Long-term planning is one of the challenging responsibilities leaders face.
Not due to a lack of ambition or a lack of intelligence, but because strategy often isn’t built to generate successful execution.
In fact, research suggests that 60–90% of strategic plans are never fully launched. That’s not a strategy problem. It’s an integration and execution problem.
Here’s why it happens (and how to fix it).
Most organizations don’t fail at creating strategy decks. They struggle with what happens after the deck is approved. This feels more relevant than ever as AI promises transformation in the boardroom yet continues to fall short of delivering real impact at the organizational level.
Three common patterns show up repeatedly:
1. Tactical Leadership Focus
Senior teams are pulled into quarterly targets, operational fires, and immediate performance pressures. Long-term strategy becomes something discussed annually, not owned consistently.
2. Siloed Planning Processes
Functions plan independently. Marketing builds a roadmap. Product builds another. Finance validates numbers later. The result? Competing priorities and hidden dependencies.
3. Disconnect from Day-to-Day Execution
The strategy sounds bold in the boardroom but feels distant to the teams responsible for delivery. There’s no clear bridge to KPIs, budgets, operating rhythms, or governance.
The outcome is predictable:
Multi-year investments stall.
Transformational ideas get diluted.
Teams lose confidence in “the plan.”
Many planning approaches emphasize vision and aspiration. Fewer emphasize integration and validation.
Strong strategy requires more than inspiration. It requires:
Without these, even the strongest ideas struggle to move from concept to action.
Strong strategy is not just aspirational. It is actionable.
Effective long-term planning must be:
Pragmatic
Grounded in financial assumptions, market dynamics, and operational constraints, not just wishful thinking.
Integrated
Built cross-functionally from the start, with clear dependencies and shared ownership, not handed off between silos.
Transformational
Focused on the 2-3 year moves that materially shift competitive position, not incremental improvements disguised as strategy.
When these elements are present, strategy moves from aspiration to alignment.
Over the course of our extensive experience consulting clients on their strategies, we’ve seen that successful long-term strategies share four characteristics:
Leadership aspirations serve as the north star.
Strategy begins with a clear articulation of where the organization intends to be in the next 2-3 years. It needs to communicate why that matters.
Financial validation replaces optimism.
Assumptions are tested through modeling, scenario planning, and data. Strategies are not left to belief.
Operational leaders are owners, not recipients.
The teams responsible for execution are engaged early and accountable for outcomes.
Strategy is embedded into operating rhythms.
Plans cascade into KPIs, OKRs, budgets, and governance discussions, creating visibility and accountability.
This is where many strategic plans break down. Not in vision, but in follow-through.
To address these challenges, we developed PLAN-IT: a practical, adaptable framework for building and operationalizing long-term strategies across business units, products, and programs.
The PLAN-It Framework:
P — Perspective
Align on vision, competitive advantage, KPIs, and core strategic challenges.
L — Levers
Define the 3–5 strategic levers that create the most value, including objectives, KPIs, dependencies, and initiatives.
A — Analysis
Validate direction through market insights, SWOT analysis, financial modeling, and scenario planning.
N — Narrative
Build a clear blueprint: roadmap, risks, milestones, and priorities.
I — Integration
Cascade strategy into OKRs, annual plans, budgets, and governance forums.
T — Transition
Embed the process into planning rhythms and build long-term strategic capability.
What makes PLAN-IT different is not just the structure, but the discipline behind it: cross-functional ownership, scenario-based validation, and a clear bridge from strategy to operating reality. It is built for businesses, products, and programs that need more than a presentation deck.
Strategy isn’t a document. It’s a system.
When done well, long-term planning delivers:
And most importantly: sustained momentum. Because strategy only creates value when it is acted on.
In our next post, we’ll break down the PLAN-IT methodology in detail and show how each phase builds toward a strategy designed for real-world execution.
If your organization is rethinking its long-term direction, now is the time to ensure your strategy isn’t just ambitious, but operational.