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.

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’s 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. Analyzing 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 from rest of the organization. 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 is 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 organization. Stax facilitates this process through discussions with key stakeholders in the organization, 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 behavior, 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. Business must run and re-invent simultaneously to ensure future survival. While you run efficiently, businesses must also focus on reinventing to cater to future demand. Innovation, agility, flexibility, empowerment, embracing of failure and an external focus are characteristics of future-friendly organizations. A good corporate strategy must facilitate the organization to reinvent for the future while optimizing the run for today.

Long-term vs short-term – Research suggests that companies focusing on long-term topline 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.