How to develop an effective strategy that works, even during uncertainty

The Covid-19 pandemic and Russia’s surprise invasion of Ukraine demonstrated just how quickly shock events can impact on the increasingly interconnected global environment in which we all live and work. As well as having tragic consequences for millions of people, the impact of these and other less seismic events, such as sudden increases in energy prices and soaring inflation, has been, and will continue to be, catastrophic for many organisations. Those that know how to exploit this constantly evolving landscape will flourish; those that don’t will flounder and eventually cease to exist.

Organisations of all types, not just big businesses, need a strategy in place that provides an adaptable blueprint for the future; one that enables them to realise their ambitious visions by exploiting the opportunities and overcoming the threats that today’s increasingly volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA) environment creates. 

• Management in a time of crisis: economic shockwaves from the Ukraine war 
• How to build supply chain resilience in volatile times 
• EKS: The business strategy that more people need to know about

However, developing an effective strategy is not that easy. If it were, all organisations would have one and few of them would ever fail. But this is demonstrably not the case: if the trends of the last decade continue, over 60% of the 753,168 new companies set up in the UK between March 2021 and March 2022 are likely to fail within 5 years. There will be lots of different reasons why, but one of the main ones will be because they don’t have an effective strategy. So, the question is: why is it so difficult to develop strategies that work?

Why is it so difficult?