An organizational strategy can help you connect your mission statement to your objectives.
You have a great mission statement and value proposition for your company. You've hired the right people, and you're ready to expand. But how does your business move from theory to practice? How do you perform daily tasks to meet your goals and satisfy your customers?
You need an organizational strategy for your business to succeed. Creating clear, strategic objectives provides an outline that details how your theoretical mission translates to active projects and daily tasks.
This can help teams stay focused on end results while providing a framework and guidance for how employees handle customers, tackle internal projects, and other routine interactions.
What is an organizational strategy?
Your company's organizational strategy is an action plan that helps you realize results from your work. This plan highlights how your business will allocate resources (such as capital, labor, inventory, and tools) to support operational objectives.
While a mission statement outlines the basic principles that guide how your company operates, an organizational strategy moves the mission into actual work.
An organizational strategy is a 10,000-foot view
A mission statement is a high-level view at 50,000 feet. It offers a basic theory of why your company exists.
And while it's still a high-level view, an organizational strategy brings that view down to 10,000 feet, closer to the surface where you can see more details of the on-the-ground work. Your organizational strategy showcases practical methods to achieve your mission on a daily basis.
Key elements of an organizational strategy include:
Vision: What does your company aspire to?
Mission: A qualitative goal your business wants to achieve.
Objectives: Results you want to achieve within a set time frame.
Growth strategy: Outline how you intend to grow in one, three or five years, etc., via specific goals.
Execution: Outline how you will execute the strategy.
Tactics: These include projects, tasks, initiatives, and tools/programs your teams use to implement the strategy.
Keep your organizational strategy simple, but measurable
Just as you use a SMART framework—specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound—to set goals, you can use a similar process to develop an organizational strategy.
For example, if your goal is to grow over the next year, ask specific questions about that goal. How much do you want to grow? Do you want to double your company's revenue? Triple it? Increasing revenue is a specific, measurable goal. All you need to do is create a strategy to achieve it.
Don't include metrics in organizational strategy
Now, we just said to make your strategy measurable. So, how do you keep metrics out of your organizational strategy? That's easy: Don't have any numbers in it.
Simply say you want to double your revenue, decrease costs, improve warm leads, or whatever measurable goals you want. Don't get too stuck on the specific numbers at this higher level.
KPIs will be established by the necessary teams to meet organizational goals
An organizational strategy allows your employees and teams to establish the KPIs and metrics necessary to meet your company's goals.
Continuing our revenue example, let's say your stated goal is to double revenue in a year. Your sales team decides to do this by setting a goal to increase sales by 50% and raise prices on popular products and services for new sales.
Your HR team can help achieve this goal by reducing labor costs and implementing digital tools that help make the people you already have more efficient. Increased efficiency means you can save on new hire costs while still operating effectively.
Measuring business performance can help you track KPIs to meet your goals.
Balance your niche without limiting your business
One way to stand out from your competition is to carve out a niche for your business. Having a niche gives you a great customer base on which to grow. However, you don't want to limit your business to a certain type of customer since that strategy has a shelf life.
Keep some flexibility in your corporate-level strategy
A corporate-level organizational strategy should give your teams flexibility to grow, especially when new tools and tactics become available.
For example, marketing changes very quickly, sometimes in less than a year. Your money-making model can change. Products and suppliers might need to be optimized and upgraded. And the tools your employees require to do their jobs will need upgrades at some point, whether equipment, software, or both.
Allow all employees to make the best decision for the business
Achieving your business goals happens when your employees buy into your business model. You give employees the ability to make the best possible decisions by trusting and empowering them to do their jobs.
Strategic management ensures efforts are moving toward corporate goals
Strategic management is the framework that keeps your company going forward. The strategic management process occurs when team leaders plan, monitor, analyze, and assess how the organizational strategy is working.
Managing business strategy leads to changes based on the current business environment to better allocate resources for success. Once you give your employees the resources and tools they need, you can see how well they perform and adjust as needed.
Trust and empower your employees to make the best decisions
Leaders should trust and empower employees to make the best decisions to achieve business objectives. Give them the tools they need to succeed, whether it's training, mentoring, or digital tools.
Why is trust important? It helps your employees feel safe in an environment with mutual respect, which fosters both individual and overall company growth.
Need help with your organizational strategy? Use these resources
The right tools and tips can help your team develop a successful organizational strategy. Dive a little deeper with these resources: