Why are companies around the world struggling to execute their strategies?
Having worked inside large organizations, we had first-hand experience with this problem. It is also something our clients were facing. So, we decided to develop a framework to address it. We conducted in-depth interviews with leaders across industries and global markets to understand what the greatest pains were and see if there were some best practices that we could build upon and share.
In these conversations, we saw a pattern emerge: Even companies with a strong strategy on paper, saw execution consistently breaking down. The problems fell into three categories:
Teams struggle to connect their daily work with the company’s big-picture goals. Many didn’t understand the strategy. Others found the strategy confusing they fell into the classic “not created here” mindset.
At one pharmaceutical company, the designers were frustrated because they couldn’t understand how KPIs related to their work. “10% revenue growth? Does that mean we need to do 10% more work?” The disconnect made it hard for them to see how they contributed to success.
At a global company, strategy felt so distant from development reality that teams wondered if they were making progress at all. Without clear ways to measure progress, motivation waned, and execution stalled.
This was the most common problem. Organizations lack structured prioritization methods. This leads to a cycle of short-term firefighting that prevents teams from focusing on long-term strategic initiatives.
One manufacturer had a compelling vision and strategy. Employees were even on board. But each quarter, the CEO handed down aggressive revenue targets. The result? Teams had no time to work on strategic initiatives unless additional resources were allocated—resources that never came. Frustration mounted as teams saw the vision but couldn’t act on it.
At a medical company, the strategy team identified key problems to solve and outlined features to address them. But the product teams disregarded this input, claiming they had more urgent work. They also doubted these new features would translate into sales, so they focused elsewhere. The result? Strategy and execution drifted apart.
Without structured collaboration, teams duplicate efforts, work at cross-purposes, and struggle to turn strategic insights into actionable decisions.
At a medical company, each product team conducted its own user research. While this ensured customer insights were being gathered, there was no centralized way to share findings. Teams often repeated work, and in some cases, different products in the same portfolio ended up with conflicting value propositions—confusing customers rather than reinforcing the company’s brand.
Additionally, each silo hoarded their team members, unwilling to help out other teams. There was no way to manage resources across the organization.
These aren’t isolated incidents. We’ve seen these patterns across industries and company sizes.
At Lomi Agency, we’ve spent years working at the intersection of strategy, design, and execution, helping companies bridge the gap between vision and implementation.
A brilliant strategy means nothing if it’s never executed. Too often, organizations invest time and resources in ambitious strategic plans, only to watch them stall due to poor translation into day-to-day work. We believe that strategic design principles can transform how companies bring strategy to life.
The Strategy-Execution Gap is nothing new. Organizations have tried to close it through OKRs, Agile, and digital transformation initiatives, but execution still lags behind intent. We believe strategy needs to be approached differently.
We are developing the Strategy by Design (SxD) framework to bridge this gap. Drawing inspiration from design methodologies, we aim to ensure that strategy is not just a vision but something that seamlessly integrates into execution.
Where we are now
We have drafted 10 modules for our framework, covering a mix of methods, tools, and guidelines aimed at making strategy execution more seamless. These modules address the key pain points we’ve uncovered and provide practical, adaptable solutions that companies can implement in different contexts.
We will be piloting these modules with various companies and iterating upon them based on real-world feedback. Our goal is to keep this as a living framework, continuously evolving based on new insights and industry needs.
Early principles of Strategy by Design
As we validate the framework with various industries, we are exploring three core design principles:
These principles are driving our Strategy by Design framework, which we are actively refining through real-world testing and feedback.
We’ll continue to refine this approach and share our insights and case studies. If you’re struggling with strategy execution, we’d love to hear from you.
