Mind The Middle

Strategy execution is not just the preserve of the top management.

- Vipul Singh

XYZ Corp sells internal bookkeeping software to Fortune 500 organisations across the globe. It has been extremely successful for the past 20 years given the functionality of its offering and also the ease with which the companies can adopt it. However, with the dynamic changes in the business world, requirements are changing by the day and are becoming even more complex. The senior leadership team of XYZ Corp decides that it needs to focus on two major areas—innovation and customer experience. With startups eating into a huge market share of the organisation, it is critical for it to start making significant progress in these areas.

Innovation is going to keep the organisation ahead of the competition with respect to the product, while customer experience will enable greater client retention. To ensure that the strategy is properly executed, XYZ Corp needs to be aware of the three important layers of employees—front line, middle level, and senior management.

It is extremely critical organisations cater to all the broad categories of employees. However, many tend to focus more on the first and senior levels because of the nature of visible impact created by these groups. There are always indepth engagement plans outlined for the first level since they work on executing the core requirements. The strategy makers/top-level employees are also quite engaged to ensure that the organisation progresses meaningfully. However, the middle management typically is expected to shoulder the responsibility of being the liaison, without too many support structures.