The typical delay in strategy execution costs companies at least one year, and 90% of strategies fail in the execution stage, says Senior Advisor Juhani Elomaa. “Companies instinctively know that time is money, but no one calculates exactly what it costs to delay by a year.”

In the past years, powerful megatrends have started to impact our daily life. Climate change, the environmental impact of plastic usage and new energy sources are well known topics for all of us. For large corporations, these forces create major opportunities but also major threats. Opportunities, because those making the change fast enough will be on the winning side. And threats because whoever cannot change fast enough will soon be left behind. The race against time is on. A gold rush for some, Titanic for others. 

After 20 years in international executive positions, I have now spent 2 years supporting different businesses succeed in their strategy execution. Here briefly some of my learnings and observations.

Trailmaker has been cooperating with private equity for years and noticed that every private equity company occasionally struggles with a slow-progress case. Private equity investors are running their entry process systematically and professionally. Best available information and experts are being used. Despite this, some cases become slow-movers. Before the execution starts, it is hard to tell which one. A risk of delay lies in every case.

PE investors have some 4-6 years to form and execute all decided growth and development plans for value creation. The difference between good and mediocre investment can simply be a result of fast execution of planned strategic changes. Slow execution will postpone value creation or, in the worst case, stop it. In most cases with slow execution, the holding period for a particular investment will be prolonged. This will negatively affect the investor return.