In the business world, the term Strategy Execution Platform It is present at all times. Whether it's time to set goals, organize a team, or optimize a process, it is fundamental to achieving the planned results.

Would you like to learn more about the subject, its methodologies, and how it can help transform your organization? Keep reading this content with us.

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A Little History: From Greece to the Modern Business World

Long before the term strategy became known in the corporate environment, it was already used and applied. The word originates from ancient Greek militarism: Strategos, the possibility of overcoming opponents during war. Always with strategy.

The term became part of the corporate vocabulary around the 1950s, after World War II, and it was from then on that companies began to demand “strategy” as a skill and competence of their managers, so that they could lead their teams and achieve the expected results. 

In Brazil, strategic management arrived and became established through Vicente Falconi, founder and consultant of Grupo Falconi, a benchmark in business management in the country, and of which Actio Software is a part. Vicente Falconi was responsible for disseminating management methodologies and tools in the country, and more than thirty years later, he is still a reference in the field, and his ideas are responsible for guiding major companies in the Brazilian market.

If at one time in history this word was used to justify the great achievements of armies and emperors, today, in the business world, strategic management is the practice that allows large organizations to conquer their space, overcome their competitors, and achieve increasingly significant results.

But those who think strategic management stopped there are mistaken. It evolves, just like companies and the market, and is becoming increasingly fundamental for organizations worldwide.

Did you know that risks can also be monitored? Learn about Actio Risk Management

Ultimately, what is the concept of strategic management?

In an increasingly fluid, competitive, and constantly changing world, maintaining business performance is essential for survival. However, surviving in the corporate world goes far beyond results. It requires strategy.

Strategic management is a management model that has solidified in recent years to denote a management model based on continuous improvement, increasingly efficient processes, a high-performance team, results, and many others, always aligned with the organization's objectives and goals. It values business sustainability, not only financial but also operational.

In summary, this type of management seeks constant optimization of resources, processes, and results to ensure the best management for that company at that time. To achieve this, various actions are developed with the goal of meeting defined targets. It is a management model that is attentive to market and industry changes, seeking growth, optimization, and the best results. 

Strategic planning vs. strategic management: what's the difference?

Don't be confused, Strategic planning and strategic management They might seem similar, but they aren't the same thing. In practice, one complements the other, and both are indispensable.

Before making any decision or undertaking any action, whether in business or personal life, planning is necessary. You don't buy a house or a car without first doing financial planning to be able to complete the purchase. Similarly, you don't launch a new product on the market or aim to achieve a certain level of results without having in mind all the necessary resources for it. This is what strategic planning is for.

We can say that strategic planning is the route, the guide, the direction that a company wants to take. This is normally defined by managers through various methodologies that help define the goals to be achieved. Strategic management, however, is the constant monitoring of this guide. It helps create efficient actions to ensure that the organization reaches its objective and, when necessary, to create new routes to deal with adversity. 

So, we can say that there is no strategic management if there is no strategic planning. To help visualize how this works in practice, let's talk a bit about multi-methodology platforms in the next topic.

Multi-methodology platform and strategic management

While still a relatively new term in the market, multi-methodology platforms are winning over large organizations. How to plan, monitor, and control all actions and goals in an increasingly fast-paced world full of information? Multi-methodology platforms have arrived to add value and make this entire process easier, more intuitive, and effective. But, after all, what are they?

These methodologies are the main tools that support a manager who wishes to invest in strategic and performance management. Today, there are numerous methodologies, and using only one of them in organizational management is not ideal. Companies that do this are missing out on dozens, if not hundreds, of opportunities to grow even further.

Strategic management is directly linked to performance, whether administrative, financial, or operational. We can say that its main purpose is to considerably increase the company's performance in all areas, optimizing results more and more and, as we have already seen, for this, strategic planning and monitoring are very important. For this, they use agile methodologies to provide more and more benefits for organizations.

This is why multi-methodology platforms are gaining more and more space in the market. They manage to unite, in one place, the main performance management and strategy methodologies with the goal of centralizing all information and ensuring that all the organization's needs are met.

With them, it is much easier to define objectives, goals, and actions and to monitor them to ensure continuous improvement and growth of the organization. Actio is one of the companies that rely on multi-methodology to help organizations raise their performance level. Actio Strategy Management is our strategic management solution that transforms organizations in Brazil and around the world. To understand better, we've outlined below some of the main management methodologies and tools you can apply in your company.

Throughout this content, you will be able to learn about some of these tools and methodologies that are widely used in the market. You will notice that you probably already know some of them. Others you don't, and this is an opportunity to delve deeper into the subject to learn more.

Agile methodologies for elevating performance management

Agile methodologies are directly related to the industrial revolution, process automation, and technological advancement. Human-technology interactions are increasingly necessary, but at the same time, tolerance for errors and implementation time are also decreasing.

With the goal of simplifying processes, communication, and deliveries, agile methodologies facilitate alignment between teams, clients, and tools. They are nothing more than visual and intelligent methods that determine workflows, action execution, and processes, simplifying the entire productive and administrative process.

They are agile because they escape traditional long and complicated processes, finding shortcuts for executing the same tasks with the best use of resources and performance. Normally, these methodologies are based on 4 basic pillars: 

• Communication;
• Practicality; 
• Alignment; 
• Adaptability;
• Flexibility.

All of them, without exception, seek continuous improvement, in one way or another.

Actio’s Actio Strategy Management Gather in one place the main agile methodologies on the market, which will help your organization achieve an ever-higher level of performance. Learn about some of the most applied agile methodologies on the market and that you will find in Actio Strategy Management.

Essential Agile Methodologies for Management

You probably know some project management methodologies, but the truth is there are several of them. With the evolution of the business world and increased competition, these tools have also evolved to keep up with the new way of managing organizations, becoming indispensable.

Today, we have various tools at our disposal to help make the best decisions, regardless of your business area. Although many of them were developed decades ago, they remain relevant in this dynamic market and are the foundation of performance management in organizations worldwide, whether large or small.

Check out now some of the main tools you should have to ensure high-performance and strategic management.

OKRs

The OKR (Objectives and Key Results) methodology is a well-known method for its flexibility and simplicity, which is exactly why it has won over large organizations like Google, Twitter, and Airbnb.

The methodology starts from the principle that the right actions must be taken at the right time and that visualizing the whole is essential to achieve the expected result. Thus, it is expected that the entire team will feel more motivated to work together in pursuit of a common goal.

Objectives (O) should be qualitative and serve as a guide for the company, dictating the direction it should follow. Keywords (KR), on the other hand, are quantitative and aim to show the objectives to be achieved.

Actio has already developed complete content about the 9 advantages of implementing OKRs in organizations. Access the content to learn more about the subject.

PDCA

PDCA stands for: plan, do, check, and act. After finishing, repeat the cycle.

It is with this 4-step cycle that many organizations have managed to implement the concept of continuous improvement. Whenever an improvement cycle ends, it's time to start improvements in another area or process, using the same four steps. In other words, PDCA has no end, and its greatest differential lies precisely in this.

The PDCA gained notoriety in Brazil around the 1980s when businessman and founder of Falconi Consulting, Vicente Falconi, began applying the methodology in the country's companies.

The methodology is so complete that it itself ISO 9001:2015 It is recommended for use to ensure quality standards and should be used preventatively in order to avoid problems arising.

Kanban

Developed by Toyota in the 1940s, Kanban is widely used by organizations due to its simplicity. It uses cards, similar to post-its, and boards to enable a holistic view.

He proposes, basically, 3 basic frameworks (stages) that ensure task visualization and functionality:

● To do: tasks to be performed;

● Doing: tasks in progress;

Completed: tasks finished.

Each card represents a task or action to be executed and should contain a brief description, start and end dates, and the person responsible. The cards are moved between boards with each update, and everyone on the team can access and view the whole picture.

ESG

ESG is the buzzword of the moment. Environmental, Social, and Governance, or environmental, social, and governance (ESG), is a management model that has sustainability as its pillar, whether in the social, environmental, or administrative sphere. Today, there is a consensus among businesspeople and investors that profit should not be the organization's sole objective. It is important, and also the duty of each of them, to assume responsibilities and commitments in these 3 areas.

Companies that apply this management model ensure greater market relevance by being aware of their responsibilities. You can delve deeper into this topic by reading the full content developed by Actio. by clicking here.

BSC

The Balanced Scorecard, or BSC, is the methodology that ensures your plan goes from paper to reality. The acronym in Portuguese means Balanced Performance Indicators.

Your premise is that indicators must go far beyond the financial sector. It's necessary to have a holistic view to define best practices for each sector of the organization. To achieve this, you can unite different management points and, consequently, develop a more effective strategic plan and action plan.

Financial, customer, internal process, and learning and growth perspectives must be considered to ensure a 360º view of the company.

Management by Objective

Management by Objectives (MBO) was also a methodology that gained prominence in Brazil due to the work of Vicente Falconi. It seeks to implement strategic planning with practicality and high quality. Its 3 pillars and adaptable step-by-step process ensure the effectiveness of the tool.

• The dedication and creativity of everyone involved in the process directly affect the results.;
• Innovation must be present, encouraged, and valued.;
• One must be prepared for changes, otherwise, there's no point in evolving and improving. 

It should involve all organizational levels to ensure greater effectiveness and alignment. In this way, management systems are divided between functional and interfunctional. The former focuses on managers and business guidelines, and the latter focuses on day-to-day quality control.

With this, 3 plans are developed: short-term, medium-term, and long-term, enabling better control and alignment for managers.

Scrum

Scrum is one of the most widely used agile methodologies today. It proposes that the project should be completed in the shortest possible time, but with the best quality and with the least amount of material and human resources. Its versatility ensures that it can be applied to simple or complex projects, and the emphasis on deadlines and project monitoring guarantees greater agility in obtaining results.

Step-by-step monitoring allows for changes to be made along the way – and that will likely happen. But it also makes it easier to identify errors and improvements.

Want to boost your employees' performance? Discover Actio Performance Management, Actio's Performance Management tool.

The importance of results analysis

You've encountered all the management tools and methodologies and seen that with them, it's possible to collect diverse data that is extremely relevant to any organization. This collection is very important, but more important than that is knowing what you will do with that data.

Results analysis is of paramount importance for any performance-oriented and strategic management. Tracking, monitoring, and analysis are what will truly guarantee the results the company has planned. With data in hand, decisions are made much more consciously and assertively. 

Performance management platforms like the Actio Strategy Management, developed by Actio, are great allies for companies in moments like this. This is because it can centralize all data, enabling the manager to analyze all collected data without difficulty. Then, you can say goodbye to spreadsheets, because all the information is in one place. To learn more about Actio Strategy Management.

Where to apply strategic and performance management?

Companies generally have various areas of operation, internal or external. This raises many questions about where management tools can be applied. The truth is that they can be applied in all areas. The great differentiator of these methodologies is that they can be used in any task: in the corporate world, in a college assignment, and even in personal life.

But, so that you can better understand the business areas of a company and how they can benefit from management tools, we have separated each one below:

• Clients: here the focus is on customer satisfaction, which consequently leads to more business for the organization.

• Finance or FinancialIncreasing the profitability and profitability of a company is the dream of any manager. Management tools are the best allies for this.

• InternalInvest in your business's innovation capacity and in improving process performance.

• Learning and growthFrom investing in team qualification to improvements in business infrastructure, continuous improvement is the best path.

By managing these four fronts in an integrated manner, it is possible to understand how, together, they impact the organization as a whole and demonstrate the importance of investing time and resources to improve each of them. 

After all, focusing on just one will not bring the planned and expected result. With this, you will truly be carrying out the strategic management of your organization.

Why is strategic management so important?

Throughout this content, you can learn a little more about the concept of Strategic management, its methodologies and how it emerged in the business world. However, there may still be some doubts about its importance for organizations. Is it truly indispensable for good management? The answer is yes!

In summary, any organization that wishes to grow needs to invest in this management model to thrive. Long-term vision, collected data, integration of areas in pursuit of a common goal, goal setting, among many others, are some of the topics that will guide this growth.

Knowing where you want to go is fundamental, but preparing the path to get there is essential. You need to have a route, a guide to direct the actions to be taken, and it is the strategy-oriented management performance that will do this for you. However, to achieve this, it's important to define what the company wants to measure, create evaluation and monitoring routines, and appoint individuals responsible for each action to be developed.

And the benefits this brings to companies are numerous. The impact on increased productivity is clear, as well as improvements in processes, customer relations, and financial sustainability. So, if you're still in doubt about whether you should invest in performance and strategic management, Don't have any doubts. She will truly bring transformative changes to your organization.

Actio Software has over 15 years of market experience and is present in 7 countries, helping companies achieve the best results with our management solutions. Our solutions are based on 3 pillars that are fundamental to the success of any organization: people, performance, and processes.

We offer simple, standardized management practices based on continuous improvement, always striving to generate the best results for organizations. Actio Strategy Management is one of the solutions developed by Actio that is available to organizations looking to transform their management model. To learn more about our tool, you can click here.