More than 70 per cent of regional executives reported their strategies as failing either broadly or partially in a complex world characterized by hyper-speed evolution in a recent study.

Globally, 50 per cent of executives experienced similar frustrations over their strategies, explains the survey of more than 2,000 executives and strategy heads around the world by global management consulting firm A T Kearney.

Triggered by the increased complexity and challenges faced by executives in strategy formulation A T Kearney has launched a new book which lays out a timely updated path to strategy formulation and deployment “The Future of Strategy: A Transformative Approach to Strategy for a World That Won’t Stand Still”.

The book draws from the authors’ strategy work with clients, A T Kearney’s own research, and the most recent academic thinking on strategy and organizational motivation.

“It’s no secret that the extrapolation driven, ivory-tower, top-down process for creating strategy is broken,” said Johan Aurik, A T Kearney’s managing partner and chairman of the board.

“Strategy today requires stepping over the shadows of one’s own beliefs to capture new opportunities. But leaders of established firms can’t simply tell the organization that some old assumptions, attitudes, habits, values, and practices that have made them successful have run their course and need to be altered or even replaced. Unless the hearts and minds of people in the organization are in sync with the strategy, it will not get off the ground.”

Dr Martin Fabel, A T Kearney partner and global head of the firm’s strategy practice, said: “Ensuring a strategy can be executed is important for the continued success of Middle East corporations. Indeed, 85 per cent of regional executives surveyed rated strategy deployment a key challenge, compared to only 52 per cent internationally.”

“A key challenge in this region is the presence of a skills gap, making strategy execution especially difficult. Although involving managers in strategy formulation will make them understand the strategy better, more must be done to fix their skills gap during the implementation phase,” he added.

One of the central arguments of the book is that a strategy for the future should be built on three principles – it must be truly inspired by future trends instead of extrapolating the past, organizationally inclusive already during strategy formulation to remove the handover hurdle to strategy implementation, and designed as a portfolio of competitive opportunities instead of a linear plan. – TradeArabia News Service