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Volume 1.4 Table Of Contents
- Unexpected stakeholders can make or break your strategy
- Trend Watch: “Customer Centricity”
- Digging Deeper: Build Profitable Customer Centric Strategies
- Ask the Business Performance Expert:
- Speaking of Success:
Unexpected stakeholders can make or break your strategy
What is one thing that can make the difference between a strategy that looks good on paper but goes nowhere, and one that both looks good and accelerates progress toward your objectives? Stakeholder buy-in. While many leaders include groups and individuals who have a stake in the organization’s success in developing strategies, it’s not uncommon to discover that the stakeholders who turn out to be the most critical for success are not the ones you think of first. Increasingly, third party groups such as shareholders, customers, suppliers, strategic alliances, joint ventures, outsourcing partners, government regulators, unions, and the community have a role in shaping approving, and even implementing work. With the growing impact of these stakeholders comes a growing need to ensure that they are willing and able to support your organization’s strategies. Depending upon your objectives, including one or more of these stakeholders in early strategic thinking and planning can go a long way in preventing “gridlock” down the road. To see a checklist of obvious and not-so-obvious stakeholders that could be the key to your success click here
Trend Watch: “Customer Centricity”
As customers have more choices than ever available to them, companies of all sizes are recognizing that having a single company-wide focus on customer commitment and loyalty (“customer centricity”) is critical for increasing their competitiveness and profitability. While more customers are being included in developing customer-centric strategies, it is not as common to include outsourcing and alliance partners in early strategy meetings. However, with entire business processes being outsourced, and new services being developed and delivered through alliances, these stakeholders hold vital information and services that can make or break or break success. Making sure that they are involved in developing and buy into your customer centricity strategy will help ensure that the strategy will deliver the competitive and profitable results you want.
Digging Deeper: Build Profitable Customer Centric Strategies
According to a study by Forester Research, surveyed executives reported that one of the most challenging aspects of customer centricity was making it an fundamental part of their company's daily operations, and integrating it across their entire enterprise. To address that challenge, the Business Author’s Leadership Alliance (BALA) has created a uniquely integrated process for “Building Profitable Customer-Centric Strategies”. The four phases consist of:
- Identify Strategic Opportunities and Challenges
- Focus Innovation & Creativity
- Ensure & Refine Profitability Potential
- Lead and Manage Performance
An article series that takes readers step-by-step through these phases is featured as “Premium content” on Marketing profs.com for a minimal monthly fee.
Ask the Business Performance Expert:
Q:"It
seems like we have everyone’s buy-in to
our business strategy. Are we safe from unexpected
problems due to resistance?"
A: Resistance can look like many
things, even agreement! The best course is to
go beyond your immediate expectations about resistance
by challenging your assumptions about where it
may come from, what’s likely to be behind
it, what it will look like, how strong it will
be, how long it may last, and what you can do
to deal with it up front. By better understanding
the concerns and needs of stakeholders, you can
better anticipate and detect resistance before
it becomes a major problem.
Quote: "The surest way not to fail is to determine to succeed."
-- R.B. Sheridan