Andrey Bogdanov, Bercut CEO, shared his forecast of what the strategic planning would be after the coronavirus crisis and revealed how Bercut switched to the “business version” of the strategic plan.

The world has become more turbulent, where anyone with a new idea can bring it to life before you can say “Start”. This presented leaders of organizations with a challenging task, as a previously reliable traditional approach to strategic planning is based on assumptions that no longer hold true. We had to look for other formats, combine them.

In the new conditions of 2020, here at Bercut we abandoned the idea of working out a classic large long-term strategy in favor of a generalized business vision and several roadmaps that we draw up on a by division basis. At that, we have increased the frequency of revising these documents, including the business vision — now we do it once a quarter. This approach enables us to keep the implementation of our business models and their relevance under control. This is our working combination.

We clearly understand that the current approach is transitional, and we are developing strategic management in two directions.

First, a deep understanding of new management paradigms and the creation of new management tools. The main developments lie in the implementation of principles of self-organization, organizational identity, in the informality encouragement, the development of horizontal communication.  We pay special attention to the implementation of structures based on a modular (command) principle, instead of classical hierarchical layouts. A fait accompli: this year one level of hierarchical management was removed.

Second, redefining the role of the leader. The new leader is not the only decision-maker who defines the path and champions discipline. The new leader needs to be seen as a social architect, a savvy entrepreneur who creates an environment of opportunity and prosperity. Now this has become especially obvious. Here is a specific example. Today, about 30% of the Bercut goal map consists of goals related to the remodeling of the company's work, and not to specific business indicators.

All this in order to provide a more flexible response to the outside world, faster decision-making due to the transfer of authority to teams, in order to reduce the cost of reconfiguring the company under changing conditions.

We do not abandon the well-established principles of strategic management. Its main tools — industry, resource and opportunity analyses — are still relevant and reliable. Strategic analysis and planning needs to be adapted and developed to meet new circumstances. You need to be prepared for more frequent checks of the development direction and its correction as new information becomes available. 

Plans are nothing; planning is everything
Dwight D. Eisenhower