However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results.
Winston Churchill
Your Operating Strategy must drive the four key elements of Business Transformation: Customers, Process, People and Technology. Keeping these in balance improves the delivery of dollar benefits.
Whatever your Operating Strategy may be, any attempt to change the status quo must first start with a clear understanding of what the customer wants and how they want it. Business processes must deliver exactly what the customer wants. Engaging people throughout a change initiative gives them ownership of the solution. Technology enables the automation of processes and business rules.
So what is your Operating Strategy?
Do you need to stabilise your operations for an expansion into, say, Asia?
Do your current operations provide the platform into which to integrate an acquisition?
Do your customers find it difficult to do business with you?
Perhaps your customers are not receiving the quality of product or service that they expect? Is delivery timely?
Are you looking to reduce total operating costs?
Are you looking to improve the flexibility or scope of your products without increasing the overall cost and so offer more to your customers (hence increase revenue and margins)
Activation
Do your current business transformation initiatives contribute to achieving the objectives of your strategy?
Assess how each of your business transformation initiatives utilises each of the four elements: customer, process, people and technology. Are one or more of these elements not considered sufficiently?
What gaps remain in your Operating Strategy after all your current initiatives have been considered?
Resources
“Strategy Maps”, Robert Kaplan and David Norton, Harvard Business School Press, 2004
“Welch, an American Icon”, Janet Lowe, John Wiley and Sons, 2001
“The Customer Driven Company”, Richard Whiteley, The