New tools, frameworks, and best practices seem to appear every week—and many organizations adopt them without stepping back to ask a simple, but critical question:
Does this support the way we compete?
At the heart of good companies is a clear strategy—how you create value in the market. While there are many variations, most organizations compete along one of three fundamental value dimensions:
- Innovation-Led (Product Focus)
- “We create cutting-edge, unique products that lead the industry.”
- Lowest Total Cost For The Customer (Operational Excellence)
- “We deliver reliable, cost-effective products at the best price.”
- Best Total Solutions (Customer Intimacy)
- “We deeply understand our customers and tailor everything to their needs.”
Figure 1. Align on the strategic focus.
That strategy should shape everything: your products, your processes, and your teams.
How Strategy Shapes Product
The way you compete could directly inform how your products are designed and delivered:
- If innovation is your edge, then your products should evolve quickly, embrace experimentation, and push the boundaries of what’s possible.
- If operational excellence is your focus, you’ll want standardization, reliability, and cost-efficiency baked into the product and service.
- If you compete on customer intimacy, your product should feel like it was made just for each client—highly customizable, deeply integrated, and relationship-driven.
Each of these strategic approaches requires a different mindset, which manifests in how products are imagined, built, and improved.
Development Process Should Follow Strategy Not Popularity
Your internal processes should serve your strategy—not the latest trend on social media:
- For innovation, create fast feedback loops, portfolio pruning for risk mitigation, autonomous teams for creativity, and a 1 page vision.
- For efficiency, build lean, standardized, automated development to reduce variability.
- For customer intimacy, allow your processes to bend around client needs—not force clients into rigid systems.
There’s no such thing as a “best” process—only the right process for the game you’re playing.
How Strategy Defines Adaptability
When disruption hits—and it always does—every organization reacts. But how they react says everything about their strategy:
- Innovation-driven teams commit more strongly to innovative features and bold ideas.
- Operationally excellent teams fine-tune their processes and supply chains.
- Customer-focused organizations rework services or shift how they engage with clients.
Same disruption. Very different responses. That’s because your strategy doesn’t just guide your direction—it shapes your adaptability.
Misalignment is Costly
When your organization’s behaviour doesn’t match your strategic intent, performance quietly starts to suffer.
- An innovation-led company that becomes obsessed with efficiency may smother creativity.
- A customer-centric team that adopts rigid, productized models may struggle to add value.
- A cost-focused operation that over-customizes will exhaust itself—and its budget.
Even when the execution looks strong, if it’s not aligned with strategy, the long-term impact is erosion—not excellence.
What to do?
Start by assessing where you stand across the three value dimensions: Innovation, Operational Excellence, and Customer Intimacy. Use a Weighted SWOT Analysis to identify high-impact strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.
Figure 3. SWOT analysis.
Then apply a Confrontation Matrix to uncover strategic focus areas.
Figure 2. Confrontation matrix
The CAO approach offers practical tools for this—including a SWOT Guide, a Shared Objectives Workshop, and a Shared Team Expectations session to help teams align around what matters most. Ask: What do our customers truly value? Who delivers best in those areas—and how do we compare? Define where you want to be in 3 years and design your operating model—teams, tools, and processes—to get you there.
To Summarise
Strategy isn’t just a slide in your deck—it’s the quiet force that shapes how your organization thinks, moves, and grows. Chuck Norris doesn’t just plan—he prepares. And so should your business.
If your structure, processes, and products aren’t aligned with how you win, you might be busy—but you’re not necessarily making progress. Even Chuck doesn’t throw punches without purpose.
Want To Learn More About CAO?
Check out the CAO website for more info on creating agile organizations.