IMPACT ON STRATEGY IMPLEMENTATION

Shuhad Final year M.Com student Sri Krishna Arts and Science College Coimbatore

ABSTRACT
"Strategy is the direction and scope of an organisation over the long-term: which achieves advantage for the organisation through its configuration of resources within a challenging environment, to meet the needs of markets and to fulfil stakeholder expectations". Great strategies are worth nothing if they cannot be implemented. Implementation is the process by which strategies and policies are put into action through the development of programs, budgets and procedures. This involves the design or adjustment of the organisation through which the administration of the enterprise occurs. This includes changes to existing roles of people, their reporting relationships, their evaluation and control mechanisms and the actual flow of data and information through the communication channels which support the enterprise. When a strategy has been analysed and selected, the task is then to translate it into organisational action. Strategic Choice is the process which involves understanding the nature of stakeholder expectations, identifying strategic options, and then evaluating and selecting strategic options. Implementing strategy affects an organization from top to bottom; it affects all the functional and divisional areas of a business. It is beyond the purpose and scope of this text to examine all of the business administration concepts and tools important in strategy implementation. Successful strategy formulation does not guarantee successful strategy implementation.

STRATEGY IMPLEMENTATION ISSUES

Strategy implementation almost always involves the introduction of change to an organization. Managers may spend months, even years, evaluating alternatives and selecting a strategy. Frequently this strategy is then announced to the organization with the expectation that organization members will automatically see why the alternative is the best one and will begin immediate implementation. When a strategic change is poorly introduced, managers may actually spend more time implementing changes resulting from the new strategy than was spent in selecting it. Strategy implementation involves both macro-organizational issues (e.g., technology, reward systems, decision processes, and structure), and micro-organizational issues (e.g., organization culture and resistance to change).

MACRO-ORGANIZATIONAL ISSUES OF STRATEGY IMPLEMENTATION Macro-organizational issues are large-scale, system-wide issues that affect many people within the organization. There are several major internal subsystems of the organization that must be coordinated to successfully implement a new organization strategy. These subsystems include technology, reward systems, decision processes, and structure. As with any system, the subsystems are interrelated, and changing one may impact others. MICRO-ORGANIZATIONAL ISSUES OF STRATEGY IMPLEMENTATION Micro-organizational issues pertain to the behaviour of individuals within the organization and how individual actors in the larger organization will view strategy implementation. Implementation can be studied by looking at the impact organization culture and resistance to change has on employee acceptance and motivation to implement the new strategy.

Barriers to effective strategy implementation

In terms of the barriers to effective strategy implementation, the respondents did not perceive many of the mentioned factors to be important barriers to effective strategy implementation in their organisations. The main findings of this section were: A poor understanding of the strategy by the workforce and ineffective communication of the strategy to the workforce are the most important barriers to effective strategy implementation. Strategic leadership is not perceived to be a major barrier to effective strategy implementation. Organizations successful at strategy implementation effectively manage six key supporting factors: o o o o o o Action Planning Organization Structure Human Resources The Annual Business Plan Monitoring and Control Linkage.

CONCLUSION
Strategy implementation is perceived to play an important role in organisational success. Strategy implementation is perceived as an important but difficult component of the strategic management process, and the failure of change initiatives is largely

due to poor implementation of strategy. Strategy implementation is important but difficult because implementation activities take a longer time frame than formulation, involves more people and greater task complexity, and has a need for sequential and simultaneous thinking on part of implementation managers. Strategy implementation is managing forces during the action. It focuses on efficiency and is primarily an operational process. Strategy implementation requires special motivation and leadership skills. Thus without proper planning, organising, leadership and group effort it is impossible to implement a new strategy.