Organization survival today depends on recognizing and adapting to business environments that bear little resemblance to what we saw five or even three years ago. A quick look at headlines over the past year makes it clear that market-roiling upsets are the new normal:
- “The Amazon-Whole Foods Deal Means Every Other Retailer’s Three-Year Plan Is Obsolete” (Harvard Business Review, June 2017)
- “Uber, Lyft Take Down Not Just Cab Drivers, But Also Lenders” (CNBC, July 2017)
- “While We Weren’t Looking, Snapchat Revolutionized Social Networks” (New York Times, November 2016)
- “Electric Cars Could Totally Disrupt The Oil Market Within A Decade, Researchers Say” (Fortune, February 2017)
Political upsets have caused similar disruptions; the surprise “yea” vote for Brexit forced many companies to rethink their UK and EU strategies. And disruptive technologies like the Internet of Things and digitization affect every sector. The bottom line is that organizations can no longer expect their carefully conceived strategic plans to survive even half as long as they once could.
Organizations Need Strategic Resilience
Instead of relying on rigid strategies, organizations need to cultivate strategic resilience: the ability to respond quickly to changing conditions without losing customers or diluting what makes the organization great. This requires completely different skill sets from what was needed in the past.
Partnering Resources helps organizations develop the strategic resilience they need to weather tumultuous times. Over our thirteen years in business, we’ve worked on strategy with Fortune 500 companies, emerging businesses, universities, nonprofit organizations, and government agencies. By partnering with us, organizations:
- Delve into their core to uncover their true and lasting purpose
- Identify and capitalize on unseized opportunities in their ecosystem
- Explore ways to direct their unique capabilities in order to make a difference in the market
- Create scenarios that test strategies to ensure their robustness and flexibility
- Commit to well-conceived, adaptable strategies tailored to based on their purpose, capabilities, and context
- Establish a strategy continuity plan that outlines processes for enabling ongoing strategic resiliency
- Find partners with complementary skill sets and establish collaborative, mutually beneficial relationships
- Develop the resilience they need to anticipate, respond, and adapt in the face of unexpected change
At Partnering Resources, we believe that it is impossible for a small, insular group to set strategy effectively. We help organizations engage a range of people, from customers to collaborators, observers, analysts, and employees, to create a shared understanding of the ecosystem and find hidden opportunities. We ask leaders to let go of the need for tight control and embark on a process of exploration and collaboration with their stakeholders. Leaders still lead—they contribute guidance, focus, encouragement, and final decisions—but they allow others to share in the strategy exploration and formulation process.
Take the Next Step to Strategic Resilience
We invite you to seek us out if you want to build strategic resilience in your organization. Contact us if you want to free yourself from the rigid, traditional frameworks of the 20th century and create strategies that work in the volatile 21st century.
We’ll explore issues related to strategy, from leadership to resiliency, in future blog posts. Subscribe now for alerts on when new articles are posted.
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