Strategic Alignment: Why It’s Crucial To Business Planning For Increased Revenue

Strategic alignment is a key differentiator between businesses that aggressively scale and those that do not. When asked, few can explain with accuracy what it is and why it can be so successful.

The concise answer is, it is the way you organize your business with respect to your strategic plan; specifically referring to the state of a corporate strategy geared towards its users, marketplaces and customers.

With this as an objective, it involves linking the entrepreneurial environment and corporate strategy with a company’s resources, including people, skills, tools and structures.?

A few examples include aligning business-to-IT to integrate technology with the organization's strategy, mission, goals, and business outcomes.?

The alignment could be embedded in the systems and benefit the company in many ways. These can include decreasing turnover, improving customer experience, reducing operating costs and optimizing system effectiveness.?

Another advantage is better synchronization between companies, due to the proliferation of digitization, and simply the newer way of doing business in the present digital marketplace.

Aligning the sales and marketing departments is also critical to increase revenue in a strategically aligned business, as they should go hand in hand to attract, inform and retain customers.?

Strategic alignment is critical because there is a direct correlation between meeting and exceeding revenue goals, and increasing market share, due to attracting, keeping, and upselling happy customers.?

Nowadays, we see that the benefits of alignment play an enormous role in the successful implementation of strategic plans.?

On the other hand, the fallout caused by lack of strategic alignment can be massive.? It can be seen as manifesting itself as continually missing revenue goals, losing customer & market share, or the mass exodus of key employees, to name a few.?

Strategic planning is nothing more than defining a strategy, cascading it throughout the organization and turning it into a tactical plan.?

The key is to align your strategic plans with the value you bring to customers. If your plans include serving your customers better, and adding more and more value, your customer base will grow and your revenue will increase. Also, you’ll find your employees can easily get on board with creating and keeping happy customers.?

I find most employees want what's best for the customer, knowing inherently that happy customers are a key component to continued growth.?

The strategic planning process determines how a company's vision can be aligned with its goals and objectives. Through research, discussions, objectives, and working through the strategic planning process; you and your employees will understand the current status and align it with the future direction of your company.

It was General Patton who famously said, “A good plan, violently executed now, is better than a perfect plan next week.”

Today, business leaders seem to agree that strategic alignment is at the top of their to-do lists. But many get stuck and can’t turn their strategic plans into tactical plans that can be executed and followed through.?

Another challenge for business leaders is to make strategic alignment meaningful at the team or business unit level (department).?

Without a detailed strategy, companies spend too much money, time, and manpower on ineffective technology. They attempt to address business challenges with disparate objectives, cultures and incentives across departments. And here lies the problem.

The purpose of a strategic plan and aligning departments to the plan is to unify, NOT divide.??

Managers who are not strategically aligned tend to take actions that may be at first glance a good idea, but may not be right in light of the overall goals and objectives. To avoid this situation, make sure that your business strategy matches the goals of your company, and that your entire team is onboard.

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