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STRATEGY TO EXECUTION

EXECUTION TO STRATEGY

What is the mantra

By Reetu Raina

Head OD-India at Amdocs

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What is a Strategy

WillingnessEnergyEnthusiasmPassion

FrameworksModelsToolsExamples

DemonstrationBehaviours

WALKING THE TALK

PERSONAL ENGAGEMENT

INTELLECTUALUNDERSTANDING

HEART

HEAD

HAND

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What makes Strategy to succeed

Good Execution Strategy

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Strategic Planning

• Strategic planning is an organization's process of defining its strategy, or direction, and making decisions on allocating its resources to pursue this strategy, including its capital and people. Various business analysis techniques can be used in strategic planning, including SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats ) and PEST analysis (Political, Economic, Social, and Technological analysis) or STEER analysis (Socio-cultural, Technological, Economic, Ecological, and Regulatory factors) and EPISTEL (Environment, Political, Informatic, Social, Technological, Economic and Legal).

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What does it mean

● Strategic planning is the formal consideration of an organization's future course. All strategic planning deals with at least one of three key questions:

● "What do we do?" ● "For whom do we do it?" ● "How do we excel?"

But often What eats whom and especially howBut often What eats whom and especially how

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Execution of strategies

● But good strategies fail too, and when that happens, it's often harder to pinpoint the reasons. Yet despite the obvious importance of good planning and execution, relatively few management thinkers have focused on what kinds of processes and leadership are best for turning a strategy into results.

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Cont’d

● But can better execution be taught?● You can develop a model.... If people know what the key

variables are, they know what to look for and what questions to ask."

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Basic Reason

● While execution can go wrong for a variety of reasons, one of the most basic may be allowing the focus of the strategy to shift over time.

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Goal- shifting

● The attempt by Hewlett-Packard, after it acquired Compaq, to compete with Dell in PCs through scale is a classic example of goal-shifting -- competing on price one week, service the next, while trying to sell through often conflicting, high-cost channels. The result: CEO Carly Fiorina lost her job and HP still must resolve some key strategic issues.

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Mantra #1

Keep the Focus Steady Keep the Focus Steady

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Goal and Means

● Another classic example of mis-synchronization: United Air Lines' TED, which attempted to set up a competitive subsidiary to compete against upstarts such as Southwest. This was a good idea as far as it went, but United tried to compete using its same old cost structure -- the main reason it was losing markets to the low-cost airlines in the first place.

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Mantra #2

Synchronization of Goals and MeansSynchronization of Goals and Means

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Communication & Acceptance

• At other times, plans fail simply because they don't get communicated to all the people involved.

• Strategies also flop because individuals resist the change. For example, headquarters might want more standardization in a product, but a local marketing executive disagrees with the idea. "He might say, 'I need more nuts in my chocolate bar' or 'I need a different pack size,'"

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Mantra #3

Focus on Key levers which can make or mar strategy execution typically it is Communication and Acceptance

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Why resistance

• Many times, there can be sound reasons for resistance. Sometimes a strategy might make sense at the highest level, but its full impact on the whole organization has not been fully considered,

• For example, imagine that the general strategy calls for promoting one brand throughout the company while taking resources away from another brand. That might make sense in one market, yet be completely counterproductive elsewhere

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Cultural Factors

• Cultural factors can also hinder execution. Companies sometimes try to apply a tried-and-true strategy without realizing that they are operating in markets that require a different approach. Even such a world-beater at execution as Wal-Mart, for instance, has sometimes made some missteps because of culture. One example: When Wal-Mart first moved in to Brazil, it tried to lay down terms with suppliers in the same way it does in the U.S., where it carries huge weight in the market. Suppliers simply refused to play, and the company was forced to reevaluate its strategy.

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Mantra#4

Strategy can be as strong as its weakest link Don’t forget even the factors we consider least

at times e.g. Culture or demographics

Strategy can be as strong as its weakest link Don’t forget even the factors we consider least

at times e.g. Culture or demographics

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Execute Inattention

● Yet the biggest factor of all may be executive inattention. Once a plan is decided upon, there is often surprisingly little follow-through to ensure that it is executed,

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Mantra # 4

Consistent Attention

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Consistent Monitor and Tracking

● "Less than 15% of companies routinely track how they perform over how they thought they were going to perform,“

● Instead, only the first year's goals are measured -- and executives often set first-year goals deliberately low in order to meet a threshold for a bonus.

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Culture of Accountability

• One school emphasizes people: Just put the right people in place and the right things will get done. However, within the people school, there are also divisions. Some experts insist that the right people are hired, not made.

• the key is to improve executive performance through training, and improve the average employee's performance through the creation of a culture of accountability.

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Cont.….

● For example, W. James McNerney, Jr., the chairman and CEO of 3M, argues that by improving the average performance of every individual by 15%, irrespective of what his or her role is, a company can achieve and sustain consistently superior performance.

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Mantra # 5

Culture of Accountability

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Five Keys to Getting the Job Done

● Develop a model for execution. ● Choose the right metrics.● - sales and market share are always going to be the

dominant metrics of business

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Cont.

• Don't forget the plan.  • - plans are often simply agreed to and then forgotten !• Assess performance frequently.• - Performance monitoring is still an annual affair at most

companies. The reason why Wal-Mart is so good at execution is it knows daily if what it is doing in each of its stores gets results or not

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• By shortening the performance monitoring cycle -- from quarter-by-quarter to month-by-month or week-by-week -- top management can get more "real-time" feedback on the quality of execution down the line.  

• Communicate. • - companies often go wrong by creating a cultural

distinction between the executives who design a strategy and people lower down in the corporate hierarchy who carry it out.

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WYDIWYG

● Strategy is Execution. Another way of saying this is WYDIWG – What You DO Is What You Get.

● Strategy Is . . . ● Strategy is many things: plan, pattern, position, ploy

and perspective. As plan, strategy relates how we intend realizing our goals.

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Strategy is Execution

Strategy is getting it right and doing it right. On the one hand, we have to envision the right course of action. On the other hand, once chosen, we have to carry it out properly

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Do we want to be guilty

● If our strategy and its execution are both flawed, the effort is "doomed from the beginning." Our chances of success are zero, nil

● If our strategy is sound but its execution is flawed, we are guilty of muffing it

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Execution is Strategy

• In the early 1980s, Tom Peters made a presentation to a group of senior managers at AT&T in which he used a slide that read, "Execution is strategy." We can turn that around and also say that strategy is execution. In simpler terms, we adapt to changing circumstances and so does our strategy. Thus it is that strategy as envisioned or contemplated becomes strategy as executed or realized

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● Focused Approach

● Play Specialists

● Culture of accountability

● Continuous Monitoring

What does Execution Strategy mean at Amdocs

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Focused Approach

● Organizations that successfully execute even mediocre strategies far outperform those that fail to execute the most brilliant of plans! According to Fortune Magazine, "less than 10% of strategies effectively formulated are effectively executed."

● Identifying focus and time frame for the focus should be part of execution strategy

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Play Specialists

● How to Get There From Where You Are Today?● When an organization commits to execution strategy it

must do so in steps or stages. Tackling all of the various components at once -- no matter how focused and motivated an organization is -- is simply not feasible.

● Executors have to be separated from thinkers.● Create a model of execution

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● Developing organizational structures that foster information sharing, coordination, and clear accountability

● Developing effective controls and feedback mechanisms● Knowing how to create an execution-supportive culture● Exercising execution-biased leadership

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● Without guidance, individuals do the things they think are important, often resulting in uncoordinated, divergent, even conflicting decisions and actions.

● Having a model or roadmap positively affects execution success.

● It all begins with strategy. Execution cannot occur until one has something to execute. Bad strategy begets poor execution and poor outcomes, so it's important to focus first on a sound strategy.

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Culture of Accountability

● Clear Responsibility and Accountability● This is one of the most important prerequisites for

successful execution, as basic as it sounds.

● Managers must know who's doing what, when, and why, as well as who's accountable for key steps in the execution process. Without clear responsibility and accountability, execution programs will go nowhere. Knowing how to achieve this clarity is central to execution success.

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● While competitors are the ones who set the agenda and rule of the game in red oceans, competition becomes insignificant in blue oceans.

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Twelve strategies for instilling a culture of execution in your organization:

● Build accountability into meetings● Be realistic. Many strategies fail because leaders don't

make a realistic assessment of whether the organization can execute the plan.

● Focus on a few priorities. I've seen organizations with strategic plans that detail twenty large strategies for one year.

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Cont.

• Ensure employees understand priorities. This may sound simple, but my experience is that most employees are not brought into the loop about what is important to the organization.

• Set milestones. Break down every organizational project into specific milestones with action items and dates. Communicate these milestones to employees and review the status at each project meeting.

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Cont.

● Use your business plan. Is your business plan collecting dust? Many organizations go through the motions of spending two days every year developing strategic and business plans, only to stick them in the bottom of the drawer untouched

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Cont.

● Hold people at the top accountable. If line managers are not executing, it's usually because their leader does not have an accountability structure in place. Leaders need to take ownership of their initiatives and follow-up with managers to ensure completion

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● Promote candid dialog. This is one of the biggest reasons why things don't get done in organizations. Many managers don't want to rock the boat, so they are very polite and don't challenge each other or their leaders. This often leads to failed projects and initiatives because managers weren't honest with each other.

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Cont.

● What processes could have been better? Did we meet our time commitments? If not, why? Use this information to improve processes and hold people accountable.

● Confront performance issues. Some managers put off confronting performance issues because it's unpleasant and takes time.