Invest in Your Long-Term Business Strategy for Future Business Growth

By Katrina Wahlstrom, Managing Partner
OTAVALA Consulting

The current economic conditions have forced many businesses towards short-term strategies in order to survive. Blindly, these companies make decisions to pay for expensive and time-consuming workshops and training sessions that are not aligned with the overall organizational strategy of sustainable growth. However, if future business growth and success are the goal, long-term business strategy cannot be neglected (Keller, 2009).

Long-term strategy is defined as a continuous improvement of essential business functions that the company needs in order to survive. These described business functions are a company's customer values, quality, speed to market, flexibility, and reduced operating costs. Although many organizations recognize that they cannot just stubble upon superior performance strategies, they still fail to pursue strategic objectives that will keep his/her company afloat during economic down turn. However, only those organizations that are flexible, innovative, and productive can survive situations of rapid change. And that can only be achieved by establishing long-term strategy.

Otavala Consulting is a management consulting firm specializing in strategic management, HR, organizational development, and business psychology. They can help businesses to develop long-term strategy and self managing teams that are innovative and highly competitive. However, there are certain steps that should be taken before strategy development can occur. Foremost, in order for an organization to establish long-term strategy, it must first be able to tap into its employees' commitment and motivation to learn (Senge, 1990). Otavala Consulting can provide the tools and capabilities for an organization to create customized incentive and reward programs based on researched and practiced motivation theories that are low cost and effective. Furthermore, Otavala can design performance measures based on job analyses and evaluation. Past research has shown that motivated and satisfied employees are inclined to be more productive. In a study involving a sample of 298 schools and 13,808 teachers, support was found for a significant relationship between employee satisfaction and job performance. Additionally, strong relationships were found between satisfaction, attitude, and turnover (Ostroff, 1992). Therefore, Otavala Consulting recommends that employees should be invested in and trained to perform at maximum levels.

In addition to the challenge of mobilizing employees with the vision of the organization, the organization should realize that it is operating as a system. More often than not, when businesses are faced with a problem they focus on quick simplistic solutions without realizing that an organization is a dynamic complex linkage of systems. However, managers that are able to view the organization as a system realize that short-term improvements usually amount to long-term costs (Senge, 1990). They also realize that in this system, the organizational structure must support the competitive long-term strategy. This can be accomplished by organizational redesign or restructuring to set forth a positive organizational culture to mobilize the employees. This method of organizational development will solidify the alignment of culture and structure with the company's long-term strategy.

With the current economic downtown, it is increasingly important for companies to continuously learn and improve their operations and build effective long-term strategies. Now more than ever, management will need to cut costs while increasing productivity. This means employee reductions, decreases in departmental funds, and cuts in training expenditures. If you choose to cut funding to critical functions for short-term gratification to the bottom line, you may end up severely damaging the long-term wellbeing of your company. Dr. Tomi Wahlstrom, lead consultant of Otavala Consulting, states that strategic management requires decision making and motivation of people. These people aspects of strategic management can often be the biggest challenge when formulating and implementing strategy. Otavala Consulting can help you to align your people to reach better profits and manage with strategic intent. Otavala can perform environmental scans and formulate, implement, and evaluate your strategies with you.

Otavala is not a typical organizational development consultancy as they blend the strategic knowhow of an academic and commercial management consulting firms. All consultants working with Otavala Consulting have earned graduate degrees in their field of expertise, and are led by doctorate degreed senior consultants. The consultants of Otavala have decades of cumulative consulting experience. Furthermore, they are continuously working to improve these skills through research endeavors and teaching engagements. All recommended implementations are based on detailed needs analyses and customized to fit the needs of the client organization. Otavala consultants measure the effectiveness of their implemented solutions by establishing performance measurement criteria. These measurements demonstrate how the services provided significantly increase profitability, improve employee performance, and create long-term value.

References
Ostroff, C. (1992). The Relationship between Satisfaction, Attitudes, and Performance: An Organizational Level Analysis. Journal of Applied Psychology, 77(6), 963-974.
Keller, R. (2009). Taking the Long-Term Perspective Will Pay Off. Industry Week, 258(2), 14.
Robbins, S. P., Judge, T. A., (2007). Organizational Behavior. Upper Saddler River, New Jersey. Pearson Prentice Hall.
Senge, P., M. (1990). The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of the Learning Organization. DoubleDay.

About the Company
OTAVALA is a Chicago based consulting firm and serve primarily Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York areas specializing in strategic management, human resources, organizational development, and business psychology. Find more information by visiting www.otavala.com.
 

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