works for You

AI business strategies should be custom-fitted to your organization, though the steps covered above provide a useful framework for getting started. Ultimately, you know what your business’s weaknesses are and what areas can most benefit from AI adoption. If you don’t know where these weaknesses are now, it’s time to start the internal discovery process and speak directly with internal stakeholders so you can identify where AI support is most needed.

When you begin to develop your AI business strategy, start by reflecting on what’s happening in your particular organization, industry, talent pool, and tool stack. All of these variables should influence the AI partnerships and tools you select, especially as many AI vendors are beginning to specialize in highly specific niches and use cases. If your workforce has limited AI experience or technical knowledge, it may be wise to research and partner with an AI-as-a-service or AI consulting company that has experience with your industry and the goals you are trying to accomplish.

To learn where the next generation of AI companies are headed, see our extensive overview: Top 75 Generative AI Startups

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Baltimore's Comprehensive Violence Plan update introduces first youth justice pillar

by Lexi Harpster

BALTIMORE (WBFF) — Mayor Brandon Scott alongside city and community leaders released the Biennial Update of Baltimore’s Comprehensive Violence Prevention Plan (CVPP), the first-ever update to the City’s 5-year public safety strategy.

Mayor Scott was joined by Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement (MONSE) Director Stefanie Mavronis, Baltimore Police Commissioner Richard Worley, City agency representatives, elected officials, and representatives from dozens of community-based organizations to release the Biennial Update publicly.

This Biennial Update provides a status update on the goals outlined in the original CVPP, which Mayor Scott released in June 2021. The need to update the CVPP is required by the original legislation championed by Mayor Scott during his tenure as Council President and reflects the ever-evolving nature of Baltimore’s public safety priorities.

In addition to the pillars outlined in the original Comprehensive Violence Prevention Plan, this Biennial Update also includes, for the first time, a specific Youth Justice pillar focused on uplifting the safety of Baltimore’s young people, investing in their future, and paving the way for their – and Baltimore’s – success.

“Our comprehensive, public health-informed approach to public safety in Baltimore has achieved remarkable results in its first two years of implementation, but there is still significant work to do,” said Mayor Brandon Scott. “Our efforts to build out the systems and infrastructure needed to treat violence as a public health epidemic, together with the efforts of the brave men and women at BPD, helped produce an historic 20% reduction in homicides in 2023. As of April 22, 2024, we are building on top of that reduction, dropping another 32.9% in homicides and 20.4% in nonfatal shootings. This Biennial Update is our roadmap to sustain the progress we’ve seen, while also adjusting to meet the ever-evolving public safety needs of our city. We must continue to do everything in our power to build real, meaningful public safety that prioritizes partnership with our communities and engages with residents in a meaningful way.”

ALSO READ | Mayor Scott and Ivan Bates say they're putting their differences behind them

“MONSE has been working diligently to implement Baltimore’s Comprehensive Violence Prevention Plan – the City’s first-ever comprehensive, 5-year public safety strategy. Now nearly three years into its implementation, this plan shows what is possible when government, community-serving organizations, and residents work together,” said MONSE Director Stefanie Mavronis. “We understand that every single life lost to violence in Baltimore is one too many and will not stop or be deterred in this most important mission. Much work lies ahead, and we stand ready to continue making progress and show what more years of painstaking focus, commitment, and comprehensive strategies can yield for Baltimore.”

“The Comprehensive Violence Prevention Plan and our partnership with Mayor Scott, MONSE, the State’s Attorney’s Office, social service providers and community members allows us to continue developing the holistic approach to reducing violence in Baltimore,” said Police Commissioner Richard Worley. “I am committed to building on this foundation for long-term public safety in Baltimore.”

The Biennial Update includes both reports on steps taken, and progress made to the original CVPP, as well as additions with new strategies and goals to maintain progress moving forward.

ALSO READ | Services over jail time, Mayor questioned on offer extended to drug trafficking defendants

Topline progress to date includes:

Launching a Group Violence Reduction Strategy (GVRS) pilot in the Western Police District.
Expanding GVRS to the Southwestern, Central, and Eastern Police Districts.
Creating Baltimore’s first Community Violence Intervention (CVI) Ecosystem.
Strengthening operations and oversight of Safe Streets Baltimore, Baltimore City’s flagship violence intervention program.
Expanding victim services at the local government level for gunshot victims and residents indirectly impacted by violence.
Strengthening services for survivors of human trafficking and intimate partner violence.
Creating a Coordinated Neighborhood Stabilization Response (CNSR) protocol to support residents following traumatic incidents in their communities.
Expanding community policing initiatives.
Implementing Neighborhood Policing Plan pilots in three neighborhoods across West and South Baltimore.
Allocating millions of dollars to support community-based organizations involved in the co-production of public safety.
Notable additions and new goals include:
Expanding the SideStep Pre-Arrest Youth Diversion program citywide by the end of FY ‘24.
Fully launching a School-Based Violence Intervention pilot in four high schools in time for the 2024 / 2025 school year.
Expanding GVRS to the Southern District by the end of the 2024 calendar year.
Fully activating Safe Return Plans for returning citizens prior to release in FY ‘25.
Activating strategic coordination across Baltimore’s Community Violence Intervention ecosystem in FY ‘25.
Beginning Neighborhood Policing Plan implementation for selected neighborhoods in FY ‘26.

Residents are able to submit feedback on the update here.

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Why Strategic Pillars Matter

What are Strategic Pillars?

Strategic Pillars vs Strategic Themes

Why are Strategic Pillars Important?

How to Create Strategic Pillars?

How Often Should Strategic Pillars Change?

Key Triggers for Revisiting Strategic Pillars

How are Strategic Pillars and OKRs connected?

Strategic Pillar Do's and Don'ts

Don't:

Other Articles

6 Steps to Make Your Strategic Plan Really Strategic

Partner Center

7 strategic planning models, plus 8 frameworks to help you get started

Strategic planning models vs. frameworks

1. Basic model

2. Issue-based model

3. Alignment model

4. Scenario model

5. Self-organizing model

6. Real-time model

7. Inspirational model

8. SWOT analysis framework

9. OKRs framework

10. Balanced scorecard (BSC) framework

11. Porter’s Five Forces framework

12. VRIO framework

13. Theory of Constraints (TOC) framework

14. PEST/PESTLE analysis framework

15. Hoshin Kanri framework

Stick to your strategic goals

Related resources

How Asana uses work management to optimize resource planning

How Asana uses work management for organizational planning

Solve your tech overload with an intelligent transformation

9 steps to craft a successful go-to-market (GTM) strategy

The 5 steps of the strategic planning process

What is strategic planning?

Why do I need a strategic plan?

Before you begin: Pick a brainstorming method

1. Define your vision

2. Assess where you are

What is SWOT analysis?

3. Determine your priorities and objectives

4. Define tactics and responsibilities

5. Manage, measure, and evaluate

Conclusions

Why Mural for strategic planning

Related blog posts

How to hold effective strategic planning meetings

Tactical vs. strategic planning: Why you need both

5 effective strategic planning models for your business

Agile documentation: Examples and best practices

The ROI of teamwork: How to quantify the value of better collaboration

How to conduct a strategic analysis

Strategic Pillars

How You Are Going To Win

How do we identify our strategic pillars and focus our resources?

Think Of Strategic Pillars As Battlegrounds You Must Win

Do’s and don’ts to consider when defining strategic pillars

Don’ts:

Strategic Pillar Examples

Amazon’s Strategic Pillars

Microsoft Strategic Pillars

Apple’s Strategic Pillars