Businesses struggling to meet growth goals amidst execution and talent challenges

Two thirds of businesses manage to achieve more than half of their business goals within three years. However, less than a fifth manage to complete more than 80% of their aims, something which Strategy Management Partners suggests shows a significant gap between the aspirations of companies, and their actual abilities.

In recent years, a number of major issues have rapidly risen to the top of the corporate agenda. From sustainability, to digitalisation, diversity and – most recently – artificial intelligence, every company under the sun is determined to show they are ahead of the curve, by trying to one-up their competitors with ever-more ambitious targets.

However, a mounting body of evidence shows that the commitments of firms to actual change rarely match their grand promises. While the majority of consulting firms have previously pledged to adopt AI into almost every facet of their industry, for example, regular use of the technology remains the exception, rather than the rule. Similarly, for all the fine promises on the advancement of gender parity in the workplace, or of decarbonising their supply chains, the majority of businesses are not even close to walking the talk.

In that context, it may not come as a surprise that the majority of companies presently do not meet all of their goals for aspirational growth, either. In fact, according to research from Strategy Management Partners, only 18.4% of businesses achieve more than 80% of their aspirational growth goals within three years of setting them. 

Further underlining the stark contrast between the growth aspirations of these companies and their ability to execute effectively, 41.2% of companies fail to achieve 60% or more of their stated targets in this timeframe, indicating a widespread struggle with consistent execution. As with so many other areas of business, then, companies are over-promising when it comes to growth.

Following this discovery, though, the researchers probed further, to unearth the reasons why so many company goals fall by the wayside – and what they might do differently, to more regularly meet their own targets. Most often, it turns out, firms were struggling to fill out their capacity, in a way that could make their targets achievable. Citing a labour market in which there was “skill shortages”, 50.4% identified talent and capability gaps as the primary barrier to effective strategy delivery.

According to Strategy Management Partners, these gaps reflect a shortage of the right skills, insufficient capacity, lack of empowerment to execute the strategy effectively, and incentives not aligned to strategic priorities. At the same time, when firms did have the right human resources at their disposal, many struggled to integrate them into their organisations, in a way that would make best use of them. Poor integration between strategy and operations inevitably creates a disconnect that hinders the achievement of aspirational goals, regardless of the effort invested – and was the second most often cited barrier to achieving growth goals.

This disjointed outlook might also have spread to companies struggling to innovate. The study also found that despite widespread ambition, only 23.6% of large UK companies are embracing a truly innovative and disruptive mindset, while 61.2% were found to only pursue innovation incrementally, or when necessary, rather than proactively.

Commenting on the results of the survey, Muibat Ijaiya, partner at Strategy Management Partners said, “Overall, this research provides valuable insights into what UK enterprise leaders are experiencing in terms of executing growth strategies in a globally connected world.  As businesses navigate this complex environment, a sharper focus on execution readiness, talent development, and data-driven performance monitoring will be essential to bridging the gap between ambition and achievement.”