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Organisations invest hundreds of billions in developing strategies, yet many fail, and wonder why. Lack of successful implementation.
While Strategy Implementation remains a top priority for executives, surveys after surveys report that fewer than 15% of organisations worldwide reported successful implementation of their strategic initiatives.
Multiple surveys have reported a failure rate of 60% and 90% in strategic implementation, suggesting a considerable gap between a firm’s expectations and desired outcomes. Thus, developing a strategic business roadmap is crucial to improving implementation success rates. But what is a strategic roadmap, and why does your organisation need it? How to create a roadmap for a business?
Why Does a Company Need a Strategic Business Roadmap?
Often, the leaders, employees, and stakeholders are on the same page about the organisation’s future, causing a state of disarray across the company.
The State of Leadership Development 2020 surveyed 21,008 employees to assess leaders’ effectiveness. They found that only 29% of employees felt their leader’s vision for the future aligned with the organisation’s. Furthermore, leaders often make decisions on the fly that may not necessarily be optimised for the organisation’s long-term success and growth.
A strategic business roadmap can help an organisation avoid these challenges by providing a clear path to achieve its goals and ensuring that all actions align with the plan.
What is a Strategic Roadmap? How to create a roadmap for business
Simply put, a strategic roadmap is a map that paves the way for an organisation’s immediate and long-term success. Not only does the roadmap show where your company is and the quickest way to your goals, but it also helps shorten the timeline since employees waste less time figuring things out on the go.
A strategic business roadmap enables organisations to pinpoint the choices they need to make for long-term success. A strategic roadmap ensures that founders can see through the operating fog and paint a clear vision for everyone in the company. If implemented right, it enables employees across the cadre to make quality decisions that align with the company’s objectives and serve as a reference point for employees, managers, stakeholders, and other interested parties.
Does your organisation have a strategic roadmap?
Not yet?
Here is a step-by-step guide for developing one for your organisation.
Building a strategic business roadmap can seem daunting at the start, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be.
Here is a simple framework to help you how to create a roadmap for business
- Defining Your Organisation “Compass”-> The first step in developing a strategic business plan for an organisation is defining the vision, mission, and core values. The mission, vision, and core values form the “compass” to guide your organisation’s way forward. Understanding the organisation’s vision, mission, and core values enables employees to evaluate decisions and actions that align with the long-term goals and objectives and decide accordingly.
- Identify Your Destination-> Once you have your “compass” in place, the next step is defining the destination- the long-term goals. Where does the company want to be in, say, 5- 10 years?
Goals are broad, high-level statements describing the outcomes to be achieved.
On the other hand, objectives are more specific and measurable statements that describe the actions that need to be taken to achieve the goals – increasing sales by X%, reducing costs by Y%, or reducing the organisational environmental footprint by Z%, etc.
- Measure Goals Through Processes-> Once the goals and objectives of an organisation have been identified, a metric is needed to track progress, which means defining Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). KPIs are metrics that help measure the performance of a business strategy/initiative in achieving the organisation’s objectives. For instance, if an organisation aims to acquire X new customers next year, it should consider what this would mean for its marketing, sales, and R&D strategy to help accomplish these objectives.
- Create a Map -> Once all the processes have been designed, creating a timeline for your strategic roadmap is essential. The timeline ensures that the “Map” will lead the organisation to its goals. To achieve this, leaders need to set a timeline for each objective, working backwards to determine the timeframe for each goal. This step also involves setting milestones and scheduling time to periodically track KPIs to ensure that the organisation is on track to achieve its objectives and make the necessary adjustments.
- Gather the Right Tools -> Once the strategic roadmap is outlined, the next step is to find the resources to execute the roadmap. Identify and put the right team and systems in place across departments. It would mean taking a hard look at one’s financial resources, Human Resources, Sales & Marketing resources, technology, or other assets. This step is crucial, as one size does not fit all and is unique for each entity. Organisations need to identify their strengths and weaknesses to bolster resources lacking talent.
- Assign Responsibilities-> Once the resources have been allocated specifically for each project, assigning tasks and responsibilities to individuals/teams is the next critical step. It requires business objectives to be broken down into specific, actionable tasks to help team members understand what needs to be done to contribute to the organisation’s long-term success.
- Measure & course correct -> Put in measures to track progress across levels. Actively address areas where the team is behind and proactively course correct.
Conclusion
A well-designed strategic roadmap provides a clear and concise plan to help an organisation achieve its goals and objectives and stay focused and on track.
So what are you waiting for? Set out on your journey to success and create a strategic roadmap for your organisation today!!?
If you feel challenged by the steps outlined above, reach out or comment in the comment box, and I will be more than happy to clarify.