Features

Published January 2010

Learning at Top Speed

Tom Atkinson and Steve Barry

Given the pace of global competition, it’s not surprising that most business executives are worried that their companies are moving too slowly to keep a competitive edge. In a recent global survey of senior business leaders, The Forum Corp. found that 90 percent of respondents considered speed critical to their business success, but only 42 percent thought they were much faster than others in their industry.

Speed for speed’s sake is not the point. The goal is “strategic speed” — speed that contributes value both in the short and long term. The objective of strategic speed is to decrease time to value and increase value over time.

The speed-value crossover may occur in a number of ways. For example, consider the case of SunGard Availability Services, a software company that had grown by acquiring a number of other technology companies, each with its own distinct culture and approach to selling. Some sales teams had focused more on promoting the benefits of the technology and selling in a more transactional way, while others had aimed to serve as business consultants to their clients.

SunGard determined it could shorten its sales cycle and enhance customer service quality by taking a more unified approach. Improvement came from investing in training salespeople and managers and in using a common sales model and a set of consultative and planning skills so everyone spoke the same language. The result was not only an uptick in sales during the first year — which translated into decreased time to value — but increased collaboration and teamwork across the sales organization. This, in turn, enabled SunGard to meet ambitious sales goals year after year.

To better understand emerging speed scenarios and how companies across industries derive value from speed, Forum conducted case study reviews of companies that had successful strategy execution track records, including the software firm above, in addition to the global survey cited earlier.

All of these companies aimed to achieve strategic speed, but did so in different ways. Their strategic initiatives included acquiring and integrating other companies; developing a consistent customer service approach; reinvigorating their brands; expanding into different geographies; and creating corporate learning universities. Regardless of the business strategy, there were common elements that enabled them to achieve strategic speed.

Additionally, when we interviewed and surveyed managers who had implemented with speed, we found that their most effective actions often involved slowing down the pace, rather than admonishing people to go faster. That is, senior managers from “faster” companies paid more attention to creating a uniform understanding of the initiative and its importance; helped people prepare for their respective roles; ensured leadership alignment; and took time to share ideas and capture learned knowledge. “Slower” companies, in contrast, were more focused on getting projects staffed and launched quickly, abided by conventional roles, avoided raising issues, and immediately moved on to other activities when the project was completed.

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