![]() ![]() ![]() In 2014, he started the process of shifting Microsoft from selling software products to offering software services by putting cloud computing (Azure) at the heart of its business and making its Office product suite available as a subscription. For example, Microsoft’s CEO, Satya Nadella, is in the midst of replacing the foundation upon which the company’s strategy has stood for 40 years. The ideal time frame depends more on what changes leaders want to make to their strategy than on the business they are in. This means your intuition that “it depends” is half right. The better way to interpret Kamprad’s guidance is that he wanted his leaders to be thinking far into the future as they considered the changes IKEA’s strategy might need today. IKEA could someday devise a new strategy that would take 200 years to implement, but that seems a stretch. The better question is, “What changes does our strategy need, and how much time do we need to implement them?” In other words, leaders have a five-year strategy if the changes they want to make to their strategy will take five years to implement. To be clear, “What time frame should we have for our strategy?” is the wrong question. Instead, the time frame should depend on the strategy. “Yes, of course,” he responded, “but then you make the short-term plan: That means the next 100 years.”īut I find that giving strategy an a priori time frame is the wrong way around. He once reportedly said to a group of managers that it was important to “think about where should we be in 200 years.” As the story goes, the managers asked Kamprad if that wasn’t too much time. If that feels too far “out there,” consider the example of Ingvar Kamprad, the late founder of IKEA, the world’s largest furniture retailer. I know of one 80-year-old company whose board has asked management to develop a 20-year strategy in anticipation of its 100th year of operation. Or leaders may choose a time frame based on a milestone that’s specific to their company. For example, in the mid-1990s, “Strategy 2000” was a common choice a few years ago, “2020 Strategy” was a favorite. ![]() They tend to pick a time frame that feels natural - three or five years, or whenever a calendar milestone is just ahead. Business leaders typically associate strategy with looking into the future, and then wonder how far out they should look. This question often comes up in my work, too. But I really don’t like having to say “it depends.” What’s your view? For example, it can take decades to discover and commercialize a new drug or oil well, whereas it only takes a year - if not less - for trends to change in the clothing and toy businesses. My intuition says it depends on the business. Most of them think that strategy is about the long term, but they wonder how long that should be. When I work with business leaders on their strategies, they often ask me about time frame. ![]()
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