ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at getting stuff done. The world is generally no longer very impressed with people who have great ideas and great plans that never come to anything, particularly in a tough post-recession world. Part of the challenge of marketled strategic change is actually changing things. The last word of the title was not included accidentally. However, changing things in organizations and making strategies happen is not always straightforward. In fact, those who have tried it will tell you it is never straightforward. Most approaches to strategy tend to emphasize wonderful and detailed analysis of trivia, splendidly written and produced plans – three-colour graphics, desktop published, leather covers – and fantastic PowerPoint presentations. This is all wonderful (well, actually it’s not, but never mind that), but the issue is making things happen as a result. We take a two-stage approach here: fi rst, we will open up the whole area of strategy implementation and put a handle on the types of problem we should anticipate and how to build an implementation strategy to deal with them; and, second, we will look at strategic internal marketing as a way of packaging our implementation strategy to make it acceptable to the company. The structure of the chapter is summarized in Figure 13.1.
