Currently, the big swing towards a sustainable economy is taking place. In accordance with the European Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD for short - the new EU directive on CSR reporting), it is important to base your own corporate success story in the direction of sustainability on the following three aspects: - Environment - Social - Governance
The EU Taxonomy Regulation published in June 2020 clearly aims to make capital flows in the EU sustainable and thus move the entire economy towards sustainability. This has a massive impact on strategy work in different industries and company sizes. Six environmental goals address specific dimensions.
Who does not know them. The motivational story of the jar with the pebbles, the sand and the water. The large stones are filled into the jar until it is full. Following this, it is asked whether the glass is now full. Yes it is. Now small pebbles are added. Is the glass full now? Yes, isn't it? Stop. There's still something to do...
Greta Thunberg is currently giving us an impressive demonstration of what has long been reality. The way we consume resources in our current economic and business models will no longer work in the long term.
"Cultur eats strategy for breakfast" - this quote by Peter Drucker, one of the most important management thinkers of the last century, is still of central importance for successful strategy work. He thus makes it clear that the achievement of strategic goals can only succeed if the strategy is aligned with the corporate culture.
Successful strategy work must not get lost in vague and unspecific topics. In any case, in practical processing the following applies: "Talk is silver - action is gold", because with it a change of perspective can succeed, a different experience, so that strategy can be attacked and arrive in real life. This also includes a critical examination of common strategy tools and a sometimes uncomfortable questioning of the way they are used in the company - only in this way will sustainable benefits arise from their application.
"TOUCH DOWN" - this is the name of the new strategy book by Oliver Greiner: a must for all decision-makers and executives in strategic management as well as anyone who wants to make their company not only successful, but unbeatable. These are two critical drivers that enable companies to stay the course and succeed in the face of increasingly radical market changes. It's about being different and better than the competition at the same time. Mastering these two disciplines allows for true touch-down moments: achieving big strategic goals.
Strategy work is becoming increasingly short-term in its orientation: market dynamics require ever faster reactions and the willingness to think strategy in terms of variants and alternatives. It seems particularly important to me that corporate culture and strategy fit together. The interaction with each other and the joint shaping within the organization must be supported by the vision of the future. Because one thing always applies: "Culture eats strategy for breakfast".
Strategy is still popular. If there is any ambiguity or vagueness, it is elegantly shoved into the "Strategy" topic area. And you can't know that for sure anyway, it actually concerns the future and that is known to be uncertain.
