CFO Service

Is Strategic Initiatives Important in an Organisation?

If you have been any major organization or have worked in an industry reliant on project management, you would know how important strategic initiatives are to a company and its goals. A strategic initiative is like a compass that guides businesses and targets future goals. In this article, we shall know the importance and the significance of Strategic Initiatives. 

What do you mean by Strategic Initiative?

It’s not easy defining this term. Different people have different viewpoints regarding this. To put it in a simple way, Strategic initiative refers to the investment of resources dedicated to accomplish an objective of the organization.

Unlike strategic objectives that are phrased as broad goals, strategic initiative is a project that includes a scope, budget, and a start/end date. It operates on three tiers. They are required to address the vision of the company, speak to the benefits of stakeholders and also work for growing the company while aligning various segments.

Another way it can be defined is that it is an instrument that helps to deliver on the company’s vision. It takes the abstract and make it practical by putting it to practice in real world. As per this definition, strategic initiative is more than just a project. It pertains to a program or a number of interrelated projects.

Why make Strategic Initiatives?

Organizations would want to develop a strategic initiative as it provides them a path to achieve specific objectives.

When we talk in the organizational paradigm^[1], the companies in that realm are in favour of developing potent and sophisticated strategic initiatives due to the high probability of success that these initiatives bring in a company’s pursuit to meet its goals and objectives.

These initiatives turn out to be highly useful when they help the managers close the gap between productivity that they require and the actual productivity that is let out.

Further such initiatives are also critical for upper management or high-level executives that need a framework or a path which helps them to:

• Track and review all projects that are part of specific program in the company’s scheme of things;
• Track and define the impact that any development issues can have;
• Track and find projects that can bring value to the company and when they find out those, keep their teams focused on such projects before working on any other project.

Strategic initiative can be dynamic, and it doesn’t have any stagnant roots that cannot be changed or clipped to bring forth change. These initiatives help improve a company’s operation in order to achieve goals and milestones that they set for themselves.

These initiatives are not to keep complacency, but help companies get the most out of all of the different projects that they have under their belt. Successful implementation of this sort of initiatives can heavily impact the execution results. Proper planning and executing strategic initiative is a crucial factor for success and should become a core process and competency in the organization.

Steps for making Strategic Initiatives

The following steps can be followed for strategic initiative:

• Set a Goal

Before you start, you should know what you are planning to start. There are numerous fronts on which you can build your strategic initiative. Take your time to know what you have the capacity to confront and the resources to execute in the long term. Bring your list of initiatives to just one that will positively impact the business.

• Set objectives

Objectives are specific, measurable, and realistic long-term goals. It should be set in the strategic initiative process.

• Set Strategy

This is the step where you take your objectives and determine how you gonna achieve them. It can be one or numerous ventures like monitoring program metrics to know where greater efficiencies can be created or training the team or sales force to produce a better result and deliver it to a large customer base.

• Set a Plan

Plans remain the same even when it comes to planning a strategic initiative. You should start with a larger deliverable, which forms your objective and break it to smaller and smaller tasks which are then provided duration and placed on a schedule.

The plan should be transparent and should be visible for your entire team. They should know their project roles and responsibilities for the success of strategic initiative.

• Execution of the Plan

When the strategy and the plan is made and ready, get the team on board. They should be accountable for the execution of the plan. They should be properly directed and guided. Their progress should be monitored, and meet them to get their feedback and ensure that the plan is well within track.

These steps can help to construct effective strategic initiatives to accomplish the goals.

Conclusion

As stated earlier, proper planning and executing strategic initiatives is crucial factor for success. However, it requires to go through the process of devising strategic initiative as laid down above.

Also, Read: Strategic Planning and Operational Planning: What is the difference?