Strategy? Do you need one?
From presidential campagns to the growth of any business strategy is pivotal. If you don’t have a strategy how can you measure your success? How can you claim victory? The bottom line is that you can’t.
I’ve been traveling to a variety of clients and it amazes me the ones who demand a strategy and those who just want to rush straight into deployment.
Oh yes before you say it, there is the execution of the strategy… but lets start small.
I had a client last week tell me that they need to get started, that they have to have something to show ASAP. That users need to be using the system. They wanted quotes and timetables for the implementation. Sometimes you can reign these clients in, sometimes you can’t.
In this instance they wanted to implement a global solution, going across their organization deploying ECM, WCM, and integrations to SAP, and other software. They had no concept of business process re-engineering. They admitted that their existing solution suffered from a lack of preparation, and couldn’t see that they were repeating themselves.
After point that out, and asking them what would define success in three years, (of which they couldn’t answer) we got them to commit to doing some proper planning, and we are now laying out a strategy. We got them to take a look at what defines success. In this case how can they leverage their ECM solution to differentiate themselves from their competition, defining tangible ROI, and how it will position them to open new markets! This is why I do this.
My other case and point was a government agency that came to us and said. We have budget (who in government doesn’t?? i suppose California may not but I’ll leave that for another discussion)
This agency CIO and I met to discuss what they need and how to go about it. During the meeting the CIO said, treat us like Neophytes we have no idea how to do this right, she was convinced that she could do it wrong. We talked in depth about planning, and how this would transform the agency over the next several years. We talked about how and what they would get out of our planning sessions.
Bad or No Plans = failure..
It isn’t rocket science you must understand why you are undertaking the effort, you need to understand how your going to define success in the long run. Did you know that CIO have an average lifespan at a company of only 18 months.. Think of how hard it will be to explain why your doing a multi-million dollar implementation to a new CIO with the goal of saving your job.
Think about your success, plan for it, then execute. Failure to think and plan will end in failure.
Ready Aim Fire = Think Plan Execute. So many companies are getting it wrong.
