Why a strategy fails?

While there are many strategies that are developed in a year not all are executed, but it is the execution that counts.

So why are some strategies never fulfilled?

Even the best of strategies are of no value if they are not executed says an expert.

Said bin Saif al Harthi, Executive Director of Tanfeed Management Consultancy, said that as much as the money and time are spent in building a strategy processes should also be set in place to realise the plan. A popular statistic is (Norton and Kaplan’s approach) that 9 out of 10 business strategies fail due to poor implementation.

So where do individuals and organisations fail even with well formulated strategies and what are their barriers?

“They fail because of unclear vision and lack of clarity on what they wanted to achieve and when they want to achieve it.

The other problem is the inability to align the organisation with the strategy and cascade the strategy to operations,” said Al Harthi.

Communication is an important part of execution of the strategy.

“No matter how good your strategy is, if it is not communicated effectively to the workforce and at the same time they are expected to fulfil the execution the end result is going to be difficult,” pointed out the strategist. Another important factor is building of capability. It could be one of the major drawbacks leading to the failure of strategies. However there are enablers to making a strategy into action.

“There are many enablers but on the top of the list would be leadership. The leader has to lead in a way that supports the strategy such as motivation and providing training.”

According to Al Harthi, a lot of companies have the inability to conduct periodic reviews. Organisations tend to execute plans operationally and not strategically.

“They fail to meet regularly and review their strategy and introduce improvements so that could be a barrier too,” noted Al Harthi.

Then there are the companies who want to continue to stay in their comfort zones and prefer not to venture out further.

“The other name to this syndrome is ‘Business as Usual” — this is where leadership matters and that is to motivate the workforce to take the graph up. If an organisation already has a strategy then we look at it. It is just like buying a car. The car needs the engine in order for it to be driven.

Similarly, the strategy must have all the right components to be executed so we need to assess the strategy and ensure that all the components are in place for the strategy objectives to be executed, also the KPIs (Key Performance Indicator) and linking the projects to the strategy. So that is a process one should take to realise the vision,” pointed out Al Harthi.