How to Align Your Corporate Strategy With Sales, Marketing, and Product

So, as Corporate leader, the big question is: When 2016 rolls in, will your employees have a clear idea of what they are working towards?

To be sure your answer to this is “yes,” you must be able to define not just your team’s objectives, but also what each other team needs from Corporate to make their number. In other words, your objectives need to drive daily decisions from the CEO down to all levels of employees.

Here’s what you need to know to make that happen.Your objectives need to drive daily decisions from the CEO down to all levels of employees.

How to complete the Objectives phase of your strategy:

In this year’s research report, we found that top-performing CEOs align their Corporate Strategies across an eight-step process. The fifth step in this hierarchy is the Objectives phase—the one that’s going to inform the goals for your entire organization.

You’ll know you’ve completed the Objectives phase when you can answer these five questions for your company:

1. What are the company objectives that must be met?
2. What are the Product objectives that support the Corporate objectives?
3. What are the Marketing objectives that support the Corporate objectives?
4. What are the Sales objectives that support the Corporate objectives?
5. What are the Talent objectives that support the Corporate objectives?

That’s clear enough, but you still might not know how exactly you should answer those questions. That’s where these crucial insights come in…

What other teams need from your Corporate Strategy:

Here’s what each team needs from Corporate to properly prepare their strategies for the year ahead.

• Product: In order to decide which products they should invest in, the Product team needs to know which markets the company plans to live in, along with the ins and outs of those markets.
• „Marketing: Your strategy will inform Marketing about which advantages the company will use to beat its market competitors. Without Corporate planning, the Marketing team can’t ensure that they have the upper hand in reaching new consumers.
• „Sales: Once Product and Marketing have what they need from Corporate, Sales can set the revenue generating process in motion, turning prospects into leads, and finally into customers.
• „Talent: Your strategy will set the direction for who to recruit and how they should be brought into the company in order to feed your major objectives.

As long as you can be sure your Corporate Strategy effectively informs these other phases of your operation, you’ll be prepared to beat the estimates with a cohesive company plan.

To streamline this process, register for a session with an SBI Strategist. We’ll walk you through the eight-step hierarchy and ensure that your organization has everything it needs to make the number in 2016.