Only 1 In 5 CEOs Report Satisfaction With Their Strategies In 2020, According to Study by (X)

COVID-19 made 2020 the year of the strategy pivot, and independent San Diego State University survey research commissioned by (X) shows how enterprise leaders are evaluating their pivots and providing lessons for improved strategy performance in 2021.

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Data collected from more than 100 U.S. CEOs and other corner suite leaders from a cross-section of industries showed how they feel about their enterprise strategy execution:

• Only 22% of C-level executives felt their enterprises were doing a good job with their strategic initiatives.
• The majority (66%) said that the biggest obstacle to successful strategy execution was a lack of employee engagement, even though 79% said that employee engagement was a big driver of their internal communication program.
• More than half reported that strong communication strategies played a role in their enterprise’s success in 2020. However, 39% reported their internal communication was also strained by COVID-19.
• The degree to which strong communication helped enterprises succeed in 2020 correlated significantly with whether an enterprise used consultants: 68% of CEOs who reported using consultants attributed strong communication to their success compared to 50% who don’t use consultants.

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“Strategy is crafted by few and implemented by many. Getting and keeping employees more engaged through supporting communication could go a long way in helping the 78% of CEOs who aren’t feeling good about their strategic initiatives,” said (W)right On Communications’ CEO Grant Wright. “This is why we partnered with Excelerate to create (X), a solution to help organizations wring more shareholder ROI out of their initiatives. Senior leaders know strategy implementation and internal and external communication need to be tightly linked, but our research also revealed some gaps, fragmentation and resource issues, with COVID-19 also creating a strain.”

The survey was conducted by the Broom Center at San Diego State University’s School of Journalism and Media Studies and sponsored by (X), an enterprise strategy execution and communication consultancy formed by partners (W)right On Communications and Excelerate.

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