In a previous post I dealt with the first out of six questions we need to answer to begin to create a lean learning strategy. The first question was - What strategic objectives does your organisation need to achieve? Below is the link to the previous post:
The company story of Complete Compliance, a fictional private business was used to answer the question. In this post I will deal with the second question which is - What actions will your organisation need to take in order to achieve the strategic objectives? Previously, Tim (Learning and Development manager at Complete Compliance) found out that the company has three key strategic objectives for the next 12 months. They are:
To establish a presence in Africa within the next 12 months. The company is looking at setting up offices in Nigeria and South Africa because of the size of their financial markets.
Within the next six months the company wants to rebuild its various online compliance solutions platforms into one single platform where customers can access all it’s services and solutions.
To expand and increase their sales pipeline within the next six months. By this they mean they want to increase the proportion of sales generated by each account manager. They also want to expand the size of the sales team.
Since Tim now knows what the company wants to achieve within the next 12 months, to answer the second strategy question, he needs to find out what actions the company is already taking and will need to take to achieve each of the strategic objectives. To do this Tim and his team speak to the senior managers and divisional heads in the company asking questions such as:
What are you already doing to achieve these objectives?
What are you planning to do to achieve these objectives?
Who/what team team is going to do what?
Tim also reads through the organisation’s strategic and operational plans. Tim and his team identify some of the actions that must be taken.
Actions for the first objective include:
Find financial partners in Nigeria and South Africa.
Set up a small team of no more than three people in each country who can begin to set up the offices.
Learn about how financial regulation and compliance works in these countries.
Also learn about the different countries business culture.
Actions for the second objective include:
Design a prototype of what the new platform will look like.
Decide which technologies are most appropriate to rebuild the platform.
Ensure the technology team have the right skills and knowledge to build the platform and where necessary recruit the right staff.
Communicate appropriately and consistently with customers about the changes happening to the platform.
Actions for the third question include:
Make sure the sales team is competent around product knowledge and solution selling.
Set up appropriate performance management and reward strategies to motivate sales staff.
Recruit new account managers.
Now that Tim and his team know the key actions necessary to achieve the strategic objectives, their next task is to identify what organisational capabilities are necessary for the business to be able to take all these actions successfully. This will be the answer to the third learning strategy question.
