Business Support: The Missing Operating Capability Between Strategy and Results?

Do organisations fail at strategy implementation because people lack ambition, effort or capability? Usually, no.

Strategy development may happen in episodes – planning cycles, board reviews, investment decisions, market resets. That is reality.

The harder problem is that strategic intent then has to be continually translated, prioritised, funded, measured, challenged, adapted and delivered while the organisation is also balancing day-to-day operation, value creation, innovation and change.

Too often, we call this a delivery issue.

But sometimes what really happened is simpler: we threw another imperative over the wall to managers already surrounded by competing imperatives, and expected them to make it work.

At BIG CIC, we are seeing this pattern repeatedly.

• Strategy clarity does not always survive contact with the organisation.
• Objectives are not always delegated in a way that supports fair accountability.
• Measures often track activity rather than value.
• Prioritisation is treated as an event rather than an operating capability.
• Data is fragmented.
• Governance reviews activity, but does not always help leaders make better decisions.
• As AI becomes more prominent, the need for a trusted, connected and well-governed information ecosystem becomes even more important.

This is why our July BIG CIC discussion evening will explore Business Support as a key enabling capability for strategy implementation and integrated governance.

• Not as a panacea.
• Not as a new monolithic overhead.
• Not as a bigger PMO by another name.

But as a deliberate capability – call it what you like – potentially delivered through a hub-and-spoke model, that helps connect governance, accountability, prioritisation, information, assurance and value tracking across the organisation.

The question we want to explore is simple:

If strategy implementation is ongoing, who operates the system that keeps it connected, visible and responsive?

Can we join up strategy, governance, operations, change and product management professionals to provide leadership on this?

Can we at least create the ecosystem our boards need to govern mission critical objectives properly, rather than telling them it is too difficult?

Join us for the July BIG CIC discussion evening.

There is plenty of content to have a look at in preparation:

• Chapter 6 of the BoK – Knowledge Outline – big-cic.org

Previous sessions on business support in our Supplementary Materials – 

• Do I have to keep upselling my PMO?
• Connecting PMO with the Business

Please engage with it and engage privately with other BIG activists in our community if you prefer.

Register as a BIG CIC member to access the full discussion paper and supporting material.

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