Blog #4 (F. 19)

Blog #4 (Fall 2019): Taking Strategy from Development to Implementation

We interact daily with market strategies in action. From department stores to visual media, marketing strategies have been pre-determined to influence our engagement with a product. Further, the expansion of technology and data science has transformed the ways in which firms test and implement strategies, with some digital tools able to provide immediate feedback on consumer perceptions (e.g., Twitter). This leads to one of the most important facets of strategy development and implementation — agility. And to be agile in implementing a winning strategy, firms must evaluate their strengths and test multiple data-informed strategy options. Often mimicking some firm processes in a microcosm, political strategy teams take similar actions of data-informed decision-making before executing new approaches.

While strategy is often seen as a process, choice and decision-making are critical in the development process. Understanding your available tactical options/choices is the first step that Lafley et al. propose in strategy development. ¹ This stage of the development process allows companies to establish a menu of possibilities to explore further, including maintenance of the status quo. Once companies have made decisions about the strengths of their positioning and have applied a rigorous analytical lens to their strategy options can they begin testing.² Digital companies may use A/B testing to compare user engagement for various online marketing campaigns in a relatively small timeframe. Other strategies, such as competitive price-setting for a consumer goods product, can take longer to roll out across different markets and compare.

Political campaigns take comparable approaches when considering their strategic options, positioning, and test plans. While the impact of big data via the Cambridge Analytica case is perhaps the best-known instance of agile strategy development, presidential hopefuls in our present moment are also testing and pivoting strategies. Vice President Biden recently shifted his campaign strategy, moving funds from digital campaigns (e.g., Facebook, Google) to more traditional methods, such as television ads.³ Some reasons for team’s strategy pivot might be a low return on investment — digital ads aren’t yielding enough new small dollar donors — or that his strongest voter base exists in communities that engage less frequently with digital media. Whatever the truth, his strategy team is making decisions based on data-informed testing to increase the Vice President’s position among a large candidate pool (competition).

Though strategy development in firms is not new, ensuring that decision-making is methodical and research/data-informed has helped catapult emerging companies or political candidates. Using research as a framework in the strategy development process can be a valuable tool to ensuring your strategy wins, allowing your team to pivot and scale its strategy as needed.


1. Lafley, A. G., Roger L. Martin, Jan W. Rivkin, and Nicolaj Siggelkow. “Bringing Science to the Art of Strategy.” Harvard Business Review, September 1, 2012. https://hbr.org/2012/09/bringing-science-to-the-art-of-strategy.
2. Bradley, Chris, Martin Hirt, and Sven Smit. “Have You Tested Your Strategy Lately?” McKinsey Quarterly, January 2011. https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/strategy-and-corporate-finance/our-insights/have-you-tested-your-strategy-lately.
3. Goldmacher, Shane. “Joe Biden’s Digital Ads Are Disappearing. Not a Good Sign, Strategists Say.” The New York Times, September 30, 2019, sec. U.S. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/30/us/politics/joe-biden-ads.html.