Strategic drift can be defined as any situation in which organizations fail to achieve their expected or planned strategic outcome. Strategic drift occurs when a business fails to adapt to a changing external environment, and assumes that old marketing or customer service tactics will continually work in changing environments etc.
Most times, a series of small, incremental changes to strategy enable the business keep in touch with the external environment. In the past we have witnessed various companies suffer from strategic drift such as Kodak, as it failed to respond to rapid development and advancement in digital photography, despite having created such technology themselves. Scholes et al 3 defines strategy as the direction and scope of an organization over the long-term, which achieves advantage for the organization in a changing environment through its configuration of resources and competences with the aim of fulfilling stakeholder expectations.
Over time, social media has driven and changed the way businesses and customers interact. We have noticed that customers now demand increased speed in service delivery, excellent service and also react to poor customer service through social media channels. We have continued to see various organizations have huge social media crowd force apologies due to racism complaints, poor service delivery and products, misperceived promotions, poor customer care from their employees etc.
The complaints made by individuals about the ad, forced the company to withdraw their ad and issue a public apology regarding same. So, clearly Dove did not envisage the reaction of its customers to the ad and as a result, they had to issue a public apology and probably lost some customer loyalty and goodwill.
Analyzing their sales trends with such an unexpected negative response from customers, was definitely something that the organization overlooked. The slower you react, the larger the delta between what you offer and what the customer demands, the harder it will be to transform.
At this point, management can no longer ignore the gap between what their customers are demanding and what the organization is providing. The organization understands that they need to change.
After all, management still may not understand their environment and therefore the root of their problem; this issue is exasperated if the same management who found success during the organizations past, are present and still hold powerful positions.
At this point, because the organization is so far behind, change needs to err on the side of transformational as opposed to incremental. Often, there is not decisive action which ultimately leads to little progress. While management is caught in indecision, environmental change demand is accelerating and creating more distance between your offering and reality.
For transformational change to occur you need management who are savvy, bold, and who have the foresight to recognize the direction that needs to be taken. Established companies find success by identifying and establishing a profitable business model. This kind of inflexibility can stall much-needed change. If your company has developed a culture that is highly agreeable or timid, you will not hear what needs to be said E.
Groupthink occurs when groups strive to be in consensus with one another and is common when group members are very similar, when the group is led by a powerful and charismatic leader, and when the group is under extreme stress. This lack of foresight is all too common and termed marketing myopia. Nokia for example, once a market leader in the mobile phone industry, lost significant market share to Apple and Android after assuming mobile phones are only useful for messaging and snake games.
If Nokia would have focused on their customer, they would have seen their demand for GPS, flashlights, calculators, etc, and may have still been a market contender today.
This famous quote from Theodore Levitt, the economist who coined marketing myopia, summarizes the phenomenon nicely with the following quote:. Like any problem, the longer it takes to recognize and resolve the problem the nastier and harder to solve the problem becomes.
If you'd like to learn more about groupthink, check out this article. If your product is no longer solving your customer's needs, you are likely not achieving your vision statement and in need of change. Making changes, whether transformational or incremental, requires accountability and alignment. Instead of re-inventing the wheel, consider starting a free trial with Cascade Strategy.
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