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BH 2832015
Copyright 2008 by Kelley School of Business, Indiana University. For reprints, call HBS Publishing at (800) 545-7685.
www.elsevier.com/locate/bushor
Carroll School of Management, Boston College, Fulton Hall 450B, 140 Commonwealth Avenue,
Chestnut Hill, MA 02467, U.S.A.
b
College of Business Administration, 101 Hayden Hall, Northeastern University, Boston, MA 02115, U.S.A.
KEYWORDS
Strategy;
Implementation;
Managerial levers;
Performance
Abstract The habitual mode of poor strategy implementation shaping the next
round of strategy formulation weakens the subsequent planning cycle. Unfortunately,
decades of company interactions consisting of research, teaching, and consulting
suggest that strategy implementation has become a catchall of phrases and recommendations, with little clarity as to what comprises this necessary cornerstone of a
capable organization. Strategists tend to use powerful terminology when referring to
implementation efforts. Descriptors such as killers, confrontation, and engagement
are linked with actions like conquering, blocking, tackling, and honing when discussing strategy implementation. Our contention is that implementation is a critical
cornerstone or ally in the building of a capable organization, and the use of the
appropriate levers of implementation is the pivotal hinge in the development of
the organization. Ultimately, strategy implementation helps create the future, not
inhibit it.
# 2008 Kelley School of Business, Indiana University. All rights reserved.
0007-6813/$ see front matter # 2008 Kelley School of Business, Indiana University. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.bushor.2008.02.003
This document is authorized for use only in Strategy Implementation.. by Dr. Bala Krishnamoorthy, NMIMS from April 2015 to October 2015.
This document is authorized for use only in Strategy Implementation.. by Dr. Bala Krishnamoorthy, NMIMS from April 2015 to October 2015.
303
This document is authorized for use only in Strategy Implementation.. by Dr. Bala Krishnamoorthy, NMIMS from April 2015 to October 2015.
This document is authorized for use only in Strategy Implementation.. by Dr. Bala Krishnamoorthy, NMIMS from April 2015 to October 2015.
305
Innovation is at the heart of several of the company stories. In 2004, Merck was presented with an
unprecedented challenge in its voluntary recall of
Vioxx. It was not business as usual at Merck, given
the considerable concern for the long-term impact
of the legal decisions regarding Vioxx. Yet, amidst
this uproar during tumultuous times, the companys
sales people had to keep their spirits up and believe
in the company that they represented. The sales
force essentially needed to become better informed
about the company as an innovative organization. In
order to achieve this, the sales force in one geographic region was presented with an overview of
the innovative efforts within the company, including
new vaccines, HIV/AIDS international programs, improved products, tablet computers for the sales
force, customization of information on the web,
patient assistance programs, and licensing deals.
The sales people learned how the company was
developing innovative programs for continuous improvement, and that the company was not reliant on
one product for long-term success.
2.1.3. Systems: Installing strategic support
systems
Ross and Weill (2002) suggest that companies that
manage their information technology investments
successfully will generate 40% higher returns than
their competitors. Essentially, the strategic support
system provides timely access to both qualitative
and quantitative data about customers, human resources, revenues and costs, and inventory/order
fulllment. Strategically, decisions have to be
made about how much to spend, which business
process to support, and which capabilities are needed company-wide versus function-wide. Tactically,
the quality of information technology needed in the
rm and security/privacy concerns are issues that
arise in the implementation of the information
technology itself.
In conjunction with its action structural lever,
Floral Farms utilized its systems lever in the development of a decision-support model to assist in
making complicated cross-functional issues easier
to understand. Mapping the cross-functional decision process into a decision-support system enabled
managers to quantify subjective interactions and
include situational aspects of marketing and production interactions into a more easily understood
framework. Using the decision-support system as a
means of understanding the possible consequences
of individual marketing, joint marketing, and production decision-making showed that functionally
anchored decision criteria gave poorer results than
cross-functional decision criteria. Additionally, the
development, operationalization, and discussion of
This document is authorized for use only in Strategy Implementation.. by Dr. Bala Krishnamoorthy, NMIMS from April 2015 to October 2015.
This document is authorized for use only in Strategy Implementation.. by Dr. Bala Krishnamoorthy, NMIMS from April 2015 to October 2015.
307
important) and norms (dening appropriate attitudes and behaviors). While an organizational culture is unique to each company, shaping corporate
culture requires clearness in content, consistency in
nature, and comprehensiveness in coverage. Schein
(1996) proposes that there are three different types
of cultures in an organization: (a) internal culture
that is based on operational success, (b) engineering
culture that drives the core technologies, and (c)
executive culture that engages the CEO and immediate subordinates.
Company culture came through loud and clear in
the company database of organizational stories. The
importance of internal culture was demonstrated,
for example, at Floral Farms. Unfortunately, the
internal culture driven by functional silos was a
negative force in that company. This negativity with
respect to internal culture can be juxtaposed with
the positive internal culture of a company like
Navistar International Transportation, where the
lack of functional silos enabled the company to
implement programs that resulted in positive marketplace results. Navistar implemented a strategy
of mass customization, due largely to the companys
actions and systems levers that were part and parcel
of the companys engineering culture driving its core
technologies.
Within the company database, the impact of
executive culture in companies of all shapes and
sizes is evidenced. Battered Women Fighting Back!
(BWFB), a nonprot organization, relied almost singularly on its executive director and founder to
shape its culture as it was catapulted into national
acclaim. The executive director and two lm comrades from Cambridge Documentary Films won an
Academy Award for the best documentary lm. The
director had worked in human rights organizations
around the world, and had won numerous awards in
the nonprot world. She was the backbone of the
organization; however, she began to wonder if the
culture she had instilled in the BWFB organization
was enough to take it to a stronger level of operations. She recognized that while culture is a unique
characteristic within all companies, it is also a
powerful implementation tool for managers, and
is reected in managerial decision-making.
This document is authorized for use only in Strategy Implementation.. by Dr. Bala Krishnamoorthy, NMIMS from April 2015 to October 2015.
This document is authorized for use only in Strategy Implementation.. by Dr. Bala Krishnamoorthy, NMIMS from April 2015 to October 2015.
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309
This document is authorized for use only in Strategy Implementation.. by Dr. Bala Krishnamoorthy, NMIMS from April 2015 to October 2015.