The Strategy Gap: Leveraging Technology to Execute Winning Strategies

Praise for The Strategy Gap

"With a better handle on the financial pulse of the business, enterprises will be better able to meet the Street’s expectations of financial transparency and corporate accountability. The writers do a masterful job of getting readers to this point of awareness, and further display their insight by explaining how corporate performance management (CPM) and finance are essentially ‘joined at the hip’ in concept and execution. This interdependence must be embodied in methodology and technology for CPM to work. Chapter ten (What Lies Ahead) is a must-read for C-level executives–and their IT counterparts–that want to quickly catch up on some of the new technologies shaping CPM and finance."
–Alan Y. C. Yong Director, Financial Analytics Aberdeen Group

"This book is a must-read for all students of business, from college students to CEOs. The authors have an uncanny ability to create excitement on topics that have been a part of business vocabulary for a long time. Without doubt, this book will also affect the thinking of software innovators who see opportunities for a new generation of software to support the book’s concepts and theories."
–Dr. G. R. Wagner Distinguished Professor Peter Kiewit Institute University of Nebraska

"The Strategy Gap provides a pragmatic insight into where the barriers to execution of a corporate strategy are. Backed by excellent examples, we’re shown not just ‘here’s what you should do’ but also ‘here’s how to do it.’ The book helps make the black art of turning strategy into tactics a clearer process that is more accessible to those who need it. The Strategy Gap is almost a handbook of how to take strategic decisions and support their execution with the help of information technology."
–Rick Crandall Chairman Giga Information Group

"This book authoritatively describes the disconnect between many companies’ strategic planning efforts and the successful implementation of the plans. It combines academic rigor and practical ‘how to.’ It brings strategists’ and technologists’ knowledge together in a very insightful, readable, and useful book."
–Hugh Watson C. Herman and Mary Virginia Terry Chair of Business Administration Terry College of Business, University of Georgia

Worldwide, three out of four senior executives cite strategic planning as today’s most powerful tool for improving long-term performance. Yet the global corporate landscape is littered with the remnants of organizations that crafted "breakthrough" strategic plans–complete with missions, objectives, goals, and strategies–only to tumble headlong into the gulf between the creation of that plan and its actual implementation.

But what are the root causes behind that "strategic gap" between strategy formulation and execution? Why do so many well-intentioned strategic systems fail at bridging it? And most important, what are today’s most successful companies doing to circumnavigate that gap and, in some cases, use it to their advantage?

The Strategy Gap reveals a step-by-step process for effectively executing strategy by integrating best practices for corporate performance management (CPM) techniques with state-of-the-art information technologies. Written by senior officers at Comshare, Incorporated, one of today’s foremost global providers of software for implementing and executing effective corporate strategy, this premiere resource will help you to:

• Determine whether your organization’s strategy gaps are rooted in management, process, or technology issues–and move to resolve those issues
• Move beyond transaction processing systems to incorporate key managerial processes
• Integrate applications for better across-the-board utilization of company resources
• Understand and use not only financial data but also nonfinancial performance indicators to drive improvement
• Take proactive steps to both add value and communicate that value to financial markets and shareholders

As you read these words, scores of corporate decision-makers are combining up-to-date processes, methodologies, and systems to dramatically reduce the time spent shepherding strategic initiatives from creation to implementation. Discover what they are doing, how they are doing it, and what you must do to meet and even surpass their successes, in The Strategy Gap.

MICHAEL COVENEY is Senior Director of Strategy Management for Comshare, Incorporated, a leading provider of software to help companies implement and execute strategy.

DENNIS GANSTER is Chairman, President, and CEO of Comshare.

BRIAN HARTLEN is Senior Vice President of Marketing for Comshare.

DAVE KING, PhD, is Senior Vice President of Product Development as well as Chief Technology Officer for Comshare.