Improving Synergy in Strategic Planning: Enablers and Synchronization Assessment Framework (SAF)

Synchronization plays an important role in strategic planning, especially for large multi-business firms, in avoiding parallel duplicate efforts and improving synergies. The focus is on (technology) roadmapping as it is a simple, flexible, and popular method that covers three core dimensions relating to synchronization in strategic planning: function (horizontal), system hierarchy (vertical), and time. This research aims to identify the enablers of the synchronization process, and to develop, test and refine a Synchronization Assessment Framework (SAF). The adopted methodology is a process approach, consisting of three phases: development (literature review), improvement (in-dept case study), and validation (case studies). As a result, five groups and 13 enablers or critical factors of synchronization processes were identified, and a SAF was developed, leveraging the identified enablers and the roadmapping structure (know-why, know-what and know-know), leading to practical guidelines for a company.

Synchronization in Strategic Planning: A Roadmapping Framework

The research question is “How can firms approach synchronization in strategic planning?”, aiming to investigate opportunities for improved synchronization within strategic planning. The focus is on roadmapping, as a relatively simple, flexible and widely used method that includes time as an explicit dimension. The adopted methodology is a process approach, consisting of literature review, exploratory interviews, practitioner interviews, and case studies with large multinational firms based in the UK that are familiar with roadmapping. As a result, four types of synchronization have been identified and discussed, including generic forms of each type, illustrated with industrial examples from the case studies.

BUSINESS MODEL ROADMAPPING: A PRACTICAL APPROACH TO COME FROM AN EXISTING TO A DESIRED BUSINESS MODEL

Literature on business models deals extensively with how to design new business models, but hardly with how to make the transition from an existing to a newly designed business model. The transition to a new business model raises several practical and strategic issues, such as how to replace an existing value proposition with a new one, when to acquire new resources and capabilities, and when to start new partnerships. In this paper, we coin the term business model roadmapping as an approach to define the transition path from a current to a desired business model. We develop our approach based on core concepts from business model literature as well as technology roadmapping. The approach is illustrated using a simplified case study. We find that visualizing business model road maps elicits how operational actions and business model impacts are interrelated. The merits of business model roadmapping not only lie in defining a road map of actions and business model changes, but also in identifying and discussing trade-offs between strategic business model issues and operational activities. Especially if an organization still has to choose between different alternative business models, business model roadmapping may help to identify overlapping paths, path dependencies and points of no return.