These statistic from Boardview.io should cause pause to all senior leaders:

“80% of leaders feel their company is good at crafting strategy but only 44% at its implementation”

To make matters worse, they also report:

10% of organizations achieve at least two-thirds of their strategy objectives, with 36% achieving between 50%-67% and 54% achieving less than 50%

I have no reason to doubt these statistics based on what we see in our consulting work. The primary reasons for this are: …Read More

Whether we want to call this a recession or just unfortunate circumstances, I think that we can all agree that business is being disrupted yet again by external factors beyond management’s control.  Interest rates are up, sales are down and inflation is above 8%. Amazon, Tesla, Wells Fargo, Coinbase, Salesforce, Meta and Netflix are a few of the more well-known companies announcing layoffs.  Financial indicators …Read More

90% of companies do a poor job executing their strategy 

The Business Hierarchy of Needs® and and Strategy 5.0™ are part of Group50’s suite of strategic planning and execution tools.  In this 20 minute video, Jim Gitney, the Founder and CEO of Group50, summarizes how the Business Hierarchy of Needs®, a change management framework, can be used by Boards of Directors and senior leadership teams …Read More

“𝑰𝒕 𝒊𝒔 𝒕𝒊𝒎𝒆 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝒂 𝒑𝒂𝒓𝒂𝒅𝒊𝒈𝒎 𝒔𝒉𝒊𝒇𝒕 𝒊𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒘𝒂𝒚 𝒘𝒆 𝒍𝒐𝒐𝒌 𝒂𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒐𝒓𝒈𝒂𝒏𝒊𝒛𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝒔𝒕𝒓𝒖𝒄𝒕𝒖𝒓𝒆𝒔 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒘𝒊𝒍𝒍 𝒃𝒆 𝒓𝒆𝒒𝒖𝒊𝒓𝒆𝒅 𝒕𝒐 𝒔𝒖𝒄𝒄𝒆𝒔𝒔𝒇𝒖𝒍𝒍𝒚 𝒍𝒆𝒂𝒅 𝒂 𝒄𝒐𝒎𝒑𝒂𝒏𝒚 𝒕𝒐 𝒂 𝒅𝒊𝒈𝒊𝒕𝒂𝒍 𝒇𝒖𝒕𝒖𝒓𝒆.”

I just published an article on LinkedIn on the Appropriate Design for a Digital Future.  You can read it here.  For those of you who want a Schaum’s outline version, here we go.

Today’s functional organization structure is no longer appropriate for serving the digital future.  Business processes are horizontal, not vertical.  So, as part of Group50’s approach to Strategy 5.0™, we are proposing that companies be organized in the following …Read More

How many different strategic frameworks are there? Probably as many as there are consultants. Most are difficult to explain to leadership, and they are impossible to explain to everyone else. While the development of a business strategy can be complex, the focus of the Group50® Where to Play and How to Win strategic planning framework provides a solution to this problem by keeping it simple: …Read More

There is a significant difference between Cost Reduction and Cost Takeout. All companies should have cost reduction as part of their business strategies. It only makes good sense. At one time or another, just about every C-suite and boardroom has had the discussion regarding Cost Takeout as a Strategy.   Continuous Improvement and Lean Business concepts tell us that there are always ways to take out cost and those tools do a good job of reducing cost gradually.  Cost takeout as a strategy is a completely different approach. The first thing is to make sure that everyone is clear on what a cost takeout strategy really is.  Let’s start with what it isn’t.

It is not: …Read More

In Group50’s early days, we were working with the model shown in the picture to the left when we were doing strategic planning work.  It was simple, to the point and easy to talk about.  None of our clients were totally convinced that this image told the entire story.  It was missing a lot of information and only told the story of getting prepared to implement a company’s strategy.  This graphic didn’t include two key elements: …Read More

Change happens. Every business environment requires continuously changing strategies, processes, tools and skills. Implementing a Continuous Improvement program is one way a company can harness their response to change and create competitive advantage. As companies launch Continuous Improvement programs, they need to have a plan. Effective programs require the following 5 elements leading to successful and sustainable …Read More

At Group50®, we have brought back to life an old form of Value Stream Mapping called the Brown Paper Exercise. Long before computers were invented, the only way to do Value Stream Mapping was on paper.  Utilizing paper allows you to be produce maps that are not limited to the size of a computer monitor or projection screen. It is interactive, fun and can be done via a hybrid model of in-person and virtual. 

Group50’s Brown Paper Exercise is an important tool that we use every day in process reengineering. It is part of our Value Stream Mapping process.  It provides an engaging, non-threatening way for …Read More

A lot has happened since the creation of blockchain in 2009, including the great hype of 2014-2017, when hundreds of books were written and blockchain was continuously in the news – At that point, more of a fantasy than a practical business reality.  Over the last few years, blockchain systems have matured and are going mainstream with companies now accepting cryptocurrencies for payments, issuing fungible tokens for digital assets, and notable companies such as Maersk, IBM, Walmart, and others having implemented blockchain in their supply chains.  Just as the internet was in its infancy in the late 90’s, …Read More