Does the way your business unit operates still fit its strategy?

Does the way your business unit operates still fit its strategy?

Strategy changes faster than operating models. A business may promise customer intimacy while decisions remain centralized, pursue speed while funding is annual, or seek platform economics while teams are organized around product hand-offs. Underperformance is then called an execution problem, although the organization is faithfully executing a model built for an earlier strategy.

Test fit from the work backward. Identify the few outcomes the strategy requires, then map the decisions, value flows and capabilities that produce them. Where must judgment sit? Which work needs scale and standardization, and which needs local adaptation? What information must arrive at each decision? The answers shape structure, governance, process, talent, data and technology; a chart does not.

Misfit appears at interfaces. Repeated escalations reveal missing authority; parallel spreadsheets reveal absent shared data; queues reveal capacity or sequencing constraints; conflicting targets optimize functions instead of outcomes. Measure end-to-end cycle time, rework, decision latency and customer failure demand�friction hidden by departmental efficiency metrics.

Redesign around strategic choices. Give each critical service or value stream an accountable owner, clarify decision rights and define minimum common controls. Centralize where consistency, risk or scale matter; decentralize where proximity creates value. The UK�s 2026 digital standard similarly defines a target operating model through delivery approach, practices, people, skills, data and technology.

Pilot one value flow and move authority and resources together. Track whether customer outcomes improve without weakening control or resilience. Retire obsolete forums, reports and targets as new mechanisms begin; layering a new model over the old creates more coordination. Fit is restored when everyday trade-offs naturally produce the behavior strategy requires.