#acceleration execution

If the strategy demands fairly big changes, and behavior changes, or if the company has been in a negative situation for a long time, traditional strategy execution will not be enough. In those cases, its needed to find ways to accelerate the execution and the behavior change.

Many consulting and software companies that help its customers with execution are rather within execution than Execution Acceleration.

Let’s look at two typical strategy execution projects Assume that the company’s revenue is €200 M, and profit €10 M, 2014. The strategy is to increase revenues to € 300 M and profit to € 30 M year 2018. What can the company do today, this week and this month, and how could we measure and accelerate the execution?

Traditional Strategy Execution The company will work with the execution in a traditional way which is:

20 High KPI’s that comes from the new strategy, normally:

Increased revenues, increased margins, increased market shares

Increased Return of investment

Improved Customer Satisfaction, increased quality

20 Measurable KPI’s (measuring above, but when it’s already have happened, for example per month or quarter)

0 HOW or Affect KPI’s (HOW-work per day including behavior change)

How to make above happening, behavior change etc

How to connect How-What-Strategy-KPI’s in the same currency (money according to a timeline)

The reasons for that the company above will fail (only approximately 20 percent of all execution projects are successful according to Harvard Business Review and several other sources), are that the strategy execution lacks “HOW” and how to measure low and high KPI’s in the same currency (normally time and money).

The strategy goal’s currency is in money and the time line is defined, but all the “HOWs” are defined and measured in done or not done. The only way to compare, will be to look in “historical numbers”, for example the sales process system.

Strategy Execution Acceleration -  Execution that really happens A company that must reach fairly radical improvements and reach the strategic goals must have a way to accelerate the execution in order to speed up and “make it happen” in reality. In order for the CEO to survive, he or she, needs a way to measure how the company’s culture, speed and focus is before the strategy execution start and how the execution and improvements accelerates week for week or month per month.

Instead of focusing on 20 KPI’s it’s necessary to focus on 1-2 at the time. We call this the Most important Goal (MIG). For example two Strategy Acceleration KPI’s (SAK) are a) increase number of strategic sales processes and b) decrease the sales process time and cost. HOW: Sales should be done to higher customer roles, in a more proactive way, based on business values, which means that SAK’s as revenue, profit, customer satisfaction and market share will increase. This means that one SAK have an impact of many high strategy KPI’s. In this case SAK will have an impact on about 50% of all Strategy KPI’s and stand for about 70% of the strategic financial goals until 2018. Add HOW that is connected to a certain “Step” (what). The first step according to above example is for instance:

Collect information about the customer before you meet with a high role

Put that information together in an outside-in perspective

Contact the high suspect/prospect role

Most Important Goal  - MIG (a more modern and countable execution) The company will work and measure the execution also as before:

20 High KPI’s that comes out from the new strategy, normally:

Increased revenues, increased margins, increased market shares

Increased Return of investment,

Improved Customer Satisfaction, Increased quality

2 SAK = Measurable KPI’s (Measures the result of below HOW’s in money and/or time, i.e the same currency as SAK)

1 WHAT and 3 HOW’s per decided time line (week, month or quarter). Measured as the Affect KPI’s (HOW-work per day including behavior change)

The modern way to “make it happen”, i.e. accelerate the strategy is done via HOW and measured via Affect KPI’s in the same currency as the strategic goals (money and time). By doing this, it’s possible to measure the execution per week or month, but it’s also possible to speed up and accelerate the execution, not just measure historical theoretical goals. The company will increase the chances for a successful execution with 3-4 times, and the execution will be at least 30 percent faster. Most important is that it’s measurable per month and it’s able to view if the strategic goals will happen on time.