The New Functional Agenda
What should corporate functions do? Until recently, the answer was relatively straightforward. Functions existed to develop the expertise to carry out the many specialized tasks that every corporation needs, in marketing, human resources management, IT, and so on. Over the past several years, however, CEOs, business unit leaders, and functional leaders themselves have been raising expectations: How can functions play a more strategic role? How can they deliver more value to the organization at large? How can they earn "a seat at the table"?
These rising demands provide functional leaders and staff with a golden opportunity. Instead of striving to be "best in class" in everything they do, they can become "fit for purpose" by focusing on activities that are strategically important to the enterprise and that help drive its distinctive value proposition.
The new functional agenda can help functions take on this more strategic role while still fulfilling their day-to-day transactional and expertise tasks. It is made up of three interconnected elements:
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establishing priorities in line with the company’s overall strategy and its differentiating capabilities
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aligning the operating model to deliver value in line with those critical priorities
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allocating resources accordingly.
For functional leaders, this new agenda requires real understanding of the company’s strategy, deep comprehension of functional capabilities and the ability to match them to the strategy, and an even higher level of interpersonal skill to work across the organization. This approach can be a primary source of success not just for the function, but for the enterprise as a whole.
Key Publications
The New Functional Agenda: How Corporate Functions Can Add Value in a New Strategic Era
by Deniz Caglar, Namit Kapoor, and Thomas Ripsam
There is a golden opportunity today for the leaders of HR, IT, finance, operations, R&D, marketing, sales, sourcing, and other corporate functions and shared services. With routine tasks shrinking and the need for capabilities ascending, functions can become “fit for purpose”: changing their portfolio of activities to focus primarily on those that are strategically important to the enterprise as a whole.read more > |
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The Capable Supply Chain: Linked with Strategy for Superior Performance
by Richard Kauffeld, Curt Mueller, and Adam Michaels
Booz & Company has developed a profiler that lets companies test the coherence of their supply chain capabilities against their defined "way to play" to ensure sufficient alignment for premium returns. And when alignment is lacking, the profiler provides customized recommendations for improvement.read more > |
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The New IT Agenda: How to Define and Deliver a Capabilities-Driven Approach
by Peter Burns, David Hovenden, Mark Johnson, and Socrates Vossos
As they seek to develop a strategic role in today’s organizations, chief information officers and chief technology officers have a choice: to try to fulfill all the demands placed on them while spending less and less money, or to focus on being “fit for purpose”—providing the capabilities their company needs most, in line with its most essential ways of creating value. This Perspective lays out a three-step process that can help IT leaders become critical partners to the rest of the enterprise in building capabilities, while making the most of the information and communications technology (ICT) products and services available to them.read more > |
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Further publications
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