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Strategy is revealed in selection, sequence, and interplay
More channels, campaigns, and tools increase a company's digital activity. However, they only form a digital strategy when they are derived from a common goal, prioritized, coordinated with each other, and controlled in a verifiable manner.
Strategy does not just decide what is done. It also decides what is not done for the time being, what prerequisites must be created first, and how individual activities should reinforce each other.
Starting point
In 2020, many companies felt increasing pressure to rapidly expand digital measures. New landing pages, video conferences, newsletters, platform profiles, digital sales documents, and online campaigns were understandable reactions to changed contact and working conditions.
This acceleration had a practical benefit. At the same time, it made a fundamental difference visible: A company can initiate many digital activities in a short time without developing a shared digital strategy.
The list of measures then acts as proof of progress. In reality, it can mix different goals, target groups, and responsibilities. Marketing pursues reach, sales requires qualified conversations, IT prioritizes stability, and management expects short-term results. As long as these expectations are not translated into a shared decision-making logic, parallelism is created instead of strategy.
What lies behind the problem
Measures are easier to decide on than priorities
A measure is concrete. It has a name, a provider, a budget, and often a visible deadline. A prioritization decision is more demanding. It requires clarifying goals, revealing goal conflicts, and consciously postponing other options.
This creates a typical way out: instead of deciding which task needs to be solved first, several measures are started simultaneously. This spreads attention and conveys a sense of agency. However, the unresolved strategic question remains.
Operational effectiveness is confused with strategy
As early as 1996, Michael Porter distinguished between operational effectiveness and strategy. Executing processes better, faster, or more efficiently is necessary. Strategy additionally requires a distinct position, deliberate trade-offs, and a fit among activities.
For digital work, this means: A better campaign, a faster website, or a more powerful CRM can be operationally sensible. The decision only becomes strategic when it is clear what role this improvement plays in the overall business model, in customer decision-making, and in the system landscape.
Channels create their own logic
Each channel brings its own metrics, formats, and routines. Search engine optimization considers visibility and search intent. Social media considers reach and interaction. Email marketing considers delivery, opens, and responses. Sales considers contacts and conversions.
These perspectives are professionally justified. However, without a shared goal hierarchy, there is a risk that each discipline maximizes its own success. More reach can generate mismatched inquiries. More content can dilute positioning. More automation can accelerate an unclear process.
Missing dependencies remain invisible
Measures are often planned like independent building blocks. In practice, they are interconnected. A campaign requires suitable landing pages, clear statements, functioning contact channels, and regulated follow-up. A new CRM requires data rules, processes, responsibilities, and acceptance. A content offensive requires topic architecture, expert review, and updates.
Strategy makes these prerequisites visible. A list of measures does not do that automatically.
Strategic Classification
A robust digital strategy answers at least six questions:
- What business change is to be achieved?
- For which target group or decision situation is it relevant?
- Which few digital tasks contribute the most?
- What prerequisites and dependencies exist?
- Who decides, operates, and reviews the implementation?
- How can it be recognized whether the chosen direction is working?
These questions limit blind actionism without preventing necessary speed. Especially under time pressure, a complete strategy document is not required. What is necessary is a clear decision hypothesis: We are focusing on this task because it makes the greatest contribution to this goal and this target group. We are putting other measures on hold until the prerequisites are met or initial insights are available.
Strategy is not the opposite of implementation
Strategy is sometimes understood as abstract preliminary work that delays implementation. This is a false separation. A good strategy makes implementation more decisive. It reduces unnecessary variants, clarifies sequences, and prevents departments from working on different problems.
Conversely, strategy remains incomplete if it has no consequence for resources, processes, and decisions. A paper containing goals and mission statements is not a digital strategy as long as it does not influence the actual selection of measures.
Speed needs a framework
The context of 2020 demanded pragmatic immediate measures in many situations. Not every one of them could be comprehensively planned in advance. The strategic mistake did not lie in the quick response. It lay in permanently continuing the provisional solution without later examining and categorizing it.
A viable approach therefore distinguishes between:
- Immediate measure: limited reaction to an acute situation
- Learning measure: conscious testing of an assumption
- Structural measure: Building a repeatable capability
- strategic investment: long-term relevant decision with multiple dependencies
This distinction prevents every activity from receiving the same claim.
Perspective from practice
In practice, a missing strategy is often recognized by three phrases:
- "We should do that too."
- "The others are already active there."
- “The tool can handle a great many tasks.”
None of these statements answer the business relevance. It describes a possibility, a comparison, or a function. For a decision, the goal, priority, and context are missing.
A simple counter-check is to justify each planned measure in one sentence:
We do this for this target group to improve this decision or process. Previously, these prerequisites must be clarified. This role is responsible. We check impact using these signals.
If the sentence cannot be formulated concretely, the measure has not yet been strategically classified.
From the list of measures to strategic priority
Framework of action
1. Record measures neutrally
Collect ongoing and planned digital activities without evaluating them first. For each measure, add target audience, purpose, responsible role, dependencies, costs, and expected signal.
2. Define a common impact goal
Determine the most important business improvement for the period under review. This could be better qualification, higher understandability, shorter processes, or more reliable visibility. A goal like "more digitalization" is not actionable.
3. Prioritize prerequisites before visibility
Measures that enable several further steps often deserve priority. Clear positioning can improve content, website, and sales. Clarified data and processes can enable reporting and automation. A new campaign without these foundations, on the other hand, only creates additional burden.
4. Document waiver
Record which measures are not being pursued and why. This decision protects resources and facilitates later reassessment. Waiving is not a definitive no. It is a prioritization justified by time and subject matter.
5. Transform strategy into a review cycle
Regularly check whether assumptions have been confirmed, prerequisites have been met, and the measures still fit together. A strategy remains stable in its direction, but adaptable in its implementation.
What companies should not do
Companies should not evaluate digital strategy based on the number of completed initiatives. A full project plan can just as well indicate missing priorities. Nor should an initiative be continued simply because time or budget has already been invested.
It is also problematic to retroactively construct a strategy around already decided tools. Then the appropriate solution for a task is not sought. The task is described in such a way that it fits the tool.
Consequences for companies
The central strategic capability consists in limiting and connecting digital possibilities. Decision-makers do not need to adopt every development early on. They must recognize which development is relevant to their own goal, which prerequisite is missing, and which activity deserves no further attention.
This makes the list of measures shorter but more meaningful. Parallel activity becomes a traceable sequence. The next step is to transfer these decisions into repeatable processes. This deepens „Digital Structures Instead of Short-Term Activism“. For temporal and factual order, follow "What a robust digital roadmap must achieve".
The core contribution explains the permanent operating logic "Digital presence is not a finished project". The general overview is available in Subject Areas Digital Strategy.
Subject-matter connection
Review measures, objectives, and dependencies prior to implementation
A strategic digital analysis creates a common view of ongoing measures, systems, responsibilities, and business goals. It shows which activities actually align, where prerequisites are missing, and which priorities must be decided before further investment.
Classify strategic digital analysis
Sources and technical foundations (4)
- Michael E. Porter, “What Is Strategy?”, Harvard Business Review, 1996. Open source
- Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness, „Strategy Explained“, Harvard Business School. Open source
- Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness, "Making Strategic Trade-offs", Harvard Business School. Open source
- Institutes for Strategy and Competitiveness, „Fit Across the Value Chain“, Harvard Business School. Open source
