Strategic Plans Lose Favor: Issues and Management Business System Resolution

In the Wall Street Journal article “Strategic Plans Lose Favor: Slump Showed Bosses Value of Flexibility, Quick Decisions,” it was pointed out that during the recession, as business forecasts came up against the reality, executives discovered that strategic planning doesn’t always work. Some leaders in business concluded that the new priority was to be able to shift course on the fly. Now, even though the economy is slowly picking up, those fresh habits aren’t fading. “This downturn has changed the way we will think about our business for many years to come,” says Steve Odland, Office Depot’s chairman and chief executive. Walt Shill, head of the Accenture North American management consulting practice is even more straight forward: “Strategy, as we knew it, is dead,” he contends. “Corporate clients decided that increased flexibility and accelerated decision making are much more important than simply predicting the future.”

I agree with the points that the article made in that something major needs to be done to strategic planning; however, I believe what is needed is something more than adhoc meeting to determine what should be done next. What is needed is a re-invented business management system that truly has a no-nonsense, dynamic integration of predictive scorecards, analytically/innovatively determined strategies, and project creation/execution so that the business as a whole benefits.

A detailed step-by-step resolution to the issue and accomplishing the above objectives is described in “A Solution to the Pitfalls of Ineffective Strategic Planning”