What is Strategy Execution Software, and Why do I Need it?

The world has changed dramatically over the past decade. Businesses have become increasingly globalized, competition has intensified, and technology has transformed almost every aspect of a business. As a result, companies must adapt their strategies and tactics to stay competitive. This requires businesses to make strategic decisions about allocating resources, managing operations and communicating with customers and partners. However, many companies struggle to effectively execute their strategy because they lack the right tools. Failure rates in strategy execution are generally up to a staggering 70%. (forbes.com)

To successfully implement a strategy, companies must ensure that each step along the way is executed efficiently and accurately. Strategic plans can only offer so much - without proper execution, a company risks wasting valuable time and resources. To avoid this scenario, companies should invest in strategy execution software. It's not enough to build great products; you also need to execute on strategy. But how do you make sure you're executing the right strategy? How do you know if you have the right strategic initiatives? 

What is Strategy Execution Software?

Strategy execution software helps companies achieve their goals by allowing them to plan, track, analyze, and report on their strategy. Companies can use strategy execution software to improve their decision-making processes, increase productivity, and reduce operational risk. Alignment across departments comes naturally and easily when using a standard software system to track across the enterprise. Get rid of the silos with sales using SalesForce, marketing using HubSpot, finance using Excel, etc.

Planning software allows you to take all of the critical components of your strategic vision and have all of them in one place - your core values, BHAG, growth strategies, KPIs, OKR, Metrics, Goals, Projects, etc. This allows you to easily spread the key strategic initiatives for the company and each department to be open and transparent across the organization. This will enable you to create a culture of high performance.  

Why Should Companies Use Strategy Execution Software?

Companies today face increasing pressure to compete globally while maintaining high levels of customer satisfaction. Companies must continuously innovate and evolve their products and services to succeed in this environment. Unfortunately, companies can waste precious resources without adequate planning and execution and fail to deliver value to customers.

To overcome these challenges, companies must adopt new approaches to managing their strategy. For example, companies must rely on data analysis and objective evidence to guide their decision-making process instead of relying solely on intuition and gut instinct. Moreover, companies must focus less on individual projects and tasks and more on long-term initiatives. Finally, companies must work closely with stakeholders to ensure that their strategy aligns with organizational objectives and priorities.

However, traditional project management techniques are ill-equipped for executing complex strategies. Traditional project management focuses on completing specific tasks within a fixed timeline. But, due to the complexity of modern strategy, companies cannot afford to wait until the end of a project to evaluate its success. Instead, companies must constantly monitor progress and adjust their plans accordingly. In addition, traditional project management does not allow companies to integrate different types of data into their strategy easily. Consequently, companies lose valuable insights when combining qualitative and quantitative data sources.

Fortunately, strategy execution software provides companies with the tools needed to address these issues. With strategy execution software, companies can collect and analyze large amounts of data, quickly assess performance against key metrics, and create reports that highlight areas of improvement. Furthermore, strategy execution software allows companies to collaborate with stakeholders and build consensus around their strategy. Ultimately, this enables companies to align their strategy and organizational objectives better.

How Does Strategy Execution Software Work?

The primary function of strategy execution software is to automate the entire strategy lifecycle. Specifically, strategy execution software coordinates the following steps:

Planning: Companies use strategy execution software to define their strategy and identify the actions required to realize it. They also determine the criteria used to measure progress towards achieving their goals.

Execution: Strategy execution software automatically generates actionable plans once a company defines its strategy. These plans include identifying potential opportunities, developing tactical plans, and monitoring progress.

Reporting: Companies use strategy execution reporting software to generate comprehensive reports that summarize the status of their strategy. Reports can be customized to meet any number of needs, including financial reporting, resource allocation, stakeholder engagement, and product development. Only 8% of companies look at their strategies monthly; you can't succeed like that; you need to have your strategy as part of your rhythm of work.  

Meetings: Run all your meetings with the software to ensure that all the departments are working on their parts of the strategy. The CEO and executive team get the ability to see it from a high-level CEO, control tower level view. Track your notes, action items, strategic initiatives, KPIs, OKR, Metrics, and more in one place. Stop wasting time in your weekly meetings and work on your strategic goals.

Dashboards: Use the dashboards in the system to create custom dashboards for each of your departmental and cross-functional teams. This gives a quick overview of the current status of your projects, OKRs, KPIs, Metrics, and Targets. Dig deeper into any problems with the click of a button to troubleshoot.

Who Uses Strategy Execution Software?

As mentioned earlier, companies must continually adapt their strategies to remain competitive. Because of this, most companies use strategy execution software to support their overall strategy. Some examples of industries that heavily rely on strategy execution software include manufacturing, retail, telecommunications, healthcare, finance, insurance, government, and education across all of their business units.

Read more about how Rhythm strategy execution software helped the following companies.  

Manufacturing: World Emblem

Healthcare: ImageFIRST

Financial Technology" AvidXchange

Technology: Voicebrook

Feel free to contact us if you'd like to see how we can help you.

Benefits of Using Strategy Execution Software

Using strategy execution software can significantly benefit companies in several ways. Build strategy maps for the entire organization and how each department contributes to the company's overall goal.

• It reduces the amount of time spent on routine administrative tasks. This frees up employees' time to spend on higher priority activities. 
• It improves efficiency by reducing errors and eliminating manual data entry. 
• It increases transparency by allowing executives (and approved co-workers) to view real-time data. 
• It facilitates collaboration among teams by enabling stakeholders to share ideas and feedback.
• It improves communication by creating an open forum where everyone involved in the strategy can contribute. 
• It makes it easier to scale up by allowing companies to expand their strategy execution capabilities without incurring additional costs. 
• It reduces operational risk by helping companies anticipate problems before they occur. 
• It enhances employee morale by giving employees ownership over their jobs and clarifying how their contributions help the company. 
• It creates a positive corporate culture by encouraging innovation and creativity.
• It increases employee accountability.
• It clearly defines your 3-5 year strategy.
• It allows for much faster onboarding of new employees.
• Integrated Job Scorecards allow for performance management and coaching.

Strategic Execution Methodology: The Right Rhythm of Work

The best software for you must be able to support your preferred strategy execution platform or methodology. Whether that be Rockefeller Habits, ScalingUp, Stephen Covey, Getting Things Done, etc., your software solution needs to be able to handle it. It is imperative that you get all of the organizations to speak a common business language. Rhythm comes with its own methodology, which can work in conjunction with your current system or stand-alone.

The proper rhythm of work™ consists of four highly interlocked rhythms:

3-5 Year Strategic Plan

Long-range planning requires the participation of people from different departments, so it’s effortless for things to go wrong or for everyone to lose sight of the overall plan.

If you set up initiatives as projects with a clear purpose and the right tools to help you stay organized, it's easy to stay on track. With these tools, you can easily check your project status and discover any issues before they become major problems.

Annual and Quarterly Planning Alignment

To build and sustain a high-performance group, you must constantly keep them focused on strategic, advantageous results. Great teams need a tool that helps them manage their work towards expected results by aligning their strategy with their plans and actions. Alignment between these three elements is essential for high-performance teams.

Because the work is divided into different types of tasks, which are assigned to specific teams, people responsible for the outcomes of these tasks need to be able to work across the organization. This creates a strong sense of unity among employees and fosters an environment where everyone feels they're part of something bigger than themselves. It removes any potential for dysfunction within the organization.

Weekly Adjustment Meetings to Solve Problems Fast

Meetings that don't produce results are a massive waste of everyone's valuable resources. Managers must ensure that their team has clarity on goals and objectives and a clear view of where things stand at any given time.

Meetings are far more productive when attendees come prepared, know the issues, and review their dashboards.

At a cross-functional team meeting, everyone will be aware of the progress of each initiative and what is needed to achieve successful results. This is how growing midsize companies can break down internal barriers and create stronger relationships across departments.

Daily Focus and Leadership

Project managers can create project status reports so that everyone involved knows exactly what’s going on.

When the status is red or green, they can drill down into the details of the problem, and by reading the comments, they understand the underlying context.

The key is to create a system that lets CEOs and managers measure what matters and then let them know when they're not performing well enough. This way, they can quickly respond to issues in a timely manner rather than waiting until their next quarterly meeting to hear about a problem for the first time.

Strategy Execution Software Conclusion

Today, companies must embrace change if they hope to survive and thrive in the 21st century. Fortunately, strategy execution software provides them with the tools necessary to accomplish this goal. Software is only one of the pieces that you need to create a high-performing organization; you'll also need an excellent onboarding team and strategic facilitation during your company's growth. Rhythm systems can provide as much hand-holding as you need to get your company's growth into overdrive and ensure successful strategy execution.

Rhythm provides a High-Performance Platform and White Glove services that include management consulting and change management experts to help you establish the Right Rhythm of Work™ to change habits towards high performance.

Contact us for more information on how we can assist you in bringing your entire organization together so you can confidently implement your growth strategy. To arrange a quick demo of our software or talk to one of our experts to see how we can help you, schedule a discussion. Or you can watch a product overview video.

Ted Skinner

Here are additional resources:

5 Best Practices to Manage Remote Employees

Strategic Planning Tips: 17 Tips to Create a Winning Strategic Plan

How to Engage Remote Employees

How to Use Daily Huddles to Stay Aligned with Remote Teams

5 Steps to Having a Productive Virtual Monthly Meeting

Big Hairy Audacious Goals: Classic BHAG Examples (Relevant in 2021)

The Anatomy of a Great Quarterly Plan (Infographic)

Rhythm Systems Quarterly Planning Resource Center