Question

Examine how the concept "Translate Thought Into Action" has bearing on the relationship between business strategy and operating strategy against long and short term objectives.

Answer 1

For any business strategy to succeed there has to be few factors that should be considered. The vision, mission, long term objectives and how they will be achieved should always be a major consideration for any organization. While initiating any project, adequate care has to be taken as to which objective is being met. If no objectives of long term solution are being met then the evaluations should be done once again so as to reconsider the approach to projects. As mentioned in the case, Thoughts translate to actions.

Without having a long term plan there cannot be short term plan which can be effective. For example, a company might have a vision to be a completely digital organizing within next 5 years, then all the projects that are being undertaken should have this too as one of the prime objectives. The business strategy which defines how the company should be run should also be broken up into actionable items. Typically all the organizations have a long term and a short term strategy to achieve specific targets. The long term strategy will be focused on strategic and planning initiatives that the company will undertake while the short term operational plans will be the annual plan, monthly, weekly and daily actions. To ensure that all the short term goals are projecting in the right directing they have to be in sync with the long term strategic ambitions of the company. In addition to this, the company also need to provide the detailed plan so as to ensure the short team plans are not causing a roadblock to the longer plans. In order to ensure the business strategy and short term goals are met, the company`s objectives are planned accordingly. For every organization it is a common practice to plan out the year`s activities beforehand, plan, monitor and reward accordingly. This helps in breaking down the initiatives in such a way that the long and short term objectives can be met. Typically the long term goals are achieved within a few years while shorter one can be achieved within the working year.

To bring the thought into focus again, the actions can be identified only when the thoughts are clear enough to be translated into actionable items. If the long term visions are not clear, then it will be difficult to do the same. Vice versa, if the vision and long term state is specific in the mindset of company leadership, the same can be converted to actionable items faster.