Strategic Irrelevance - Aditya Yadav

1. *
“Running an Agile Fortune 500 Company”
Aditya Yadav, aditya.yadav@gmail.com
in.linkedin.com/in/adityayadav76

2. * A Typical Global Company
* Fortune 500/1000
* 200 Divisions
* 40 Countries
* 25000 Employees
*

3. *
@ Acme Inc.

4. * Original Question “Our business is declining,
and none of our Strategies or Executing is
helping. What are we doing wrong?”
* The Correct Question - “Every
business/product/service has a lifecycle. You
need to jump curves to stay Relevant. Shall we
look at the bigger picture and answer your
question?”
*

5. *
And The Philosophy Behind The Answer

6. * U.S. Gen. Eric Shinseki - "If you don't like
change, you're going to like irrelevance even
less"
* In this context Leaders are slightly more
important than managers though conceptually
both roles are equally important
* Managers Execute and Deliver Results
* Leaders Drive Change and Keep Everything
Relevant
*

7. * Bill Gates (way back in the 80’s)– Nobody needs us.
They don’t know we exist. They should need us.
Steve make them need us…
* [That was a Great Strategist/Leader talking and
concerned about Relevance.]
* Leaders can keep talking about Strategy, SWOT,
Core Competencies, Execution, Results, Efficiency,
Productivity… but if the Organization or the
Product/Service is not Relevant anymore nothing
will work
* That’s how important Relevance is.
*

8. * Its Business as usual. Lets not touch
anything which is working fine. No Change
is required. What’s the reason? Our
business is on a Roll why should we change
when everything is fine?
* To Stay Relevant you have to change and
go into a new S Curve when everything
seems fine and going well. After that its
too late and a perpetual decline
* Ref: Double – S curve, Henry Mintzberg
*

9. * “That Doesn’t Matter [Anymore]”
* There is no framework currently for relevance
* But ask yourself
* Why would anyone need, want or desire us?
* What is driving demand for our products/services? What is the inherent
driver and economics behind demand?
* Are our Engagements getting transactional? Or are people interested in
partnering with us long term?
* Were people unhappy with us and now have stopped even complaining?
* Have they given up? Is the benefit from fulfilling the need outweighed by
the effort, cost or the headache?
* Competitors? Industry? Trends? Integration? Technology? Environment?
* What is the Future? Lets project into the Future, where should we be w.r.t
our Customers?
* How do we redefine and shape the future? [Demand Shaping]
*

10. * There is no Strategic Relevance framework yet!
* The concept is important to understand and pursue
* The concept is slightly different from that of Competitive
Advantage. Which is your advantage against opponents in the
context of a situation
* Strategic Relevance is a concern when that Situation itself
isn’t relevant anymore
* Relevance is one of the Strongest Drivers for [needing]
Change
* Golden Rule: Continuously Redefine and Create the Future,
or else suffer decline and losses and survive somehow till the
time someone else does and then you jump onto it [that
future]
*

11. Aditya!!!
*