PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF A CORPORATE STRATEGY IMPLEMENTATION

When a new strategy has been defined it needs to be implemented, but executives are often amazed that they cannot implement perfectly sounding strategies. Implementation of a corporate strategy is a process to be regarded as a single task divided into several steps, instead of several individual tasks to be accomplished. Every single step needs to be managed successfully, as the chain of strategy planning and implementation process is only as good as its weakest link. Strategy implementation and organizational leadership are at least as important as market understanding. This study observes a strategy implementation process from within a target organization and makes note of the changes occurring in employees' knowledge and understanding of the strategy during this process. Facts or background information about the development or details of the implementation process are not dealt with. Data was collected from the target organization by conducting personal interviews with employees from different levels of the organization, and with the employees' line managers. A baseline interview was performed before the implementation process was launched in order to find out the employees' level of knowledge prior to the implementation process. When the organization had carried out the implementation process, a second round of interviews was conducted to detect possible changes. This study focuses on the point of view of the employees. The results of the study show that the employees' knowledge and understanding of the strategy increased only very slightly. The study also revealed two significant problems that hindered the development of knowledge and understanding of the strategy. Namely, the pieces of strategy information were available to the employees, however, the organization did not present the linkage between different elements clearly enough. From the point of view of the employees, these pieces of information resembled puzzle pieces that would not fit together. In addition, the linkage to an individual’s everyday work was missing. The linkage to the upper level should be clearly stated in each lower-level strategy presentation. In general, the amount of information is unbalanced. On the one hand, the flow of information is too excessive, which makes it hard for the employees to understand the key points, and on the other hand, the information is too scarce for the employees to connect their everyday tasks to any part of the strategy. In general, more organizational leadership would be needed to remedy these issues. This study has identified some possible areas of improvement in the implementation process. Key words: Strategy, implementation, performance, leadershi