Organizations today invest significant time, energy, and financial resources into crafting brilliant corporate strategies. While having articulated strategies is a critical business practice, for an organization to truly earn long-term strategic success, strong strategic leaders are needed at every level in the business. These leaders must develop corporate strategy and create supporting policies for the business’ value chain.

Who Develops Corporate Strategy?

Corporate strategy will only be as effective as the individual parts contributing to it. Therefore, many supporting strategies must be aligned with the corporate strategy. This is exactly what CMOE’s workshop helps leaders achieve.

CMOE’s Strategic Leadership Workshop is designed to help leaders master corporate strategy development. It will help them formulate and execute strategies, initiatives, and plans that align with their organization’s corporate strategy.

While CMOE believes that strategy is everyone’s job, leaders have a substantial responsibility to execute the corporate strategy. That way, they can stay relevant and serve as a competitive advantage for the firm.

corporate strategy

How Does the Strategic Leadership Workshop Help Corporate Leaders Develop and Execute Strategy?

Leaders who participate in CMOE’s Strategic Leadership Workshop will increase their ability to develop and execute corporate strategy. Participants in the program will learn how to:

  1. Align business units and functions around a clearly defined corporate strategy.
  2. Apply fundamental strategy concepts and principles used to create a corporate strategy and develop a plan to win within the organization’s value chain and functional units.
  3. Set strategic direction for their area of responsibility that contributes to and aligns with the corporation.
  4. Articulate a clear and compelling strategic direction to their team, cascade the strategy, and leverage core capabilities around the corporate or functional strategy.
  5. Create a competitive advantage for the organization by building strategies to ensure each business function adapts as the organization and market shift.
  6. Increase their strategic awareness and combine it with their operational experience.
  7. Keep their part of the business relevant and add long-term value to the organization and the corporate strategy.
  8. Align business operations, talent, and resources around strategic priorities.
  9. Utilize strategic thinking and leadership practices with everyday activities and strategic efforts.
  10. Contribute strategically important knowledge to the organization so that strategy also filters up.

CMOE’s Strategic Leadership Workshop combines the best and most current thinking on strategy with timeless leadership principles in a highly engaging and practical development experience.

Using an interactive and dynamic strategy simulation, leaders learn important corporate strategy principles and concepts. For example, they may clearly define how they intend to achieve key strategic goals that will help the organization achieve strategic success.

Learn More About the Strategic Leadership Workshop

Why Is Corporate Strategy Important?

A corporate strategy encourages business leaders to aim for and achieve long-term success. While the day-to-day and quarterly objectives are essential to any organization, the business is susceptible to misalignment if these goals are not tied to a bigger picture.

  • Only 29% of workforce members express that their leader’s vision is aligned with the company’s.
  • “Aligned businesses grow revenue 58% faster” and are 72% more profitable than their counterparts.

Thus, corporate strategy lines up strategy, objectives, and purpose. This helps leaders concentrate less on what to do and more on simply doing, elevating focus and efficiency.

What Are the Key Components that Encompass a Corporate Strategy?

There are four components to a corporate strategy:

1. Vision: A vision describes how the organization plans to evolve in the future. The vision may address the mission, values, and key areas of the business.
2. Objectives: These objectives explain the organization’s long-term goals (over the next three to five years). Leaders also outline specific steps or milestones the company plans to take to achieve those objectives.
3. Allocation of resources: Resources include workforce and capital. When an organization successfully allocates these resources, it is in a prominent position to achieve its long-term goals and maximize its competitive advantage.
4. Prioritization: This involves evaluating risks and potential returns to prioritize strategic goals. Leaders also tap into the company’s vision, objectives, and resources to determine the level of risk the business can manage for the best return.

What Are the Differences Among Corporate-, Business-, and Functional-Level Strategies?

You can think of corporate strategy standing at the top of business and functional-level strategies:

  • A corporate-level strategy is the highest level of strategic planning. It defines a company’s plan for reaching its future goals.
  • A business-level strategy establishes objectives for business units or departments. These goals achieve the goals outlined in the corporate strategy.
  • A functional-level strategy develops short-term objectives. These short-term goals are milestones that help a company achieve its business and corporate strategy goals.

Corporate strategy is a long-term, high-level direction and plan to win designed to help an organization gain competitive advantage and achieve sustained success.

A well-defined and executed corporate strategy can shift a business’ trajectory and solidify a healthy future for the company or organization.

Corporate strategy is developed through proven processes and best practices including:

  • Gathering relevant data and assessing the influencing factors in the internal and external environment—including the organization, customers, competitors, and the environment in which it operates.
  • Identifying changes, opportunities, and challenges the organization is or may be facing.
  • Establishing a strategic direction and agenda needed to sustain long-term success.
  • Aligning the strategy with the organization’s mission, vision, and values.
  • Identifying the key initiatives, maneuvers, objectives, and/or actions that will drive implementation of the strategy.
  • Creating flexible and sustainable action plans.
    Communicating and cascading the strategy to create strategic alignment.

Cascading a corporate strategy in an organization can be broken down into three phases:

1. Discovery: Leadership teams create a plan for how to share the strategy and assess the organization’s readiness for change and a strategic shift. It also involves exploring the business’ strengths, weaknesses, and other priorities that need to be leveraged or managed to begin executing a strategy.

2. Alignment: Leaders at the department or functional level identify which parts of the core strategy they will contribute to directly. This is where a corporate strategy begins to intersect with functional strategies as leaders identify strategic connection points.

3. Execution: During this phase, leaders explain to team members what the strategy is, what is expected of them, and how progress will be measured and evaluated. Leaders should also support their teams by establishing milestones, providing regular coaching, and holding people accountable for progress and results.

Contact Us

Need More Information?

“Strategic Leaders must not get consumed by the operational and tactical side of their work. They have a duty to find time to shape the future.”

— Stephanie S. Mead, MBA

“Give yourself permission to turn your attention away from the ‘blaze’.”

— Ahead of the Curve: A Guide to Applied Strategic Thinking

“Wise hunters survey the field before they try to put a target in their sights.”

— Ahead of the Curve: A Guide to Applied Strategic Thinking