Strategy Driven Organizational Performance and Change

Introduction
Strategic decisions are the results of the strategic decision-making process; a strategic decision is the means by which management intentions are realized. Strategic decision-making is an ongoing cognitive process triggered by strategic "issues"  and developments - events of strategic relevance, that must be resolved if the organization is to achieve its mission. An organization may believe that the strategic issue will be relatively easy to resolve or extremely difficult or even impossible to resolve (or somewhere in between). The degree of difficulty should not the focus, but rather the focus should be on the degree to which the issue is an obstacle to the organization achieving its mission.

Strategic Decision-Making Process 
Strategic decision-making in concerned with how strategic decisions are made and implemented (Elbanna 2006). The strategic decision-making process can be categorized into two (2) broad types of decision-making processes: rational - bounded rationality - and political. The rational process is bounded by a decision maker's cognitive limits as well as scarce organizational resources. The rational process is based on bounded rationality which causes a decision maker to settle for a "good enough" solution (Simon, 1955).

Decision-making process involves several activities that take place at different times. The decision-maker has to perceive and understand problems; once perceived, solutions/ideas must be formulated then choices have to be made about a particular solution/idea which is then implemented. These activities are organized into the following phases:

1. Intelligence - This phase encompasses gathering relevant information to inform identifying the problems occurring in the organization. The information indicates why, where, and with what effects a situation occurs.
2. Design - This phase deals with developing appropriate and possible solution alternatives to the problems identified in the intelligence phase.
3. Choice - This phase deals with selecting a "best" or optimal solution. Behavioral models of decision making imply decision makers tend to settle for a "good enough" solutions (March & Simon., 1981).
4. Implementation - This phase involves actions needed to make changes in the organizational capacity to enable it to resolve the problem.

​Strategic decision-making is typically more complex, novel (new) and open-ended (Mintzberg, Raisinghani and Theoret, 1976), and is characterized by independent elements that by definition cannot be formulated, let alone solved, independently of one another.' (Mitroff and Emshoff, 1979:1). ​ Strategic decision-making involves "issue" comprehension, concepts structuring, and concepts formulation into cause-effect relations. While the cause-effect relations are based on logical and deductive reasoning, the issues comprehension that triggers it, involves choice of assumptions which is to some extent, is arbitrary and inductive in nature. It is important that managers understand that their choice of assumptions is arbitrary and influenced by their beliefs, and might not accord with reality; so strategic decisions logically flowing from bad/erroneous assumptions can lead to failure. 

A major problem in strategic decision making is predicting the future of the organization in achieving its mission, and its environment and matching the characteristics of the organization to the environment. The mission defines the kinds of things the organization wants to achieve - the role the organization will play in the business environment as defined by its products (goods and services) the organization will provide and for whom.

Strategic Decisions
Strategic decisions are the outputs of strategic decision-making process; they affect the overall positioning and direction of the organization. Strategic decisions may be classified as "unstructured"; these are decisions that require the decision maker to provide judgment, evaluation and insights into the problem definition. They are novel (new), important and non-routine; there is no well understood or agreed upon procedure for making them; and are difficult or expensive to reverse because they substantially alter (and irrevocably so) in the short run the relationships between the decision makers' organization and customers, competitors, etc. They can be characterized by the strategic issues, events, and factors that trigger them. Some examples of these riggers include: decrease in sales growth, new product entry by competitor, a request for action event from executive management, or simply regular planning cycle.  Examples of strategic decisions categorized by decision areas include:

1. Investments Decisions in Creating New Business - e.g., Joint Ventures, Starting a new company, etc.
2. Investment Decisions in Building New Facilities or New Capability 
3. Investment Decisions in Marketing - e.g., New Products/Services Introduction, Developing New Marketing Channels, etc.
4. Investment Decisions in Internal Systems Development - e.g., New Information Systems, Internal Organization Structure (RE)Design, etc.
5. Investment Decisions in Initiatives to Grow Company - e.g., Revenues,  Number of Customers, Market Share, etc.

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​Strategic decisions affect and change the direction of the whole business/organization, and are long-term in their impact. Strategic decisions always represent risk because they deal with the future and changes in behavior of organizations and institutions which cannot be predicted with any degree of certainty. Strategic decisions are more complex than operational control decisions; (e.g., which jobs to schedule into production, etc.), or management control decisions (e.g., where to hold a company's picnic, etc.), or customer choice decisions (e.g., selecting a particular brand of tooth paste, etc.). ​They are different from operational and management control decisions which are "structured/semi-structured in that they are repetitive, routine, and involve a definite procedure for handling, so that they don't have to be treated each time as if they were new.

Quality of Strategic Decisions and Decision-Making
The quality of a strategic decision is defined in terms of the gap between expected outcomes and the actual outcomes achieved. The outcomes of strategic decisions are usually contingent on their effects on the behavior of other actors affected by the actions deriving from the decisions and the cause-effect relationships between decisions, actions, effects, and decision outcomes. The nature of strategic decisions make it possible for decision makers e.g., managers within an organization, to have widely varying and incorrect beliefs about environmental factors such as market facts. For example, customers’ utility for a product/service, and managers’ perceptions of the customers’ perceptions of quality for that product/service to be inversely related. These beliefs influence the choice of assumptions underlying the manager’s strategic decisions and determine decision success/failure.

Factors Influencing Decision Quality
Some of the factors that influence the quality of strategic decisions and decision-making process include:

1. Decision-Making Complexity -This derives from the recursive logic of thought and actions embedded in the strategic decision-making process, and is common to strategic decision-making at different levels of management functions and processes in the organization. Each of which deals with different problems and relies on different sources of knowledge. Decision makers need to engage in a cognitive process, in the form of heuristics - rules of thumb, common sense, intuition or educated guesses - to create new solutions based on old experiences. 
2. Uncertainty - Uncertainty is the state of having limited knowledge of current conditions or future outcomes - possible outcomes that are unknown. The effects of uncertainty creates obstacles and challenges to strategic decision-making due to limited knowledge of current conditions and gaps in knowledge of future outcomes. In these situations, managers face the extremely difficult problem in making decisions that demand a long-term perspective, committing the firm in the long run within a competitive landscape that is unlikely to stand still.
3. Decision Complexity - Decision complexity derives from: the inter-relationship among choices. For example, the strategic decision to enter a new market will require a major allocation of resources across different parts of the organization such as marketing, finance, operations, etc. This in turn will lead to the consideration of other strategic choices associated with the primary strategic decision, resulting in cascading decisions which is a source of complexity. 
4. Social Complexity  - Social complexity derives from Managers and decision makers having differing individual mental models (or mindsets) of the world which then influences how people approach resolving the issues and problem; how these issues relate and impact perceived implications in relation to the strategic choices open to them. Differences in mental models may also lead to cognitive conflict among decision makers due to possible differences in the individual manager's comprehension and interpretation of issues can lead to disagreements among decision makers and/or individual managers' about the strategic choices to pursue. This manifests itself in managers' doubts about how organizational values should guide the decision or choice of action.
5. Assumptions - Most managers don’t understand that their choice of assumptions is arbitrary influenced by their beliefs and that they might not accord with reality so strategic decisions logically flowing from bad/erroneous assumptions can lead to bad/poor decisions which can in turn lead to poor/bad decisions and ultimately to strategies failing at execution.

​The viability of managers' strategic decisions depends in large part on managers' knowledge about the current situation, and probable reactions of their company, competitors, customers, and broader public. The quality of strategic decisions can be improved through use of Executive Support Systems (ESS) focusing on the information needs of senior managers to aid their decision-making. Executives are free to shape the problems as they see fit, using the system as an extension of their thinking process. ESS can help senior executives monitor organizational performance, track activities of competitors, spot problems, identify opportunities and forecast trends.

Strategy Execution Introduction
Strategy execution is a disciplined and systematic approach to managing - directing, controlling and facilitating - the day-to-day decisions and activities undertaken at all levels in the organization involving top management through middle management, and front-line managers and workers that contribute to making the implemented strategy work as intended, and turn implemented strategy into commercial/social success. ​Effective strategy execution involves closing the execution gap by creating "fits" between the way things are done and what it takes for effective execution, to make the strategy work as intended. The actual strategy realized from execution is the combination of the executed part of the intended strategy - what managers have set out in advance and intend to do - as part of some important strategic plan, and the executed as-needed reactions to unanticipated developments and fresh competitive pressures.

Factors Influencing Strategy Execution Success/Failure
Strategy execution can fail - not accomplishing the desired outcomes - for a myriad of reasons including the following:

1. Bad Strategy - A bad strategy is a strategy that does not define an approach/means to respond to a challenge (opportunity/threat), or solve a known problem. Bad strategy is reflected on an organization's failure to face the problems that pose threat to its survival and profitable growth. A good strategy aligns with well diagnosed strategic issue and basic problem; and is an approach to overcoming an obstacle; or a response to a challenge.  A good strategy is a mixture of policy and action designed to surmount a challenge/problem. 
2. Bad Strategic Decisions - Strategic decisions are among the main means through which management choices are actually realized. Bad strategic decisions are strategic decisions whose outcomes are the wrong expected outcomes, and result in business failure/decline. 
3. Poor Implementation - This is failure of strategic initiatives that define major efforts/actions required to close identified strategic gaps to achieve intended objectives, so the organization can make progress towards its strategic goals. The gaps may be (1) between strategy and organization capabilities, (2) between strategy and the reward structure, (3) between strategy and internal support systems, and (4) between strategy and the organization's culture. Poor implementation may result in weak strategic assets that do not close the strategic gap, and make successful execution is unlikely. 
4. Inadequate Structure - The organization structure defines appropriate boundaries for lines of business, shared services and functions, centers of expertise and other integrative and coordinating methods and mechanisms that allow the company to leverage scale and expertise. The structure in addition specifies the size and shape of the organization with indicative resource levels and locations. Inadequate structure is a structure that is not aligned with the strategy and supportive of it. 
5. Supportive Culture - Organizational culture is the overall atmosphere within the company, particularly with respect to its members and their involvement in how work gets done.  The company should foster a culture of being responsible and accountable for one's actions with corresponding incentives and sanctions for good and bad behavior.
6. ​Accountability - This specifies and clarifies the Roles, Responsibilities of the main organizational entities, including ownership of P&Ls and a clear value-adding role for the corporate center. There should be clear guidelines for the roles each organizational unit will play in critical decisions. A rewards system linked to these accountability reinforces strong execution.  
7. Poor Coordination - Implementation and Execution Takes time, Execution Involves Many People, Execution involves managers across all levels in the organization this requires leadership in coordinating management and staff in properly performing their tasks to accomplish work.
8. Not Managing Change - This relates to the difficulty of managing employee resistance to change. People become comfortable with the way the business is run; they know the expectations and their role within the company. When a major change disrupts their familiarity, some employees become upset; they don't want to relearn their jobs or change the way they have done things. The leadership in the organization need to support the employees and provide training for any new responsibilities to ease the transition.
9. Poor Leadership - Effective strategy execution requires leadership and management effectively communicate the vision and mission of the organization to employees and ensure they are aligned with the vision and mission goals and objectives.  Leadership must also understand the the current climate (influenced by culture) and ensure the organization climate is appropriate to support successful strategy execution or make the appropriate and necessary changes to culture.  Clarifying Decision Rights and Norms.
10. Poor Communication - Failing to communicate effectively creates uncertainty and makes employees feel as if they are not part of the team and decisions. This invites fear and rumors into the work environment, disrupting work and progress towards change implementation. Keeping employees updated regularly about the progress of strategy performance improves employee involvement.
11. Poor Planning - This results in inefficient utilization of resources such as time and labor as well as lack of capacity to managing change. Without adequate planning, change in the organization is likely to fall apart or cause more problems than benefitsPoor planning may lead to strategy execution failure resulting from: bad or unrealistic schedules for project team members resulting in waste of time and poor time management; lack of clear definition of strategy and project objectives; lack of budgetary controls leading to misuse of funds, etc. 

All these factors are interdependent and their influences are non-deterministic; this typically, makes it very difficult for managers to comprehend the contribution of each of the factors to successful outcomes of strategy execution. Each of the factors influences execution success/failure in a different way; if an organization fails to pay proper attention to one of these factors, it can result in execution failure, therefore an organization needs a system and approach to support management of these factors and their influence on successful execution. ​

Effective Execution Management
Strategy execution involves change that typically takes over a long period of time, this makes it more likely that the conditions under which the strategy formulation took place will change and unforeseen circumstances may arise to derail the execution. ​Execution management facilitates and guides a complex mix of decisions and actions on, in doing what it takes to make the strategy work as intended. Execution involves both top-down and bottoms-up approaches. The top-down approach involves flows of corporate level strategy decisions through business level strategy decisions to strategy implementation decision and actions, and participation and communication down and across operating units. The bottom up flows of participation and communication of information up to the organization managers through feedback mechanisms.

Successful execution requires the capacity to monitor and evaluate changing environment factors and take decisive corrective action. Management needs to also understand the interactions among key execution decisions and actions, and contextual forces that create significant and persistent execution gap as measured by the Operating Model. ​Successful strategy execution involves decisions about managing elements of the Operating Model which is concerned with how resources are organized and operated to get critical work done. Changes to certain elements of the organization's Operating Model such as governance, accountability, or culture, and in some cases overhauling the whole structure, when a company's strategy changes. These decisions about change take place within an organizational context of power, culture, leadership, and ability to manage change. This makes it more difficult for managers to control execution.

Execution also involves more people at all levels in the organization than strategy formulation, this creates a challenge in communicating down the organization and/or across different functions relevant to the effective implementation of the strategy.

[TBD]
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The strategy execution is a process of managing people, strategy and operations and demands ownership at all levels of management and workers at customer touch points. People must commit to and own the process and actions to control effective execution.

Strategy Implementation
A strategy has to be successfully implemented and effectively executed to be of any use to an organization. Strategy implementation is key to any organization's survival and growth.

Strategy implementation is one of three co-incident stages - formulation, implementation and execution - of the strategic management process. Implementation provides the connecting loop between formulation, execution and control. The primary concerns of Strategy implementation is making the selected strategy operational throughout the entire organization. It requires the collaboration of everyone inside the organization, and on many occasions parties outside the organization. Making the selected strategy operational involves several actions and activities that must take place, including:
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• Establishment/Setting Annual objectives - This allows organization to translate long-term objectives into short-term and current targets.  Establishing annual objectives is one of the management issues central to strategy implementation.
• Developing Organizational Methods - This enables corporate and business strategy to be defined at the functional level by determining how corporate and business strategy will work or is working at the function level.  A function strategy is the set of strategic initiatives taken, or programs in a functional area of the organization whose primary role is to support the overall business strategy. Functional strategies help in implementation of the overall business strategy by organizing and activating specific sub-units of the organization to pursue the business strategy in their daily activities.   
• Formulating Policies for Execution of Strategies - Policies guide and constrain decision makers and should ensure that the various functional strategies are integrated and complementary.   
• Allocation of Resources - This involves allocation of financial resources to the functional areas relevant to implementation of the strategy. 
• Action planning - Action plans relate to descriptions of the initiatives - "what" tasks must be carried out, "how" and "when" - to be pursued, if corporate and competitive strategies are to be implemented successfully and objectives achieved.
• Actual Performance of Tasks and Activities - [TBD]
• Discharge of Functions - Leading and controlling the performance of tasks and activities, or tactics at various levels in the organization once the funding is in place, and the employees are ready.

Strategy implementation is the responsibility of top, middle and lower/line managers focused on building capacity through projects and programs to strengthen the organization, and enable it to better deliver value to customers while meeting stakeholders expectations. 


Typically, the value delivered by enhanced and strengthened existing assets or new assets is causally and temporally separated from the successful completion of the strategic initiatives that produced those assets. Any cause-effect relationships may involve two (2) or more stages; making it difficult for managers to fully comprehend the contribution of these assets to the success/failure of the implementation and execution of the strategy. In the absence of certain cause-effect relationships or experience in how these dialectical (verbal) processes between organizations will unfold, the firm can only hypothesize about the effects of different possible initiatives, and learn more about them through interaction with other actors such as competitors, regulators, customers, suppliers, and partners in its competitive landscape. 

Strategy implementation involves change - closing the gap between organization's current capacity and the capacity the strategy calls for.  The implementation gap can be manifested as:

• management induced gap - Gaps caused by the way management acts to implement strategic initiatives. Management can cause gaps to exist between strategy and execution through both action and inaction. Some of the ways management causes these gaps includes: failure to secure support for the plan, failure to communicate the strategy, failure to adhere to the plan, and failure to adapt to significant changes.
• Process Induced Gap - Gaps caused by the failure of traditional processes (e.g., budgeting, forecasting, reporting) used to implement and monitor strategy.
• .Technology Induced Gaps - Caps caused by technology systems used to support those processes such as planning, budgeting, forecasting, and reporting processes.

Strategic gap analysis attempts to determine what a company should do differently to achieve a particular goal by looking at the time frame, management, budget and other factors to determine where shortcomings lies. 

​Strategy implementation decisions and actions are the means through which management intentions and choices are actually realized. 

Factors Influencing Strategy Implementation Success/Failure 
Strategy Implementation is fraught with challenges as evidenced by the low percentage of strategies that are effectively implemented. Strategy implementation require a number of key components to be successful, including: 

1. Poor Leadership - This is the capability the organization must possess at decent levels to enable the organization's leaders and managers to effectively organize, coordinate and communicate the organization's direction and vision to the workforce and keep them motivated and committed to achieve the mission and strategic objectives and goals. Poor leadership is manifested as follows: (1) Lack of emphasis on the interfaces within the organization,  (2) Failing to get employees buy-in in the new strategy, (3) Failing to direct employee capabilities toward the new strategy, (4) Failing to keep employees motivated and committed to the strategy implementation, (5) Lack of controls in terms of progress reviews and appropriate corrective actions.
2. Information Availability and Accuracy - This represents an organization capacity to provide information system of processes and information flows that link the organization together and make accurate information available in a timely manner to support effective decision-making, communication and learning. Inadequate information systems capacity leading to poor Information Flows and availability of accurate information to support fast and accurate progress tracking, timely intervention, and corrective action at the right time and place.may result in the degradation in certain management functions such as: (1) Poor Coordination - Poor coordination across functional areas, (2) Poor Strategic Decision-making  resulting in bad decisions such as late and/or untimely decisions, (3) Bad Strategic Decisions - Bad decisions.
3. Uncertainty - Uncertainty is a state of having limited knowledge of current conditions or future outcomes. Uncertainty creates obstacles and challenges to decision-making due to limited knowledge of current conditions and gaps in our understanding of future outcomes, and effects management behavior in performing their duties have on those outcomes. 
4. Organization Structure -  Organization structure provides an explanation of the decision-making process and clarifies the roles and responsibilities, allocation of human resources - the way people and tasks/work are organized and roles and responsibilities are assigned to people. The structure enables strategic alignment - effective cascading of objectives, goals, and decision rights to the appropriate people (actors) in the functional areas of the organization with the capability and capacity to perform the actions at the right time and place to accomplish the requisite goals and objectives.
5. Organization Culture - Organization culture defines the particular way the organization solves problems of survival through adaptation to external environment and internal integration which is supportive of the strategy. Organizational culture is the collective behavior of humans who are part of an organization, and the meanings they attach to their actions. Culture includes the organizational values, vision, norms, working language, systems, symbols, beliefs and habits. Culture manifests itself in the particular way things are done in an organization including how decisions are made. It affects who gets hired, how they get trained (formally or informally), what behaviors get rewarded, who gets promoted, and virtually all organizational procedures and administrative protocols. 
6. Human Resources - Human resources are the people that comprise the workforce including managers of an organization, and the adequacy of their competencies, knowledge and skills. Human resources represent one the category of assets employed by an organization to create and deliver products and services to customers. "Do you have enough people to implement the strategies?" and "Do you have the right people in the organization to implement the strategies?" This core issues area relates to the knowledge, experience, and skills of the people (workforce) in the organization, and .is a determining factor in implementation success. Organizations invest in recruiting and training to build this capability critical to successful implementation.
7. Technology Trends - Technological trends include not only the glamorous invention that revolutionizes the lives of the actors in the organization and its environments, but also the gradual painstaking improvements in methods, in materials, in design, in application, unemployment, and the transportation and commercial base nd their diffusion into new industries and efficiency. 

​All these factors that influence the successful implementation of a strategy are interdependent and their influences are non-deterministic it is typically very difficult for managers to comprehend the contribution of these factors to the successful outcomes of strategy implementation making strategy implementation very hard.


Uncertainty - Effects of Uncertainty
Uncertainty creates obstacles and challenges to decision-making due to limited knowledge of current conditions and gaps in our understanding of future outcomes and affects management behavior in performing their duties such as:

1. Managers delaying decisions until data becomes more accessible and reliable; of course delaying some decisions brings its own set of risks of failure.
2. Managers lacking the skills and judgment to identify and analyze the factors that can affect outcomes which would enable them to identify likely risks (e.g., strategic, financial, operational, legal, etc.) and potential impacts.
3. Managers having no idea in the short-term how much value their investment decisions and projects have created in some future situation. Typically, the value delivered by enhanced and/or strengthened assets is causally and temporally separated from the successful completion of the strategic initiatives that produced these assets through cause-effect relationships that may involve two (2) or more stages making it difficult for managers to fully comprehend the contribution of these assets to the strategy execution success or failure. 

Uncertainty deals with possible outcomes that are unknown; and is a major component of risk (the likelihood or scale of negative consequences). 

​Organization Structure
​Structure Alignment problems - the overall strategy not properly aligned (i.e., working) with the current structure; the way people and tasks/work are organized, and roles and responsibilities are assigned to people not aligned with strategy would lead to implementation gap. Structure not driven by the strategy can create obstacles to successful implementation manifested in the following ways::

1. Poor or inadequate information sharing
2. Unclear accountability of positions and roles
3. Working against the organizational power structure
4. Unclear roles and responsibilities
5. Motivations of employees not aligned with organizational purpose,

The organization structure design and the degree to which it effectively enables managing complexity, coordination and control of organizational behavior is critical to effective decision-making as the decision rights cascade during strategy implementation and execution grows. Within the structure, rules, policies, and procedures are uniformly and impersonally applied to exert control over organizational members’ behaviors. .

Organizational Culture
Weak culture is by definition not supportive of the new strategy and leads to organizational behavior and performance problems that present obstacles and challenges to successful implementation. un-supportive culture is reflected in organizational behavior such as::

1. Employees behaving in ways that prevent learning and development; they are unable to adapt to new mind sets (adopt new mental models).
2. Employees behaving in ways inconsistent with organizational values and principles. 
3. Organizational culture not supportive of the principles and values. Organizational culture can be supportive of the strategy by enabling: Learning and Development (Growth), Participatory Decision-Making, Power Sharing, Support and Collaboration, Tolerance for risk and conflicts.
4. organization is unable to change and adapt to new processes and practices

Execution requires supportive culture and demands ownership at all levels in the organization including management and workforce. People must commit to and own the processes and actions central to effective execution.

Human Resources
Strategic Human Resource Management is particularly focused on the alignment of human resources as a means of gaining competitive advantage. in terms of the adequacy of their knowledge competencies, and skills. Poor Human Resource Management is manifested in the following ways:

1. Poor human resource policies and practices may lead to decreased productivity and poor quality.
2. HR systems inhibit the mobilization of new competencies and/or destroy existing competencies, contributing to organizational vulnerability.
3. Inadequate skills and misalignment
4. Lack of motivation and personal ownership.

Technology Trends
Changing technology can offer major opportunities for improving goal achievement, or threaten the existence of the firm. Lack of organizational capability to adapt to technology changes is reflected in the conditions and gaps:

1. Forecast and identify relevant developments – both within and beyond the industry
2. Assess the impact of these developments on existing operations,
3. Define opportunities and threats
4. Lacking capacity development strength in creating technology strategy which deals with choices in. technology, product design and development, sources of technology, and R&D Management and Funding.

Changing technology can offer major opportunities for improving goal achievement, or threaten the existence of the firm due to unpredictable problems

Effective Strategy Implementation
Effective strategy implementation and execution involves managing change in the organization's internal environment which then allows the organization to successfully adapt to the changing external environment in which it operates but cannot control.

In a rapidly changing world any competitive advantage a firm creates is temporary and not sustainable; without systematic changes to the firm's strategy and plans so it can respond and take advantage of opportunities that emerge as a result of changes in the environment while managing emerging threats that successful execution. 
[TBD]
The key factors that support successful implementation and execution are the following internal environment elements:

1. Resources - Do you have adequate funding (financial strength) to support implementation, covering the costs and expenses that must be incurred in the execution of the strategies?" and "Do you have enough time to see the strategy throughout its implementation?" Financial strength is a factor in its won right that influences other internal environment factors. 
2. Structure - Is the structure clear-cut with lines of authority and responsibility defined and underlined in the "chain of command?" "Are the lines of communication throughout the organization clearly defined by management?" Organization structure is essentially defines how the work needed to carry out the mission is divided among the workforce/people.
3. Systems - What systems, tools, and capabilities are in place to facilitate the implementation of the strategies? What are the specific functions of these systems? Hopw will these systems aid in the implementation? The availability of the appropriate systems can significantly impact the implementation and execution performance. If the right systems are not available,or the available systems are not up to expected standards then workers and management may be hindered in the performance of the duties. If the inadequate systems are used by customers then customer satisfaction will suffer.   
4. Culture - Organization culture is influenced by the values and beliefs of the organization, and manifested in the attitudes of employees and partners, and their ability to "go the extra mile". Negative attitudes can severely and adversely impact the organization's capacity to successfully implement and execute its strategies. 
5. Management - The capability of the management team and the leadership styles employed by managers will also have a major impact on employee morale and motivation, and organizational culture.

These factors are generally in agreement with the key success factors or prerequisites for effective strategy implementation as identified by the McKinsey.  


Each of the factors influences implementation outcomes (closing the gap) in a different way; if an organization fails to pay proper attention to one of these factors, it can result in implementation failure, therefore an organization needs a system and approach to support management in successful execution. ​​




​[TBD]
Typically, the implementation gap - the  gap between the strategic plan and its implementation - is caused by missing integrative links such as:

1. Focus on Strategic Implementation - Strategic change in organizations is largely delivered through multiple projects and programs. The absence of an implementation process that is focused on a portfolio of strategy-fulfilling projects can result in an implementation gap.
2. Common Top-Down Understanding - The firm's vision and strategic plan are generally created by top executives of the organization. The plan's implementation is carried out by middle and line management, and professionals and lower level employees through changes in operations and delivery of projects. Disconnects in both directions (top-down and bottom-up views) are often found to exist in the organization.
3. Organizational Focal Point - Lack of organizational focal point that is responsible for overseeing the implementation of all the strategic projects. A vertical implementation rather than a cross-organizational implementation, invariably occurs. Delegating responsibilities to the functional level VPs is a common problem.
4. Alignment Across Functions - This missing link relates to not having a cross-functional group that is responsible for strategic level decisions during implementation. The key here is making priority, resource, and other trade-off decisions among all the critically important projects.
5. Executive Transition Mitigation - Frequent turnover of executives at VP level or above often result in dramatic implementation slowdowns and organizational conflicts.
6. Feedback Loop - A missing link is a set of performance metrics and control reports that enable feedback, organizational learning, and continuous improvement over time. Sustaining competitive advantage over time makes continuous improvement mandatory.

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​[BD]

Introduction
A strategic issue is essentially an issue - an unresolved question (i.e., a fundamental policy question) or critical challenge needing a decision or waiting for some clarifying future event. It is strategic in that it affects or has an major impact an successfully achieving the organization's mission. A strategic issue is an issue that must be resolved if the organization is to achieve its mission. Strategic issues are triggered byany one of the following problem areas:

1. mandates - course and direction of business expressed by the strategic goals such as for growth, etc.
2. Mission and values,
3. Stakeholders,
4. Internal strengths and weaknesses - resources, structure, processes, management, product or service levels and mix, financing, or organizational design,
5. Opportunities and threats - clients, users or payers 

In order for an issue to be raised and resolved effectively, the organization must be prepared to deal with the conflicts associated with the issue. Strategic issues by definition embody conflicts. These conflicts may be over ends (what); means (how); philosophy (why); location (where); timing (when); and who might be helped or hurt by the different ways of resolving the issue (who).

Strategic Issues Diagnosis
Strategic issues diagnosis is a problem formulation process involving strategic decisions and decision-making processes to identify problems underlying strategic issues that are of strategic relevance, and deciding on potential courses of action (strategies) to pursue to resolve those problem(s). Strategic issues diagnosis defines the methods/process for identifying strategic issues and problems facing the organization. Deciding how to solve the problem, i.e., strategy development, creates the need for more information and analysis. Strategic issues identification focuses organizational attention on what is truly important for the survival, prosperity and effectiveness of the organization - and provides useful advice on how to achieve these aims. 

The strategic issues identification step focuses organizational attention on what is truly important for the survival, prosperity and effectiveness of the organization - and provides useful advice on how to achieve these aims. It is vital that strategic issues be identified and dealt with expeditiously and effectively if the organization is to survive and prosper. An organization that does not address its strategic issues may be unable to head off threats, and unable to capitalize on important opportunities, or both.

Problem Analysis
​Strategic issues must clearly relate to specific strategic problems facing the organization; additionally, they must be specific to the particular organization or industry. Analysis is the process of organizing and presenting information in an analytical way/manner that assists in better defining the problem scope or narrowing  down its causes so that solutions may be more effectively created. This includes such things as determining what caused the problem, why does it continue to exist, will it go away on its own, how long has it existed, how serious is it, how soon does it have to be solved, and what internal and external factors contribute to the problem. 

​Problem analysis requires you to build a model of the problem, collect some data and information to test your hypotheses and assumptions underlying the problem to even discover what the real problems are to solve. The process is akin to an "empirical discovery loop" that enables systematic discovery and formulation of problems in complex real world situations such as strategy and policy making. Deciding how to solve a problem once its been stated creates the need for more information and data gathering, and analysis and synthesis.

Problem Definition/Statements
Defining problems of strategic relevance is hard because identifying these problems are difficult, partly because of complexity induced by the complicated structures (composed of many interrelated sub-problems, possibly from different domains, e.g., such as expressed through business architecture domains, etc.) of these problems, uncertainty due to incomplete information, and turbulence in the environment. Strategic problems are cross-functional in nature and have major long-term consequences for the organization's success because they impact the organization's competitive position. 

A statement (model) of a strategic issue should contain three (3) elements:

1. Description - The issue should be described succinctly, preferably in a single paragraph. The issue itself should be framed as a question the organization can do something about.
2. Factors - Factors that make the issue a fundamental policy question should be listed. In particular, what is it about mandates, mission, values or internal strengths and weaknesses, and external opportunities and threats that make this a strategic issue?
3. Consequences - The organization should state the consequences of failure to address the issue. A review of the consequences will inform judgments of just how strategic, or important various issues are. 

The problem definition/statement is comprised of the problem scope, variables and factors, and narrows the assumptions of cause-effect relationships so that potential solutions may be more effectively explored.

Strategic Issues Diagnosis Outputs
The substantive outputs of strategic issues diagnosis are assumptions, cause-effects understanding (beliefs), predictive judgments, and symbolic language labels. These elements facilitate decision-making during the strategy (solution) development stages of strategic planning.

• Assumptions - Assumptions are premises, conditions, events or attributes that are or must be taken as 'given' or true by any individual or group in exploring a strategic issue or problem. They are those data points, facts, or beliefs which in the view of individuals represent elements of the world around them. 
• Cause-effect understandings - In the course of resolving an issue or problem individuals generate understandings of how various events/conditions and concepts relate together in a causal manner. These beliefs are like the causal links which comprise cognitive maps except that they are specific to a particular strategic problem/issue.
• Predictive judgments - Predictive judgments are judgments that involve assessments of future events surrounding a strategic issue or problem. Assumptions and cause-effect understandings, tacitly accepted or consciously explicated, are crystalized in the form of predictive judgments. Some examples include: Estimates of the likely effects of changes in such variables as marketing expenditures; definition of market boundaries; cash flow projections based on current or desired portfolio; R&D expenses and investment intensity on performance in ROI, cash flow, and/or market share.
• Symbolic Elements - Language and label for defining domain concepts. 

These elements can constrain or facilitate decision-making during the issues diagnosis and subsequent strategy formulation stages of strategic management. Strategic decision making requires the decision makers to provide judgement, evaluation, and insights into the problem definition. 

Defining Solutions
Defining solutions to strategic issues' problems is a problem solving process that results in a set of strategic alternatives/options. A solution option/alternative is a set of hypothetical solutions to the problems identified from strategic issues diagnosis that lead to the generation of possible strategic objectives. 

Formulating/crafting appropriate strategies to respond to the strategic issues/problems is an intellectual and entrepreneurial endeavor. It often requires you to build a model of the problem, collect some data and information to test your hypotheses and assumptions underlying the problem to even discover what the real problems are to solve. A model of the strategy allows us to explore and evaluate the upside potential, the downside risk, the resource consumption and the probabilities of success for the alternatives, and select the best direction.

Introduction
Organizations have to change in order to grow. Typically, organizations change as a result of their strategies to re-position themselves and adapt or react to changes in external factors that create market opportunities and/or threats. Change is a certainty so business managers must actively engage in a process that identifies change in the environments and modifies organizational behavior to best take advantage of this change. Organizational change invariably involves change in people's behavior and relationships in the internal/external environments of the organization. Change in the internal environment factors involve those factors that are influenced by how the company is run, or decisions that introduce conditions inside an organization that forces a change. Managers however, do have some control over how the business reacts to changes in the external environment through management of the internal environment factors which is to some extent are controllable and changeable through the strategic management process. Change in the external environment involve external environment factors that are not controllable by the organization; these include business competitors, changes to law, general economic conditions, etc. All businesses have internal and external environments in which they exist and operate; organization change invariably involve change in these environments' factors such as described above.

​​Internal Environment and Factors
The internal environment is defined by the set of internal factors resulting from either the way the business is run, or decisions made, or both. The factors resulting from how the business is run include: business reputation and image, credit worthiness, etc. The factors resulting from business decisions include:

• Direction - []
• management structure - ​The structure or form of an organization flows from (aligned with) its intended function and purpose which are realized through the organization's operations guided by the organization's strategy. 
• staffing - [TBD]
• physical decor of facilities/offices, etc.

The factors resulting from the way the business is run - how the organization moves forward both as a self contained organizational entity and its responses to factors in its external and enabling environments - include:

• Learning - This involves feedback mechanism and feedback loop. The feedback loop is a process in which a system receives internal/environmental responses to its behavior and in turn, reacts to those received responses by accommodating and assimilating the energy/information received, by altering the system's structure, and then engaging in altered exchanges of energy/information. Feedback measures output against a standard in some form of cybernetic procedure that includes communication and control. Feedback can be positive or negative; routine or informational. Negative feedback generally provides the controller with information for action. Positive feedback reinforces the performance of the system, and is routine in nature.
• People - Organizational change invariably involves change in people's behavior and relationships. “Whether proposing a change in the executive compensation structure, establishing priorities for a diverse group of business units, consolidating redundant operations, or preparing for plant closings, etc., a senior executive’s conscious thoughts are foremost among the processes for accomplishing a change or implementing a decision: ‘who are the key players, and how can I get their support? Whom should I talk to first? Should I start by getting the production group’s input? What kind of signal will that send to the marketing people? I can’t afford to lose their commitment in the upcoming discussions on our market strategy.’” Change to individuals involve learning and their interactions and behavior.
• Knowledge - The knowledge, experience and capability of an organization workforce is a determining factor in the organization's success. For this reason, organizations must pay particular attention to the recruitment of staff and also to engage in the training of staff and volunteers to build the organization's capability. In pursuing both recruitment and training strategies, the organization is often limited by its financial strengths. Training of staff is an essential is an essential aspect of good business management practices; and even in difficult financial; circumstances is an achievable strategy.
• ​Organizational Culture -Culture and values describe the expected cultural norms for how people collaborate within and across functions or teams. Culture includes the organizational values, visions, norms, working language, systems, symbols, beliefs and habits. Culture manifests itself in the particular way things are done in an organization. It affects who gets hired, how they get trained (formally or informally), what behaviors get rewarded, who gets promoted, and virtually all organizational procedures and administrative protocols. Culture reflects and affects the ownership that individuals feel for execution related goals. The culture within the organization is a very important factor in attaining business success. The attitudes of staff and volunteers, and their ability to "go the extra mile" makes a very significant difference. Negative attitudes can have severe impact on the organization's ability to implement strategies for development despite however thorough the planning processes are. Positive attitudes of staff and volunteers will not only make the management tasks easier, but also will be noticed and appreciated by customers as well as members of the organization. Organizational culture is the collective behavior of humans who are part of an organization, and the meanings they attach to their actions. Organizational culture can be supportive of the following: Learning and Development (Growth), Participatory Decision-Making, Power Sharing, Support and Collaboration, 
• ​Leadership - [TBD]

Internal factors can be controlled directly or indirectly; but changing these factors usually involves indirect costs such as lost productivity for example, while new employees are being trained, some direct costs such as a penalty for terminating a lease before it expires. The performance of an organization is influenced by factors or elements in the internal and/or external environments that shape the behavior as well as determine the strengths and weaknesses of the organization that are relevant to its survival and growth.

External Environment Factors 
The external environment is defined by external factors such as characterized by PESTEL factors e.g., tight lending conditions, government regulations and competition. These factors are uncontrollable, and can be modeled as the institutional relations between the business and the external organization/entity of interest to the business, but are not directly controlled by it.

The external environment is modeled as a network of "External Entity" actors and their goal dependency relations with the business organization. The external entity abstraction is an abstraction over the concept of influencer in Motivational Modeling and can denote concepts such as regulators, competitors, market forces, customers, technology, etc. The category of external entities (influencers) is large and inclusive. Every business has hundreds of potential  influencers.  Influences can be political, economic, ecological, societal, and technology. There will always be too many influencers to model. The decision as to what influencers to model is determined by the influencers that impact the organization's strategies and tactics, and affect the achievement of goals and objectives of the organization. 

Managing Organizational Change
[TBD]

[TBD]

An organization can be defined as a 4-tuple, composed by a set of goals and objectives, a set of (direct internal) sub-organizations, a set of institutional relationships, and a set of external organizations.

1. The internal sub-organizations are the organizational units linked by finite chain of direct internal sub-organization relations, and the people that are members of these sub-organizations.
2. The external organizations are the organizations that have institutional relations with the organization of interest, but are not directly controlled by it.
3. The goals of the organization are derived from its stated purpose for existence; this is refined and assigned to its sub-organizations so these sub-organization units become jointly responsible for attaining the goals of the whole organization (organization-as-system).
4. Institutional Relationships - These define the norms, policies and rules of an organization.

Organization System Structures
The organization structure defines the arrangement of accountability, authority and responsibility of a group of people in a hierarchy, and network of functional and business units, and the governance relations between these units. The organization structure is designed to enhance communication and information flow among organization system elements (people or groups of people) that comprise the organization social system. Within the structure, rules, policies, and procedures are uniformly and impersonally applied to exert control over members’ behaviors.

Organizational structures are the manifestation of strategic orientations and regulate information flows, decision making, and patterns of behavior, that is, the “internal allocation of tasks, decisions, rules, and procedures for appraisal and reward, selected for the best pursuit of a strategy. Structures develop due to the need to organize behavior in a meaningful way and provide orientation for organizational members to set actions that comply with organizational strategy, organizational culture, and, as a result, accepted patterns of behavior. The structure is comprised of organization units that organize activity within these units (business units, bureaus, teams, or departments) in which people perform specialized functions such as manufacturing, sales, IT, human resource management, accounting/finance, etc. People who perform similar functions (tasks) are clustered together.

Organizations as Systems
An organization as a system is a set of interacting or interdependent functional entities and individuals/groups of individuals forming an integrated whole. It can be one organization, a set of organizations, population groups or individuals. Organization as systems are “open”, social systems.

• Open systems are systems that continuously interact with their environments through acquisition of input, production of output, and exchange of information; they survive and grow by continuously adapting to their environment. 
• Organizations as social systems are configurations of "actors" (human systems or people) connected to each other to compose a system with a common purpose and a set of objectives. The central conceptual modeling construct in modeling social systems in real world situations is the "actor". It is an abstraction which is used to refer to people (the active elements/entity) that is capable of independent action. In creating social network models of real world situations, we adopt as a premise that the social world is unknowable and uncontrollable with respect to the behavior of "actors" (human agents, individual or groups of individuals). Social systems are essentially goal-seeking, information feedback systems. Organizations are social systems depend on norms and rules - policies. Policies are recognized descriptions which act as enforcement mechanisms to restrain individual behavior and regulate all sorts of organizational interactions such as delegation, dependency relationships with internal/external organizational entities as well as defining concepts within the organizational setting.

An organization is a system in that it is greater than the sum of its parts. How it performs cannot be calculated by adding up all the work arrangements - like departments - with the resources and processes that connect it all together.

Actors
Actors represent the perspectives and objectives of the individuals themselves responsible and accountable for implementing the organization design and strategy through their behavior. Actors are taken to be inherently autonomous, i.e., their behaviors are not fully controllable, or are they perfectly knowable. Although the behavior of actors is not perfectly knowable or fully controllable, they are nonetheless not completely random. The behavior of actors can be explained and rationalized through the motivations and intentions attributed to actors.

​Organization System Behavior
The behavior of an organization is usually guided by its strategic and tactical goals. The performance of the organization can be expressed through goal-based performance indicators and measures. Behavior and performance unfolds as observable manifestations (phenomena) of predefined strategies as regulated by organizational structures. This domain puts into effect patterns of behavior, derived from strategies and structures. It makes an organization’s existence as a market player visible.

Organizational System Dynamics
Organizations are dynamic social systems which are a collection of people with a common purpose. The dynamics of social systems are expressed in terms of the intentional properties of the actors that comprise the system, and the interaction relationships between these actors rather than the actual behavior of the actors. An intentional description of actors' behavior offers a way of characterizing actors that respects the autonomy premise underlying the actor concept.

Organization System Interactions
Interactions between actors can occur to satisfy goals that are either common to actors or global goals which pertain to the society (organization) as a whole and lay outside the scope of any one individual actor. Considering sub-organizations as a kind of structured logical actor, interactions among the sub-organization units can be viewed as a way of realizing society goals.

Introduction  
Generally, strategy refers to how - means by which - a given objective will be achieved. Strategy in the general sense is concerned with the relationships between ends and means; that is, between the results we seek and the resources at our disposal. ​Strategy is concerned with formulating and then carrying out courses of action intended to attain particular objectives by mobilizing organization's resources - deploying the resources at the organization's disposal. Tactics is concerned with formulating and then carrying out courses of action intended to attain particular objectives by employing (utilizing) the mobilized and deployed resources deployed from implementing the strategy. 

Strategy as Layered Concept or Types
The term "strategy" is an overloaded and varied concept; essentially, when people use the word “strategy” in a business setting, they are expressing concerns/interest in one of a layered concept that exists at least three (3) levels such as corporate strategy, business and competitive strategy, and functional strategy. 

1. Corporate Strategy - Corporate” strategy is concerned with the direction and scope of the organization in the long-term, Corporate strategy provides long range guidance for the whole organization by the choice of answers to the question - what business should we be in?. Corporate strategy defines the markets and the businesses in which a company will operate. Corporate strategy is typically decided in the context of defining the comp[any's mission and vision, that is, saying what the company does, why it exists, and what it is intended to become. Corporate level strategy is about positioning the organization in order to achieve intended business goals. The positioning may be for growth after successful introduction, stability during the maturity stage of life cycle or exiting a declining business. ​
2. Competitive/Business Strategy - Business strategy is concerned with decisions on the products and services that should be offered in the markets in the scope of the business context established by the corporate strategy. Competitive strategy is concerned with gaining sustainable advantage to successfully compete. it involves answers to the question, how do we compete in this business?This interpretation is consistent with all usage of the term in areas such as game plays/theory (i.e., in chess, football, soccer, etc.), military strategy, business competitive strategy, personal growth/development strategy, etc.  Competitive strategy defines for a given business the basis on which it will compete. Competitive strategy hinges on a company's capabilities, strengths, and weaknesses in relation to market characteristics and the corresponding capabilities, strengths and weaknesses of its competitors.
3. Function Strategy - Functional strategies are concerned with how the functional areas defined by the Operations Strategy design contribute to business strategy.  Functional strategy  define where the functions of a business make long-term plans which support the competitive strategy being pursued by the business strategy. Functional strategies specify outcomes to be achieved from the daily operations of specific departments or functions. A Functional Strategy, for any business, large or small, focuses (the achievement of a goal) on the skills and abilities of individual departments and their employees. Functional strategies are concerned with how the functional areas defined by the Operations Strategy design contribute to business strategy.  Functional strategy  define where the functions of a business make long-term plans which support the competitive strategy being pursued by the business strategy. Functional strategies specify outcomes to be achieved from the daily operations of specific departments or functions. A Functional Strategy, for any business, large or small, focuses (the achievement of a goal) on the skills and abilities of individual departments and their employees.
4. Operations Strategy  - Operations strategy binds the various operations decisions and actions in functional areas into a cohesive consistent response to competitive forces by linking firm/organization policies, programs, systems, and actions into a systematic response to the competitive/strategic priorities chosen and communicated by the corporate or business strategy. Operations strategy is the collective concrete actions chosen, mandated, or stimulated by corporate strategy. Operations strategy defines how an entire business will allocate its resources to support operations and its strategic goals. Operations strategies focus on maximizing the efficiency and effectiveness of production while minimizing operating costs.

​
​The term "strategy" is an overloaded in everyday business conversations, because most people including professional practitioners do not bother to explicitly establish their point of view into what is essentially a layered concept that exists at least three (3) levels such as corporate strategy, business and competitive strategy, and functional strategy. Essentially, business strategy enacts corporate strategy and defines how the business and its members should evolve in order to achieve long-term success.

Strategy Viewpoints
The concept of viewpoint is a device that helps in developing a robust and successful strategy by enabling  approaches to highlighting problems that would undermine an intended strategy at implementation and execution. The viewpoints or approaches as proposed by Mintzburg include:

1. Plan - This is a device to help brainstorming options and planning how to deliver them. This may be general or detailed, formal or informal (in the mind). As a plan, strategy is conceived in advance, has a purpose and is thoughtful to some degree. This is deliberate and planned strategy which is a result of the rational planning approach of strategy development. The rational planning approach (e.g., Ansoff, 1979) defines an objective in advance, describes "where we are now," and uses a prescriptive approach in which "the three (3) core areas - strategic analysis, strategy development, and strategy implementation - are linked together sequentially" (Lynch, 2000; 24).
2. Perspective - This defines an orientation  - patterns of thinking - that shapes an organization's perspective on vision and direction - a view of what the company or organization is to become - and the things the organization is able to do well. Mintzburg points out that strategy as a perspective is the same as "Strategy as a Plan" but without the formal planning. In this view, many people in the organization have the same orientation or perspective when they make strategic decisions.
3. Pattern - A "realized pattern" of organizational behavior emerging as strategy. This comprises the decisions and actions over time that may be consistent or inconsistent but represents an emergent strategy. Emergent strategy is realized pattern (behavior) that was not expressly intended or planned that emerged from execution. It is a set of actions, or behavior, consistent over time, “a realized pattern that was not expressly intended” in the original planning of strategy. An emergent strategy develops when an organization takes a series of actions that with time turn into a consistent pattern of behavior, regardless of specific intentions. It consists of the moves made and approaches taken by management to produce successful performance of the organization in successfully competing against rivals. For example, the day-to-day decisions and actions in areas such as enter new business to diversify, extending geographically to grow, efforts to integrate forwards or backwards, efforts to broaden or narrow product/services, actions to capitalize on new opportunities, and actions to respond to changing industry conditions i.e., shifting demand patterns, new airport regulations, entry of new competitors. A consistent pattern of decisions may be the result of an explicit and written strategy or it may be result from organizational culture, or it may result from the influence of one or more leaders. An inconsistent pattern of decisions also represents a sort of strategy - a non-strategy, perhaps, but a strategy that governs decisions. So, in a sense, every organization has a strategy; they all make strategic decisions or non-decisions that are also decisions. 
4. Position - We may view a position taken by the organization that reflects decisions to offer particular products and services in particular markets as a strategy relative to the environment. 
5. Ploy - This is a deliberate exercise and device that can help the organization explore the possible future scenarios in which competition will occur. 

Decision makers or managers start with a given perspective, conclude that it calls for a certain position, and sets about achieving it by way of a carefully crafted plan. Over time things change; a pattern of decisions and actions marks movement from starting point to destination end-point (goal). This pattern of decisions and actions is called "realized pattern" or "emergent" strategy. The actual strategy of an organization is the combination of the executed parts of deliberate strategy and emergent strategy.

Roles/Functions of strategy
Strategy in a business organization is about how the organization seeks to survive and prosper within its environment over the long-term. ​Strategy provides an organization with an offensive device to compete against competitors and guides their actions when faced with a range of choices. Strategy plays a number/variety of roles in organization's success, including:

1. Preparing an organization for the future - This does not necessarily imply long-term planning or planning in general; it does imply forward-looking, which helps organization anticipate future needs. Strategy shapes the future so the organization can position itself to win in both the short- and long-term.
2. Distinguishing an organization from others - This implies focus on the organization's unique assets (capabilities/competencies) and features, and exploiting them in a meaningful way to gain advantage.
3. Providing an organization with some stability - This implies the organization transformation or change is guided by strategy so it is not caught in constant flux or reorientation which would cause it to drift.
4. Serving as a common frame of reference - This implies strategy offers an organization a common point of reference even in rapidly changing circumstances. This makes it possible for people in the organization to have a shared understanding and know what assumptions, ideas or plans they are going to deviate from.
5. Support for internal and external alignment - This implies strategy provides an overarching and integrative framework for the most important internal and external factors to be taken into account by management, thus helping to align the organization both internally as well as with its external environment.
6. Guides organizational action - The reason for having a strategy is to give direction and meaning to the things that an organization does. 

Strategy is a significant determinant on a company's success or failure, in addition to the significance of competence of its managerial leadership.