The Chamber organised the first of two breakfast sessions with a panel of business leaders to discuss the topic of strategy execution on 3 October.

The panel comprised of:

• Jonathan Asherson, Chairman, Rolls-Royce Singapore Pte Ltd
• Dennis Cheong, Vice President – Lubricants, Supply Chain, Shell Eastern Trading (Pte) Ltd
• Gerard Toh, Partner, Assurance and Business Advisory Services, KPMG in Singapore
• Darren Harrison, Co-Founder, Bizzi

Their hour-long discussion was moderated by Prof. Richard Smith, Professor of Strategic Management (Practice) at Singapore Management University.

Key learning points that participants took away from this session include:

• Long-term strategy plans need to be complemented by short-term agility in order to adapt to the changing business environment. (Some companies adopt scenario planning, a strategic planning method to make flexible long-term plans.)
• Strategies need to be implementable – in terms of scope and time frame – and understandable – in terms of creating a common language that all team members comprehend.
• A successful strategy execution requires having the right talent, effective communication and a conducive culture that facilitates working across silos to deliver the strategy.
• A continual refresh of the strategy is necessary for leaders to re-look scenarios and be nimble in making choices along the way.

Many thanks to our panel and moderator for sharing their insights on strategy execution. The next session takes place on 1 December and more details will be available on our website soon.