Is the Chief Strategy Officer Necessary?

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  Restrell05/26/08 Report as spam
  1

  Not always

  Strategy is always needed. A CSO isn?t. This depends on business size, complexity and style of direction from the Chairman/CEO.

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  Michael Fitzgerald05/27/08 Report as spam
  2

  re: not always

  Thanks for your comment. I agree that every company needs a strategy.
  
  Michael

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  ed_koval@...05/28/08 Report as spam
  3

  RE: Is the Chief Strategy Officer Necessary?

  In my experience, two forces drive the need for strategy coordination:
  1) the strong pull of tactical demands on C-level business managers unintentionally relegates strategy to either a 'we'll get to it' topic or an unchallenging rehash of what has always been done.
  2) lack of alignment issues as decision makers think they are on the same page re' strategy but in fact have widely disprate views.
  
  This does not necessarily need to be a C-level position, but it is necessary.
  
  ejko

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  Michael Fitzgerald05/28/08 Report as spam
  4

  re: necessary

  Thanks for your comment. this is the sort of thing I wanted to hear from readers -- you're saying that strategy is not something executives pay much mind to, or if they do, it may not be in the way the CEO would like. So the strategy officer is a kind of mentor, in a sense.
  
  Michael

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  amy stevens06/11/08 Report as spam
  5

  RE: Is the Chief Strategy Officer Necessary?

  Using my industry (healthcare) as an example -- here's how we divvy up executive functions:
  CEO - champion of vision (where are we trying to go? And who should we be making the trip with?)
  CSO - champion of change execution (how do we get there? Did everyone get the directions to our destination? Are we on course?)
  COO - master of today (In charge of each leg of the journey, and the day-by-day progress)
  CFO - guardian of viability (we may be busy, we may be headed somewhere important, but are we making enough car fare to get us there?...and hopefully a little more!)
  CNO (Chief Nursing Officer) - core competency expert (for our industry, it's the provision of excellent clinical care -- are we delivering what our customers are buying or what they need?)
  
  Without the CSO, we were focused on today's imperatives and held hopeful aspirations about the future. CSO's connect the two horizons --
  
  Stevens

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  Michael Fitzgerald06/17/08 Report as spam
  6

  re: healthcare

  So the chief strategy officer becomes a kind of bridge between the vision and
  the execution, riding herd on the vision set by the CSO.
  
  That's a useful tidbit. Thanks
  
  Michael