Fortune 500 Company Establishes Inspiring Vision and Strategy for Core Operations Division
Fortune 500 Company Establishes Inspiring Vision and Strategy for Core Operations Division
Location: Multinational Enterprise
Tactic: Strategic Planning and Design
Results:
Established a strategic plan and inspiring vision for the core operations division
Defined a 3-year roadmap for each of the strategic initiatives aligned
Empowered division managers to be leaders of transformation
The Challenge:
A senior executive of a multinational Fortune 500 enterprise wanted to form a leadership coalition across a core department in the company to develop strategic infrastructure capabilities for 2025. They sought to design and craft a future strategic plan to support the business in the next generation of growth.
In the past, the organization regularly did strategic planning with the senior executive team. However, this time, the leadership wanted to take a different approach. They wanted to gather a broad cross-section of leaders from across the organization to tap into the collective wisdom, insight, and vision for change and set the course for the next phase of this core capability.
First, they defined the main goals and objectives of the project:
The Goal: Imagine the future of their team and formulate the strategic plan to support the next generation of business growth.
The Objectives:
Define the 2025 vision, strategy framework, and roadmap.
Empower leaders to lead the change and transformation.
Spark inspiration and beyond-boundary ideas to define the core capability of the future.
To achieve these goals and objectives, the senior executive came to Bridge Innovate, hoping to partner to develop an approach to achieve their goals.
The Solution:
Bridge worked with the senior executive and project sponsors to define a Strategy Design Coalition Team as part of chartering the project. This group was comprised of a wide range of Vice Presidents (VPs) and leaders, an advisory team from the business, and a core project team. Bridge established a project management and knowledge management approach supported by a digital toolkit, and together, they engaged in a three-phased approach:
Research & Inspiration
Ideation to Define the Strategic Pillars
Establish the Strategy Framework & Roadmap
Phase One: Research & Inspiration
The first phase of the project focused on gathering research and inspiration through trends analysis and customer insights. For trends analysis, the team explored five distinct areas: The Talent Proposition of the Future, The Elements of Strategic Leadership, The Future of Digital, How to Accelerate Transformation, and Emerging Future Trends across Political, Economic, Social, and Regulatory (PESR).
Using Bridge Innovate’s Digital Studio powered by Sprintbase™, each research team was able to gather research and collaborate virtually. This enabled learning, broadened the team’s mindset, and empowered individual team members to contribute to the broader change.
Next, to gather customer insights, Bridge Innovate facilitated interviews with heads of the divisions and global leadership across the organization. Through interviews, the team identified strengths, service improvement opportunities, and needs for the future. This approach cultivated a more robust picture of the strategic goals the team needed to meet.
Once the research and inspiration stage was complete, the research teams participated in a briefing with the executive team, highlighting key insights to help inform the strategic plan.
Phase Two: Ideation to Define the Strategic Pillars
With insights from the research and inspiration phase, the executive team came together at the Bridge Studio for a 2-day session to ideate. The goal of the meeting was to develop a vision for the future of their team and the strategic pillars for the strategy. They landed on three main pillars:
People & Partnerships
Digital Infrastructure
Agility and Advanced Analytics and Insights
Within each pillar, the team would need to get specific — developing key strategic goals, initiatives, and a timeline. It was time to launch Phase Three to define strategic goals and build out the strategic initiatives to achieve their future vision.
>> Learn more about Bridge Innovate’s Strategic Planning Approach here.
Phase Three: Establishing the Strategy Roadmap for Each Initiative
For Phase Three, the strategy design coalition team was divided into smaller teams aligned to the strategic pillars. Each team would define the strategy roadmap for their specific pillar using the same process as before — gathering research and insights, envisioning initiatives, and determining goals, owners, and timelines.
To facilitate the creation of each roadmap, Bridge developed three sprints of work supported by coaches, templates, and knowledge management systems. This framework empowered the teams to develop the strategy roadmap successfully. Throughout the sprints, teams dug deeper into internal data, industry trends, and customer needs to formulate the strategy for each pillar. Then, after each sprint, Bridge coaches facilitated a learning consolidation, providing teams space to share insights and learnings. These learning consolidations also enabled synergy across the pillars, identifying interdependencies and issues that needed to be addressed.
With the VPs now heavily engaged in defining the future strategy and capabilities of their own organization, the sponsors began to see greater levels of engagement, excitement, and strategic leadership skills being developed. The strategy design coalition was taking ownership of the organization's future and capabilities. This empowerment was a key contributor to developing future transformation leaders.
Bridge Coaches led the Strategy Design Sprint approach over three months, consisting of five elements:
Strategy Sprint Team Onboarding & Toolkit Launch
Three Strategy Roadmap Design Sprint(s)
Two Learning Consolidations with Pivot Recommendations
Advisory Team Feedback Sessions
Senior Sponsor and Executive Team Briefings and Feedback Sessions
During this process, Bridge Innovate’s coaching team was present at every step. When a team would get stuck, Bridge provided opportunities for personal learning and growth, combining strategic growth with personal development for the client. The Bridge team gathered resources & articles to inform next steps, offered mini-trainings, and hosted inspirational sessions to encourage and support the client teams as they worked.
In the end, the culminating step was for the strategy design coalition teams to present their strategy roadmap plan to the senior executive team for a final steer. Through the process, the team was set up with a detailed 3-year roadmap to accelerate change and growth.
The Result:
Using Bridge Innovate’s strategic planning process, the team delivered on its goals and met each objective. They established clear strategic pillars for 2025 and then defined the roadmap for each initiative. Because of the extensive research and interview process, the team defined an approach that would meet the needs of the broader organization.
In the end, the client gained more than a strategic plan.
Bridge’s unique collaborative approach with the client contributed to learning and development and improved the likelihood of strategic success. In addition to a new strategic plan, the participating team members broadened their mindset of the future, developed leadership skills, and became highly engaged. By the end of the project, participants were better prepared to be leaders of the transformation, to serve as value creators, and to impact the acceleration of the change. So, ultimately, the client gained faster buy-in, enhanced organizational alignment, and supported faster implementation and change for the path ahead.
Work with Bridge to ensure the success of your strategic plan. Contact us to define a strategic vision that transforms your organization and accelerates growth.