How smart companies are opening up strategic initiatives to involve
front-line employees, experts, suppliers, customers, entrepreneurs, and
even competitors.
Why are some of the world's most successful companies able to stay ahead
of disruption, adopting and implementing innovative strategies, while
others struggle? It's not because they hire a new CEO or expensive
consultants but rather because these pioneering companies have adopted a
new way of strategizing. Instead of keeping strategic deliberations
within the C-Suite, they open up strategic initiatives to a diverse
group of stakeholders--front-line employees, experts, suppliers,
customers, entrepreneurs, and even competitors. Open Strategy presents
a new philosophy, key tools, step-by-step advice, and fascinating case
studies--from companies that range from Barclays to Adidas--to guide
business leaders in this groundbreaking approach to strategy.
The authors--business-strategy experts from both academia and management
consulting--introduce tools for each of the three stages of
strategy-making: idea generation, plan formulation, and implementation.
These are digital tools (including strategy contests), which allow the
widest participation; hybrid digital/in-person tools (including a
"nightmare competitor challenge"); a workshop tool that gamifies the
business model development process; and tools that help companies
implement and sustain open strategy efforts.
Open strategy has an astonishing track record: a survey of 200 business
leaders shows that although open-strategy techniques were deployed for
only 30 percent of their initiatives, those same initiatives generated
50 percent of their revenues and profits. This book offers a roadmap for
this kind of success.
