Strategic audits: Health check every strategy needs

WHEN we fall ill, symptoms like fever or fatigue warn us that something is wrong.

- By M. Dimuthu Suranjana

Organisations too face symptoms when their strategy is not working — declining performance, disengaged employees, or dissatisfied customers. But unlike the human body, strategy rarely sends obvious signals until it is too late. Traditionally, businesses rely on annual or midyear reviews. The question is: are these enough?

In today’s volatile environment, the answer is a clear no. A far more powerful tool exists: the strategic audit. Just as medical checkups prevent illnesses from becoming critical, strategic audits diagnose weaknesses, test assumptions, and keep strategies relevant.

What is strategy?

Before diving into strategic audits, we must first revisit strategy itself. Strategy has been defined in many ways:

The long-term direction of an organisation.

A course of actions designed to achieve specific objectives.

Johnson, Scholes, and Whittington describe it as “the direction and scope of an organisation over the long term which achieves advantage through its configuration of resources within a changing environment to meet market needs and fulfil stakeholder expectations.”

At its core, strategy links vision, mission, values, and goals with actions that provide competitive advantage. The strategic plan is the blueprint, but a plan is only as strong as its execution and its relevance in a changing environment.

What is a strategic audit?