AN EXAMPLE OF HOW TO GET THE BEST OUT OF THE HEAD OF STRATEGY

Consider a company in Europe, whose identity we have disguised, that manufactures and supplies several types of components to automotive manufacturers on the continent such as Volkswagen and Fiat. At this large multi-business organisation, the CEO, assisted by the CFO, had traditionally developed strategy.

Corporate Strategy Work to be Done. The key strategic issues perceived by the CEO related primarily to coordination. The various businesses, the central production function, and the national-level marketing and sales units all operated quite independently. But customer offers and prices needed to be harmonised across countries to improve negotiating positions with the company’s increasingly centralised customers. Similarly, sales contracts needed to be written such that the batch sizes and delivery dates met the