Imagine setting off on a road trip with friends but there is no agreement on the destination. You might have a reliable car,enough fuel and in-car navigation, but without a clear plan how will you know if you’ve arrived successfully? It is highly likely you’ll end up lost, frustrated, wasting time and money as well as being in a place no one actually wanted to go.
Business strategy works the same way – without a shared destination and plan, even the best ideas won’t carry a company far.
Approximately nine in ten organisations struggle to execute their strategy fully and many that do only partially deliver. The 2025 State of Strategy Execution Report paints a clear picture: most plans fail not because they aren’t well designed, but because execution breaks down.
The cost of this failure isn’t just missed targets on a spreadsheet. It’s watching competitors surge ahead while your team misses out on opportunities and burns through resources on initiatives that go nowhere. It’s the CEO explaining to investors why revenue projections fell short again and its customers going with a competitor because unlike you, they offer the right product for the right price at the right time
- This isn’t just bad luck. Companies trip up on predictable pitfalls that successful businesses have learned to avoid.
Why strategies often fall flat
Unclear direction drowns teams in confusion
Teams can’t work together if they don’t head towards the same destination. When high-level strategy isn’t linked to day-to-day work, it creates confusion and misaligned priorities. Goals that are vague or constantly changing leave people guessing what they’re actually supposed to achieve.
For example, take the CEO of a Healthcare Service provider, who was planning to launch an industry-specific app without any formal business strategy. Development was already underway with an external partner and their budget was burning up rapidly.
More importantly the company’s team had no clear plan for pricing, market positioning, competitive differentiation, or even who their ‘Ideal Customer’ was going to be. Everyone was working hard, but nobody knew if they were building the right product, whether there was a demand for it and what problem it solved for customers.
Nobody owns the outcome
Without clear ownership, critical tasks slip through organisational cracks, often with staff thinking someone else was completing it or doubling up on the same task. Strategies flounder when no-one is directly accountable for results – plans turn into wishful thinking instead of committed action.
Poor communication keeps the best ideas locked away
Even brilliant strategies fail if they’re kept secret in executive boardrooms. Employees remain unaware of overarching objectives or their individual roles when communication breaks down. Staff who don’t understand the strategy or why it matters, either can’t help deliver it or aren’t engaged because they don’t understand the story.
Tunnel vision ignores critical blind spots
Chasing a single big idea while ignoring everything else (especially something that keeps the lights on or has been profitable in the past) often backfires.
Leaders frequently focus on one element of a strategy – say, a new technology that is the flavour of the month but neglect how it fits with competitors, existing capabilities, or market realities. The result? Solutions that look good in isolation but aren’t holistic or don’t take into consideration what happens now, often crumble when they hit the real world.
Rigid plans shatter when markets shift
The world moves on, and markets continue to evolve. Companies that set strategy in stone watch it become outdated fast. Businesses must continuously improve and reinvent their value proposition or risk losing ground.
- Plans that can’t adapt quickly to change, often collapse and/or fail spectacularly.
What successful companies do differently
The DNA of thriving companies includes efficient resource alignment, sharp and ongoing customer focus, continual learning and adaptable/ repeatable capabilities. These businesses treat strategy as a living guide, not a dusty document gathering cobwebs in filing cabinets.
Set a clear, shared vision that energises everyone
Successful companies establish a clear, compelling direction supported by specific, measurable goals. Everyone from the CEO to the newest team members knows the goals and reasons behind them.
At Get There, we recently worked with a newly-appointed Vice President of Global Partnerships who needed to significantly increase revenue from their key strategic technology partnerships.
- The challenge? No formal partnership Go-To-Market strategy existed, and the team was taking an opportunistic approach to establishing and nurturing complex partner relationships.
- The outcome: We developed a comprehensive framework that aligned the entire organisation around clear, realistic objectives and measurable outcomes for how they could measure impact and success.
Communicate relentlessly and break down silos
Successful companies don’t hide plans in executive offices. Effective leaders explain strategy through every channel. They get departments and teams talking to each other and constantly reach out and iterate with staff and customers to test their approach.
Cross-team collaboration should become the norm, with insights and ideas flowing freely. When staff understand how their work connects to bigger goals, their engagement soars.
Case study: An In-Market Partner case study shows this in action. We worked with Salesforce to identify high-growth potential ISV Partners needing additional guidance in how they grew their businesses, to ensure partnership goals were achieved. In addition to working with Partners’ leadership teams, we ensured the resulting business strategies were clearly communicated to the rest of each Partner’s teams. This made sure that staff felt involved, with each person clearly understanding how they contributed to the company’s overall success.
We also set up clear communication processes, and regular feedback loops to ensure everyone was kept up-to-date, which in turn provided peace of mind for management.
The result? Partners reported that Get There “gave us a validated and clear direction exactly when we needed it.”
Create bulletproof accountability systems
Every strategic priority should have a named owner. Smart companies assign clear responsibility/ accountability for each goal and define exactly how success will be measured. They set decision rights, tie them to incentives, and track progress with regular reviews.
- Plans become sets of concrete tasks with real names and accountability attached.
Turn strategy into action with military precision
Good companies split goals into specific projects with deadlines. They create detailed action plans that map each initiative to people and timelines. They also hold short, regular check-ins to keep everything on track and quickly adapt to feedback and key learnings
- As Peter Drucker said, “Half of strategic planning is strategic thinking; the other half is strategic acting”.
Case study: An Early Stage business that Get There worked with needed urgent funding approval but lacked the necessary formal strategy documentation. Working under tight time pressures, we developed a complete business strategy including competitive analysis, market positioning, and three-year financial projections. Outcome: The CEO secured investor approval, as well as favourable outcomes including reduced projected build costs by 40%, and cutting time to market by over three months.
Adapt and learn at lightning speed
Winning teams treat strategy as an ongoing process, not a one-time event. They review results regularly (weekly/monthly) and pivot fast when needed¹¹.
If a product isn’t selling or markets shift, they adjust immediately. This agility keeps strategy relevant no matter how quickly the outside world changes.
Your next move
The difference between strategies that deliver and those that gather dust comes down to five fundamentals: clarity, communication, accountability, action, and adaptability.
The companies we work with don’t just understand these principles – they live them. They’ve seen revenue growth, faster time-to-market, and teams that know what is expected of them and exactly how their work drives business results.
Don’t let your next strategy gather dust. Partner with us to turn plans into outcomes that scale.
Get There specialises in turning strategic plans into measurable results. As a direct result of our team’s input, our clients’ businesses are in better shape, more successful, and able to bring innovative new products and services to market more efficiently than ever before.
