What characterizes a sharp strategy?

Characteristics of a sharp strategy are:

  1. Customer-driven
  2. Focus and deselection
  3. Structure and discipline
  4. Ambitious
  5. Top priority

How can we throw out such 5 characteristics? After all, we can because we have extensive practical experience with strategy development, execution, implementation and have gathered knowledge from many, many strategic change projects and the result shows that these 5 characteristics apply to the companies that are most successful.

Customer-driven means that your company's customers contribute to the development. When you are in close contact with your customers, you get a much better understanding of what services you can offer so that you create added value for the customer. In addition, you get insight into which direction your customers are developing and you can be at the forefront so that you can also meet the customer's future needs and wishes.

Focus and opt-out means that your company is very clear in its value offer as well as in whom the company is something for. Making the strategic opt-outs is much harder than choosing to – but it is the strategic opt-outs that ensure focus and give your company an edge so that you not only become one of the many.

Structure and discipline mean that you have to work with strategy structured and disciplined. You only achieve unique results when you put strategy into the system and framework and consider this task to be very important.

Ambitious means that you are constantly challenging yourself, your goals, your processes, etc. If we don't challenge, we'll be overtaken by others.

Prioritization from the top means that senior management must prioritize the strategy work. The companies that prioritize the strategy as highly as budgets and sales are much more successful, because strategy is not something the company should simply have – it has to be something the company does down throughout the organization.

The system helps create structure and understanding of strategy and what's important

Gert Ekberg Westergaard Jensen

Managing Director and Partner

Ason A/S

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