Why Strategic Plans Fail What are Strategic Action Plans? Action plans refer to definite actions that are related to either short- or longer-term strategic goals. Action plans should include details of resource commitments, allocation and time horizons for accomplishment. Action plan development represents the key stage in planning that facilitates effective communication of plans throughout the organization followed by resource planning and deployment. Action plans are also referred to as projects, strategies, tactics, or initiatives. Plans in paper may look more creative and feasible in nature; in reality it is a big quest unanswered. Are executives showing the same kind of enthusiasm in giving shape to the plans they charted out in paper? Most plans fail or do not give the expected optimum results and the reasons attributed may be listed out as follows: 1. Authority is delegated but Responsibility is forgotten: Senior management executives are the STRATEGIC DECISION-BRAHMAS obviously but do they demonstrate what needs to be done?  Demonstration is one of the powerful forms of communication and if the strategies are only to be communicated down the line and not to be followed by the senior officials how do you expect your team to perform efficiently? 2. Confusion between strategy and Ideas: An idea is a conceptual construct about a particular thing. It is more abstract in nature. But when it comes to strategy, you need to have a solid FUTURISTIC action plan that is bound to give you the desired results in the long term. The elements essential for a good action plan are: Availability of Resources (Men, Material and Money)Efficient Resource Allocation to the various Strategic Business UnitsProper DeploymentRegular Follow-up until accomplishment of goalsMinor Modification of plans in accordance with the macro environment (legal, economic, financial etc.,) 3. Dis-Orientation of Senior Leaders: If a senior leader reaches that higher position through internal promotion, he loses touch with day-to-day activities though he has a strong contextual understanding of the business. If a senior management leader happens to reach the top through external recruitment, it takes time for him to understand the business and the nature and needs of the organization. Only few leaders are capable of devising action plans that exactly nails the problem-situation (as we all know when an organization is looking for a turn around, the first blow is to the CEO of the organization). 4. Laissez Faire attitude doesn’t work out for strategic action plans: A senior leader has to monitor an action plan from the start till the end until the expected result is achieved. No strategy succeeds without a visionary in the background. The passion that a leader exudes is overwhelmingly infectious and motivates the team to complete a project. Here the leader is the initiator who is involved throughout strategic planning process so that momentum is sustained during the critical transition from planning to action. Follow ManagementGuru Net’s board Strategic Management – The Inevitable on Pinterest. 5. There might be one good goal but definitely no one good strategy: Understand strategies are subjected to change in accordance with the internal and external environment. Say, you have invested quite a good amount of money in shares of a particular reputed company and you come to know that there is a senior level management leadership change and feelers are that prices are likely to crash. What will you do? Just being able to conceive bold new strategies is not enough. The management must also be able to translate its strategic vision into concrete steps that is “getting things...

HR Startegy and Planning – HRM VIDEO 2 How are company strategy and HR strategy related?As part of an HR strategy which company functions should be of the highest priority?How to plan quantitative workforce demand on both strategic and operational level? A great inspiring lecture by Armin...

Introduction to Human Resource Management – HRM VIDEO 1 What is Human Resource Management (HRM)? Which Megatrends determine future challenges in HRM? What are key fields of action in HRM? Related Posts: SEO Your Resume and Bypass...

Top 8 Mistakes That Kill #Startups Let us look at some mistakes that kill startups News: About three-quarters of venture-backed startup firms in the U.S. don’t return investors’ capital, according to recent research by Shikhar Ghosh, a senior lecturer at Harvard Business School. This information made me think and I have tried to summarize the main reasons for flawed-startups below in order to caution the young and growing entrepreneurs. 1. An Unscalable Idea Understand that a Technology-driven idea with more mass appeal is what potential investors are looking for. If your business is not easily scalable across a wide market, higher margins cannot be reaped for the kind of money invested. It is always better that your product or service is appealing to all types of clients in the market. 2. #Lack of Competitive Research Don’t bother if the business idea you are about to launch already exists in the market; let yours be unique and new. Think different is what I would suggest. WhatsApp is one great example for unique contribution to the android market, don’t you think so? Make sure you are clearly differentiated from the others (e.g., better product, better value, different target client) and that your plan is SECURE against future market entrants who may try to imitate you after your initial success.  3. #No Focus ‘One thing at a time’ will be the mantra for startups where entrepreneurs have to concentrate on launching a single product at any given time. This will also help in giving clarity to those who work under you. Don’t try to be a jack-of-all-trades, but end up being a master-of-none without a laser-sharp focus to start. 4. Catch Hold of Investors even at an Early Stage: First try to send feelers to whom you think as potential investors through the right channels. Say, you are a builder and trying to launch your first project. How will you make money rolling in to keep your project going? Either you go for bank loans – no bank will offer you big loans without proper recommendation, fund-flow projection  and collaterals or you need to pitch-in this idea to known circles to popularize your product and raise seed money by way of advance. What I’m trying to highlight is that you need to bring in some initial investment which will help to keep the wheels rolling. 5. No Passion or Persistence Your passion should be infectious enough to attract the right kind of investors. Not all are lucky like Matteo Achilli, the 20 year Italian student, who is about to launch a new social networking site in the lines of LinkedIn, called ‘EGOMNIA”. ARVE error: Mode: lazyload not available (ARVE Pro not active?), switching to normal mode Tech giants like Microsoft and Google have already geared up themselves to support this lad in areas of marketing and cloud computing. We should appreciate Matteo for his passion to create a networking site where job seeking professionals will be ranked and then directly connected to the employers. His persistence has paid off and he has been termed as “Italy’s Mark Zuckerberg”. 6. Failing to Form a Well-Oiled Team: Let your team be like-minded persons with same objectives and working for a cause. Investors never will want to back-up a single individual, but a well-oiled team. Be courageous to put forward your ideas in an authentic manner. After all it is your own brain-child. If you don’t believe in it, who is going to? 7. Not Going for the Right Mentors: Be surrounded by people who have already tested and tasted success in the market. Experience is like a seasoned teacher having solutions for all your questions....

A goal has the word ‘go’ in it. Your goals should go forward in an unambiguous direction. However, goals are more about everything you accomplish on your journey, rather than getting to that distant point. Goals will often go into undiscovered territory and you therefore can’t even know where the end will be.