Marketing Strategy and Competitive Positioning pdf ebook

Strategic inertia – things never get started because executives resist change, or fail to give 
it priority.
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Lack of stakeholder commitment – not having everyone on board, particularly at middle-
management levels, where progress can be blocked.
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Strategic drift – a lack of focus on where the strategy should end up, leading to failure 
to reach that destination.
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Strategic ‘dilution’ – an absence of strong drive behind the strategy as managers give 
more priority to operational decisions than strategic goals.
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Failure to understand progress – not having the appropriate metrics to monitor progress 
towards strategic goals.
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Initiative fatigue – too many ‘top priority’ projects leads to cynicism and inadequate 
emphasis on the strategy.
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Impatience – expecting results too quickly, and giving up when the reality is slower.
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No celebrating success – failing to recognise and reward milestones that lead towards 
the strategic goal (Freedman, 2003).
Indeed, there is a strong argument that much of the implementation problem comes from 
the fact that, generally, managers are trained to plan, not to execute, and frequently are 
judged on their capabilities for managing day-to-day operations rather than strategic initia-
tives. The problem is likely to be worse when execution is seen as a low-level responsibility 
in the organisation (Hrebiniak, 2006). In fact, the reality is that strategy and implementation 
are interdependent – strategic choices should be linked to implementation capabilities, and 
implementation capabilities should be developed in line with strategic imperatives, and the 
dichotomy between strategy and implementation is false and unproductive (Cespedes and 
Piercy, 1996). Martin (2010) describes this as the ‘execution trap’, and argues that drawing 
a line between strategy and execution almost guarantees failure. Nonetheless, the tendency 
to separate strategy from implementation remains in organisations and creates obstacles 
and challenges in executing strategic initiatives.
Hrebiniak (2006) draws on a range of research studies and discussions with managers to 
identify the following factors as the top obstacles to effective strategy execution:
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