The critical key to success in executing a corporate strategy is the ability to harness the right resources and information, link strategy to plans and then execute this vision.
"CEOs most commonly fail due to their failure to task execute their vision - and this in turn is most often the result of simple information overload," said Marc Scheepbouwer, marketing director at Global Technology Business Intelligence (GBI), part of the JSE-listed Global Technology group.
Scheepbouwer comments that very often the demands of the Internet speed economy, a lack of a 360 degree view of customers, and the failure to leverage a viable ROI on heavy spend IT infrastructure, contributed significantly to corporate failure.
"The market dynamics are changing," Scheepbouwer continued. "Competitive advantages increasingly short-lived, investors are struggling to value new business models and focusing again on profitability, while there is a widening gap between promise and delivery."
Closing this gap between strategy and execution is the job of a successfully designed business analysis platform, he said. "The IT implications are significant: functions ranging from financial management, consolidation, modelling, budgeting and planning to forecasting, have to run without a hitch."
Business demands, however, very often strain a company`s IT resources, with increasing need for specialist applications focused on e-CRM, call centres, point of sale applications, field services and campaign management.
"A well designed business analysis platform allows businesses - anywhere, anytime - to quickly identify growth and profit opportunities, spot and correct problems, eliminate decision guesswork, improve execution and accountability, and stay focused on the most important business goals," Scheepbouwer said.
To get all these ducks in a row, it is vital to have a smoothly running RAMP model in place, he continued. "This model - which sees the business cycle in a self-feeding loop running from reporting, analysis, to modelling and planning - provides the analytical key to managing the information flow in a business."
Through always having a grip on the business analytics, corporate executives can integrate their vision into the practical day to day realities of supply chain and financial management, e-CRM; human resources - and juxtapose them with industry solutions.
"A strategic RAMP strategy ill align all activities with the company`s strategy across all functions and levels, use common data sources and definitions of cost, profit and value. A CEO cannot but succeed if the strategy is executed in this way," he concluded.
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