There is a Huge Need to Integrate Strategy and Execution

The July-August issue of Harvard Business Review has another excellent article by Roger Martin, Dean of the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto. In the piece, he argues that strategy and execution must be linked, but that they are not in most strategy courses in business schools, nor by consulting firms. It should be noted that Martin used to be a partner in a consulting firm prior to becoming Dean at Rotman.

It is clear that most people separate strategy and execution. How many times have we heard about a company engaging a strategy firm and then finding it difficult to implement the strategy once the firm is finished. I used to have a CEO who was fond of saying: "strategy is fine, but 90% of success is in execution". As Martin notes, one cannot be successful in execution independent of a good strategy, and one cannot have a good strategy independent of good execution.

It is interesting that in the brand and reputation world, most of the firms operating are execution-type firms. The brand firms do brand audits and then develop a new logo and set of identity guidelines. The advertising firms do advertising; the PR firms do PR. On the strategy side, McKinsey, Boston Consulting Group, and others are doing some brand strategy, but this is a very small part of their overall offering. There is a gap where Martin sees one. And, it is a wide gap that needs to be bridged.

Execution is becoming more and more commoditized in the brand world. Strategy is where the money is. So, implementation firms are typically staffed with junior people who do not really understand strategy; and the strategy firms are staffed with senior people who do not want to be bothered with implementation. When the strategy is done, it is "handed off" to the company which typically hands it off to a PR or advertising firm. The latter are typically not involved in the strategy discussions so they often implement against a strategy that they do not fully understand, unless they are briefed directly by the strategy firm or unusually well by the client. Advertising and PR firms say they do strategy, but they don't. They do advertising or communications strategy, not the type of strategy taught in an MBA program.

The difficulty is often with billing. Strategy firms bill thousands of dollars per day for even middle-ranked people; execution firms bill a fraction of this. So, when strategy and execution firms have tried to talk about mergers or working together, they often get stymied with billing. Clients who hire advertising or PR firms are usually not willing to pay $5,000-$10,000 per day for strategy; an strategy firms do not see the need to have an implementation group on the pay-roll.

In my own consulting practice at Brand and Reputation Management, I focus on linking strategy, brand management with employee engagement. I try to lay out implementation plans for the client, but I do not do the execution. I usually ask the client if I can help them brief the implementation firm so that there is a smooth transition to execution. But, this request is not always accepted. So, I have not connected all the dots, as Martin has pointed out, and could be serving my clients better if I were to connect with an implementation firm.

I have said to many people that there is a huge need for a brand and reputation management firm that has business and marketing strategy people, brand experts, researchers and implementation staff. There is nothing like that right now. Perhaps a first step would be to connect a few good firms together in common practice.