This research was inspired by a particular business problem – the search for an optimal model of strategy-making process in Severstal, a major Russian metals and mining company going through a period of rapid growth and transformation. The research reports on the results of a longitudinal explorative case study based on two distinct empirical projects. The first project addressed strategy process nature, participants, roles of corporate centre, time perspective and impact of the external environment. Its results highlighted the importance of CEO leadership and personal traits, which became the principal focus of the second empirical project. The key empirical contribution of the research was definition of "leader-focused decentralisation" as a particular approach to strategy-making in a multi-business group. This approach combines decentralized, bottom-up, business units-led generation of strategic proposals and initiatives with a crucial role of a company leader as a deeply involved decision-maker, presiding over a small and lean corporate centre with minimal corporate rules and bureaucracy. In Severstal’s case, the "leader-focused decentralisation" approach to strategy was a good match to its volatile yet rewarding external environment. The suggested model can be seen as an empirically-derived step towards a theoretical synthesis of "activist" vs. "detached" views of corporate centre roles in relation to strategy process in multi-business firms. It exhibited some distinctive features which were not yet described in other contexts, including co-existence of strong entrepreneurial leadership and organisational decentralisation. From a practical standpoint, the research highlighted weaknesses and limitations of existing strategy-making model and offered a background for the discussion of ways to develop it in the future.

Strategy is an important part of any business. To become successful, a company must put a lot of effort into creating a strong and feasible strategy. To eliminate problems to follow the strategy it should be clear and jointly formulated. However, a problem could still be that the strategy is perceived and understood differently by managers and em-ployees within the company. This could implicate issues because these persons are ex-pected to follow the strategy and adopt their plans according to it. In this study we in-vestigate how the perceptions of a strategy differ among employees within an organisa-tion. This study is made with Yoigo, which is a Spanish telecommunication company that recently finished the creation of a new strategy.In this research, a qualitative method was used to collect primary data. Highly standard-ized and open interviews were conducted in Madrid at the Yoigo headquarter. In addi-tion, observations were used as primary data in order to better answer our research ques-tions and to fulfil our purpose.Our results indicate that there are significant differences and similarities in employees’ perception of the strategy. This study also concludes that a company’s internal envi-ronment could affect employees’ strategy awareness. We tested the perception of strat-egy through four different perspectives. The first three are customers, competitors and corporation; these perspectives are pointed out as key factors to a successful strategy (Ohmae, 1982). The fourth perspective was to investigate how perceptions differed in terms of the strategy formation process. Our major findings are that employees’ percep-tions regarding competitors and the strategy process are highly coherent while the op-posite is found about customers and corporation.

Abstract Bachelor Thesis 15hp, Business Program, School of Business and Economics at Linnaeus University, Controller, 2FE20E, VT 2018 Title: Implementing a Strategic Change - A Case Study on Visma Spcs Authors: Philip Bergsteinsson, Christoffer Walfridson, Filip Öggesjö Examiner: Elin Funck Tutor: Anders Jerreling Background and problem: Strategy work is a process consisting of two parts, formulation and execution. Companies that execute a strategy change are facing major challenges. Business strategy studies have shown that companies do not achieve their full potential and that there are a number of difficulties in strategy execution. Purpose: The purpose of the essay is to test the model of strategy execution that Kaplan and Norton have created and how it’s followed in an active strategy change. The essay will provide insight into the pitfalls and obstacles of the strategy implementation. Method: The study that has been conducted is a case study of a qualitative nature. The empirical material has been collected by means of semi-structured interviews. Conclusion: Visma Spcs is in the middle of the Vision 2020 process, a strategy change started in 2016. During these years, they have been working hard to formulate, implement, communicate, and get employees to understand Vision 2020 in order for the entire organization to work towards the common goals. The study highlights a number of problems Visma Spcs has with the strategy change, some are part of communication and knowledge about the strategy others are how to work with the process. Kaplan and Norton have created a process in six steps for strategy implementation, a process that, according to the purpose of the paper, is tested in this study. There have been identified some similarities with Visma Spcs strategy implementation and the theory, but also a number of deviations. The main points of the paper's conclusion are that Visma Spcs needs to work more with communication and feedback around Vision 2020. / Sammanfattning Kandidatuppsats 15 HP, Civilekonomprogrammet, Ekonomihögskolan vid Linnéuniversitetet, Controller, 2FE24E, VT 2018 Titel: Att genomföra en strategiförändring - En fallstudie på Visma Spcs Författare: Philip Bergsteinsson, Christoffer Walfridson, Filip Öggesjö Examinator: Elin Funck Handledare: Anders Jerreling Bakgrund och problem: Strategiarbete är en process som består av två delar, formulering och genomförande. Företag som genomför en strategiförändring står inför stora utmaningar. Studier inom företagsstrategi har visat att företag inte uppnår sin fulla potential och att det finns en rad hinder och svårigheter vid strategigenomförande. Syfte: Uppsatsens syfte är att testa den modell för strategigenomförande som Kaplan och Norton har skapat samt hur den efterföljs i en aktiv strategiförändring. Uppsatsen ska vidare bidra med insikt i strategigenomförandets fallgropar och hinder. Metod: Studien som genomförts är en fallstudie av kvalitativ karaktär. Det empiriska materialet har samlats in med hjälp av semistrukturerade intervjuer. Slutsats: Visma Spcs är mitt uppe i processen Vision 2020, en strategiförändring som tog fart 2016. De har under dessa åren arbetat flitigt med att formulera, implementera, kommunicera och få medarbetare att förstå Vision 2020 för att hela organisationen ska arbeta mot de gemensamma målen. Studien visar och belyser ett antal problem Visma Spcs har med strategiförändringen, några är en del av kommunikation och kännedom kring strategin andra är hur man arbetat med processen. Kaplan och Norton har skapat en process i sex steg för strategigenomförande, en process som enligt uppsatsens syfte testas i den här studien. Det har identifierats en del likheter med Visma Spcs strategigenomförande och teorin men även en hel del avvikelser. De viktigaste punkterna i uppsatsens slutsats är att Visma Spcs behöver arbeta mer med kommunikation och återkoppling kring Vision 2020.

Product innovation is a key driver of any company’s growth. The biggest challenge in managing product innovation is in determining the most promising new product development (NPD) projects from the many ideas generated, known as portfolio management. In practice, NPD portfolio management still bears some problematic issues, including focusing mainly on portfolio selection rather than managing the entire process, the vague links between the process and business strategy, and a lack of formal process. Therefore, a study that looks at NPD portfolio management through different perspectives is required. NPD portfolio management deals with dynamic decision-making processes, involving not only selection decisions, but also decisions to delay, continue or even terminate projects. To understand this integrative process, a systematic literature review that explored four knowledge domains, i.e., NPD portfolio management, decision- making, strategy and organisational routines, was carried out. It involved 40 articles published from 1981-2012. The review focused on revealing how decision-making processes in NPD portfolio management are conducted and how they relate to the strategy process and organisational routines. The key findings show that decisions in the NPD portfolio management process are made through interaction between cognitive and political factors, overlooking the organisational factors in the process. Furthermore, the extant literature does not explicitly explain how to link the NPD portfolio management process to the strategy process. Also, the findings indicate that the concept of organisational routines had not been used when investigating NPD portfolio management. These are the research gaps that led to the three research questions: 1) How are organisational factors involved with the cognitive and political factors in the decision-making processes in NPD portfolio management?; 2) How do the decision-making processes in NPD portfolio management link to the business strategy?; and 3) To what extent are organisational routines related to the decision-making processes in NPD portfolio management?

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Purpose – The presented research aims to explain, describe and analyze the process of dynamic strategy development in high growth firms. Accordingly the research seeks to investigate how dynamic strategies are used within high growth firms and how strategic learning affects the process. Design/methodology/approach – The authors presents a review of theoretically relevant studies of high growth related to strategy, and two original studies examining the impact of dynamic strategy on high growth. A theoretical framework for the study of dynamic strategy processes is developed. The study comprehends eight interviews divided over five high growth firms, where high growth is defined by the OECD (2008) standard. Findings – In the study, the researchers finds significant evidence for the active and deliberate use of dynamic strategy in the high growth firms of the study. The implication of strategic learning on the dynamic strategies is found to be substantial. The findings shows that dynamic strategy development are used to a large extent and considered vital for achieving growth within in the high growth firms of the study. Research/theoretical implications/limitations – The findings demonstrate that dynamic strategy development is actively used in high growth phases of the firms studied. This has implications on the extension of previous research, as it shows the actual use of dynamic strategy and further emphasizes the importance of strategic learning within this process. With the important limitation that the study is considered too small to generalize over a larger population, which implies that further research on the subject is needed. Managerial implications – The findings provide guidelines for managers of how to handle strategy development in high growth, however due to the previous limitation this is presented as the way the high growth firms within this study handles this development. The guidelines could be used by anyone in managerial positions, thus increasing the understanding of how high growth firms handle strategy.

A production strategy enables companies to effectively manage the different challenges that the production function face in a competitive environment. A production strategy helps a company to make operational and strategic decisions that follow a logical pattern and supports the corporate strategy and the competitive priorities of the company. When no strategy exists the decisions may be arbitrary and unpredictable leading to an under-achieving production system. Production strategy involves decisions that shape the long term capabilities of a producing company. For the traditional production industry there are a number of production strategy frameworks that facilitates the process of designing production systems. However, these frameworks typically leave project based production out of the scope or treat project based production as one type of production system, when in fact project based production systems can be multifaceted depending on product design and market requirements. This thesis focus on project based manufacturing in a house-building context. Houses can be produced by different types of production systems, and depending on how the production systems are designed they have strengths and weaknesses in different areas of competition. To be able to meet the increasing demand for residential houses, and improve performance in the house-building industry, the way houses are produced have to match different market requirements in a more effective and efficient way. To do this a production strategy has to exist. Typically there is a trade-off between productivity and flexibility, hence a production system designed to meet customer requirements concerning product design is probably not the best process choice if the customer thinks price and delivery time are the most important. A production strategy helps a company to make decisions so that the output of the production system meets customer requirements in the best possible way. Due to the fact that project based production is typically left out of the scope in traditional production strategy literature and that there is a lack of research concerning production strategy in a house-building context, the purpose of this research is: … to extend the production strategy body of knowledge concerning project based production in a house-building context. To fulfil the purpose the following four research questions are studied and answered: RQ1: What aspects can be useful in a classification matrix contrasting different production systems for house-building? RQ2: Which competitive priorities are important to measure when evaluating different production systems on a production strategy level in a house-building context, and how can they quantitatively be measured? RQ3: How does the characteristics of the production system, i.e. the process choice, affect information exchange in a house-building context? RQ4: How can a new production strategy be formulated and implemented in an industrialised house-building context and what challenges are important to consider in that process? To answer RQ1 a classification matrix was developed that classify production systems along two dimensions: a product dimension (degree of product standardisation) and a process dimension (degree of off-site assembly). The two dimensions are related, for example a high degree of standardisation should be matched with a high degree of off-site assembly and consequently a low degree of product standardisation should be matched with a low degree of off-suite assembly. A mismatch, e.g. high degree of off-site assembly and low degree of standardisation, typically leads to poor performance and should hence be avoided. To be able to see how different types of production systems perform in different areas of competition key performance indicators (KPIs) were developed. The KPIs presented in this research can be used to measure quality, delivery (speed and dependability), cost (level and dependability), and flexibility (volume and mix) at a production strategic level (RQ2). Furthermore, to answer RQ3, a production strategy perspective was taken on information exchange by relating information exchange to the design of the production system. The results indicate that employing different types of production systems leads to different approaches to information exchange. Employing a production systems using traditional production methods on-site and a low degree of product standardisation lead to a traditional approach to information exchange, e.g. project meetings, telephone and mail. Production systems employing some degree of off-site assembly have less complex and more stable supply chains and use ICT-solutions to a higher extent, which facilitates information exchange. The findings also indicate that a high degree of product standardisation facilitates the use of ICT-solutions such as ERP and BIM. RQ4 concerns the production strategy process, i.e. formulation and implementation. Failure in this processes can jeopardise the whole business. Based on a longitudinal case study of an industrialised house-builder a suggested production strategy process was developed, including both production strategy formulation and implementation. The study also identified context specific challenges that have to be considered in an industrialised house-building context, e.g. the complexity that comes with using two different production processes (off-site and on-site) in the same production system. The research is case based and a total number of eight different production systems have been studied. Data has been collected through interviews, observations, and review of company documents.

In this dissertation, more efficient and effective methodologies of formulating and implementing strategy are elaborated, relying on the foundations of procedural justice theory, which states that when a decision-making process is considered “fair”, people to whom the process is applied demonstrate higher levels of trust and commitment. / Doctorat en Sciences économiques et de gestion / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

This thesis is focused on mapping control processes in a state-funded institution. In the theoretical part, concepts related to the issues of cities and state-funded institution are explained. Smart Administration strategy is discussed as well as principles of processes, process management and modeling necessary for understanding the practical part of this thesis. The practical part contains research on the state of process management in cities with 5000 to 20000 citizens in relation to state-funded institution. It was discovered that surveyed cities are not very interested in the topic and lack process management completely in most cases, despite the possibility of EU subsidies for these projects. Based on the survey, a process map was created from which certain processes were selected, described and modeled. This blue-print should help employees of municipalities to orientate in performed processes and make them more efficient. ATTIS software, developed by ATTN Consulting, s.r.o., was used for modeling processes in this thesis

This Master’s thesis focuses on establishing a corporate information strategy.