Strategic Priorities in the 21st Century

1. Strategic Priorities in the 21st Century Organizational Priorities for Market Leaders BA 469

2. Organizational Learning Promoting Innovation & Experimentation Constructive Contention Empowerment Optimizing Corporate Value Potential Building the Sustainable Company Strategic Reframing Organizational FactorsCritical to Success

3. 1. Organizational Learning • Learning will replace control as the primary responsibility of organizational leadership. • It will require building a learning culture, training that encourages life-long learning, and better performance measurement and benchmarking systems.

4. 2. Promoting Innovation & Experimentation • Constant reevaluation of organizational assumptions • Supportive corporate culture that rewards risk-taking & innovation while having a strong market orientation • Leadership that communicates an inspiring vision of what can be achieved • Clear expectations supported with incentives and rewards

5. 3. Constructive Contention • Acknowledge differences & work towards customer value creating solutions • Build on tensions that emerge and use them to prevent stagnation and complacency

6. 4. Empowerment • Tap the creative energy of each person in the organization • Information technology will increasingly link employees directly serving customers with senior management replacing a major function of many middle level managers

7. 5. Optimizing Corporate Value Potential • Ability to convert available organizational resources into increasing levels of customer perceived value through economies of scope, and by discovering hidden value and opportunity

8. 6. Building the Sustainable Company • Identify and build core competencies • Identify opportunities to build new competitive advantage • Search continuously for threats that could interfere with advantage • Focus on protecting sources of competitive advantage

9. 7. Strategic Reframing • Redefine the rules of the game by rethinking fundamental ways that customer needs are served (i.e. “rule breakers”) • Rather than focusing on the ‘as built’ organization, reframing requires fundamentally redefining organizational processes and business strategy

10. The Cisco Case • Goal: Build an adaptive system to deal with the speed and turbulence of technological change • Cisco has been at the forefront of business in using technology to transform management practices

11. The Cisco System • Customer-Focused Leadership & Culture • Fluid, Network-Based Organizational Structures • Network-Based “Personal Touch” Culture • Propensity to Partner • Partner with Key Customers • Acquire Talent, Not Sales Growth • Demand Excellence, Share Success