Strategic Initiative

What is Strategic Initiative?

In order to bring your strategy to fruition, you must decide
on the outcomes you want to achieve and what winning
means to you. It is also essential to identify the
maneuvers or actions that will be required to achieve
the intended outcomes. At its essence, a strategic
initiative is a project or action that is carefully defined
and designed to achieve your objectives.

Strategic leaders need to be proactive and prepare

strategic initiatives before they are compelled to and
before their competitors, rivals, or adversaries take
action. They also need to create an array of actions and
specific goals or targets that are mapped to each
strategic initiative. These goals should be supported
with specific measures of success or Key Performance
Indicators designed to track progress. Each strategic
initiative needs a corresponding plan of action that
defines the specific tasks and steps as well as a
specific completion date.

There are many different types of strategic initiatives,

actions, or undertakings. Below are a few of the
common types of initiatives that businesses,
departments, or individuals may consider:
Fix-and-Prune Initiatives
A-fix-and-prune strategic initiative is an action designed to
address an underlying problem or challenge that needs to be
resolved or eliminated before you move on to larger actions
that are more ambitious or innovative. Initiatives that are
shorter term in nature and need to be implemented now
often fall into the “fix-and-prune” category.

Build-and-Create Initiatives
“Build-and-create” initiatives are more advanced and
groundbreaking, designed to create a marked change in what
you do or how you do it. For example, you might decide to
start a major expansion in the services you offer or the
markets you serve. It could also involve expanding capacity
or geographic reach. These initiatives are likely to be
significant in scale and/or resource-intensive endeavors.

Offensive Initiatives
Some types of strategic initiatives are more “offensive” in
nature: progressive, insightful, proactive, and innovative.
These could lead to game-changing solutions, totally new
offerings, or disruptive, breakthrough ideas that will produce
competitive advantage for your enterprise and greater value
for your customers.
Defensive Initiatives
Defensive strategy is more cautious in nature and designed to
maintain your position in the marketplace or preserve your
existing competitive advantages rather than create new ones.

Time-Based Initiatives
Other types of strategic initiatives are those that are
accomplished over a longer period of time. They tend to be
much more intensive, involved, or transformational in nature.
 These long-term changes require significantly more resources,
talent, and budget to complete. These wildly important
strategic goals that have to be accomplished might be referred
to as “transformational” or “moon shots.”
Examples of Strategic Initiatives
There is a wide range of strategic initiatives that can be
used as examples across organization types, functions,
markets, and people. A few samples of strategic
initiatives can be found below:
•Raise brand awareness with a social-media campaign
•Acquire or merge with a critical supplier of raw materials
•Launch a strategy to reduce outsourcing
•Open more customer-facing retail outlets
•Offer more products and services online
•Take active measures to become the preferred low-cost
producer
•Implement an automated production system to reduce
labor costs or increase quality
•Begin to aggressively develop leadership talent to
support expansion plans
•Set out on a research effort to create the next
generation of products

Most strategic initiatives require a team of diverse

individuals with the right mix of talent and
determination to achieve success and create a
resilient organization. As we suggested earlier,
some strategic initiatives need to be acted on now
while others can be advanced on a longer timeline
that better meets the needs and resources of the
enterprise. Ultimately, successfully implementing a
strategic initiative of any type will lead to greater
value and benefits for the firm, its customers, its
employees, and the community.