Stax highlights five areas to consider when building corporate strategy

As corporate executives commence planning for next year and beyond, Stax Head of Business Development Dr. Rasitha Wickramasinghe articulated the following five areas that should be given due consideration when building a successful strategy.

Stax Head of Business Development  Dr. Rasitha Wickramasinghe

Complement gut with facts: Experienced professionals and proven entrepreneurs generally follow their gut when making business decisions. These decisions are formulated in their minds through a combination of past experiences and industry knowledge gained. While it is important to acknowledge a gut instinct, it is also vital to perform a fact check to confirm that the perceived hypothesis is indeed market reality. Stax deploys methods such as extracting key insights from company data, targeted market and consumer research, and future projections based on historical trends to help businesses make fact-based decisions. Analysing case studies from related industries also helps to make informed decisions.

Replace push with pull: ‘Push’ strategies were deployed in an era when large companies used to dominate markets and a small cohort of influential board members would direct the corporate strategy, with little or no consultation with the rest of the organisation. Today, we live in a volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous world where business cycles are getting shorter and continuous innovation is required to fulfill evolving consumer needs to stay relevant. Understanding customer sentiments, pain points and future needs are crucial to building a customer-centric, sustainable corporate strategy. As a result, ‘pull’ strategies have become more effective, with senior executives seeking wider input from across the organisation. Stax facilitates this process through discussions with key stakeholders in the organisation, all the way from the boardroom to staff on the shop floor.

Understand the product-to-experience shift: Modern consumers are increasingly shifting from products to experiences, and the prevalence of sharing platforms is changing how consumers view ownership. The world is now shifting to an era where experience is king. Businesses must understand this fundamental shift in buying behaviour, and tailor their strategies to deliver a better end-to-end consumer experience.

Run and reinvent simultaneously: In today’s world, the only constant is change. No industry is immune to disruption and keeping pace with change is always a challenge. The business must run and reinvent simultaneously to ensure its future survival. While you run efficiently, businesses must also focus on reinventing to cater to future demand. Innovation, agility, flexibility, empowerment, embracing failure and an external focus are characteristics of future-friendly organisations. A good corporate strategy must allow the organisation to adapt for the future while optimising the run for today.

Long-term vs. short-term: Research suggests that companies focusing on long-term top-line growth generate far greater shareholder value than companies seeking short-term profits. Every corporate strategy must have a long-term, audacious goal that gets senior leadership out of their comfort zone and employees excited about growth potential. This is referred to as a Big Hairy Audacious Goal (BHAG) and should be the anchor that the company’s ‘run and reinvent’ strategy is built around.

Stax Inc. is Sri Lanka’s leading management consulting firm, headquartered in Boston with offices in Chicago, New York and Colombo. With more than 25 years of experience, Stax advises the world’s largest public and private corporations, private equity firms, portfolio operations groups and portfolio companies across a broad range of industries covering more than 40 international markets. 

With a growing client base in Sri Lanka, including diversified conglomerates, blue-chip industry leaders, large family businesses, government organisations and NGOs, Stax inspires organisations to dream big, think outside the box and complement gut-based decision-making with fact-based research. For more information, visit www.stax.com.