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  1. Don Shapiro
    June 3, 2015 @ 12:38 pm

    To all graduate students whether in a master’s or Ph. D program…

    I am now offering my professional advice and support to assist you with the research and writing of your thesis. After over 45 years in business management and 30 years as a consultant on strategy, structure, vision and leadership, I have found helping you with your thesis a very rewarding way for me to prepare the managers and executives of the future. With my background in research, business management and writing, I have discovered I can assist those of you writing a thesis in all aspects of your research study, analysis and how the thesis is written.

    I have a special fee structure for students that is affordable for those of you who truly want to be the best…to excel above the rest of your class and excel in the business world. If you are interested, please contact me using the contact page on this website.

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  2. Don Shapiro
    August 8, 2016 @ 2:51 pm

    If you want to better understand the connection between strategy and structure, please read all 4 of my articles that address “alignment.” Alignment is about how the structure aligns with the strategy and how you improve that alignment. Another term used to talk about this is execution. To execute a strategy, the organization must be aligned with that strategy. Full alignment has been shown in research of actual organizations to produce superior results.

    The problem with most organizations is not coming up with the best strategies. It’s how to implement those strategies so they actually produce the desired results.

    https://www.firstconcepts.com/category/insights-into-success/alignment/

    Don

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  3. Structuring a Sales Team of Any Size
    August 9, 2016 @ 7:30 am

    […] structure does not simply imply the outside framework or hierarchy; structure is how the whole sales team fits together and works together to avail the best possible results for […]

    Reply

    • Don Shapiro
      August 9, 2016 @ 9:36 am

      Excellent article about applying the concepts of alignment and structure to a sales force and how to build a sales team that supports your organization’s strategy. The sales team doesn’t simply need to be well structured internally in how it operates. The structure of that sales team must support the organizations strategy and go to market approach. You can have the best group of sales professional on earth but they won’t deliver the goods if they are not structured in a way that supports the markets you are going after, what you sell and how you are positioned relative to your competitors.

      Reply

  4. Align Strategy, Structure and People for Breakthrough Results
    October 19, 2017 @ 9:34 pm

    […] led to one of Don’s best known discoveries on “Strategy follows structure, structure supports strategy.” You have to align your strategy, structure and people together so they are all on one page […]

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  5. mihret
    November 1, 2017 @ 11:31 pm

    dear Don Shapiro,
    greetings,
    how structure would affect the implementation process of the marketing strategy?

    regards
    mihret?

    Reply

    • Don Shapiro
      November 17, 2017 @ 3:08 pm

      Hi Mihret,

      What don’t you tell me your thoughts about how structure affects implementation of marketing strategy. Then I will share my perspective based on what you’ve written. I’m interested in what you may have learned from reading this article and the comments. Let’s see how sharp you are!

      Reply

  6. olaoluwa
    November 15, 2018 @ 3:44 am

    I love strategy!

    Reply

  7. Alor Ekenedilichukwu
    March 6, 2020 @ 12:37 am

    DISCUSS A CASE ANALYSIS SUPPORTING HOW STRATEGY FOLLOWS STRUCTURE AND LEND CREDENCE TO CLAIMS.
    ( 2 ORGANISATIONS) this was given to us to discuss as a presentation I really can’t find a case analysis that supports this

    Reply

    • Don Shapiro
      March 6, 2020 @ 2:42 pm

      Hi Alor,

      Ahhh, you’re having trouble because you’ve taken the words used in the professor’s assignment too literally. No, you are not going to find something already put together for you that says here is a “case study” about “strategy and structure.” You have to think about what strategy and structure are all about to understand what this deals with. You also have to come up with search terms that will get you what you want. If your search terms aren’t delivering a result, you have to learn more so you can use new search terms.

      What does the connection of strategy and structure deal with? It deals with how well or poorly organizations produce results through the way they have their organizations configured. Remember, structure is not just about an organization chart. It is about the people who work in that organization chart and what affects them. So culture, leadership and communications are a part of structure. It is also about the systems and processes employees use to get things done. Literally everything that happens inside of an organization is all a part of the structure that determines if it can implement its strategies.

      I’ve had to spend hundreds of hours to figure out how to find both research studies and examples that illustrate the connection between strategy and structure. Here are terms that can help you find what you’re looking for:
      alignment or strategic alignment and implementation or strategy implementation or strategy execution. You could read several journal articles on these terms. Some of them have examples or have references that have examples.

      The connection between strategy and structure is called alignment or misalignment. Professional practitioners such as myself refer to ourselves as experts in the field of alignment or strategic alignment. And what is the purpose of alignment? It’s to implement strategy. The most brilliant strategies don’t mean anything unless you can execute them. Over 60% of strategies fail to achieve their goals or fail entirely because of poor implementation. And poor implementation is almost always due to poor alignment between strategy and structure.

      You won’t find organization examples shown as a “case study” most of the time. These are simply examples of organizations. And often, it might not be one written piece though it could it some cases. Sometimes you have to piece together several articles in business publications like the Wall Street Journal, Fortune, Forbes, Inc. and many more to figure out an example. Some authors who are alignment consultants have their own examples.

      If I was to recommend one book to read that includes examples it would be “The Power of Alignment” by Labovitz and Rosanky. They are professors who also have a consulting firm and are considered one of the founders of the concept of alignment. There other book “Rapid Realigment” is also very good.

      But actual examples can be found by looking at businesses who faced a major problem hurting performance and successfully addressed it. If you stay on top of the business press and what is going on with companies over many years, you would be able to pick some of these out. Here’s one example I’ll give you a hint about. That would be how Walmart got its lunch eaten by Amazon and finally after many missteps found a way to effectively compete on-line and use their brick and mortar stores to give them an advantage Amazon couldn’t quickly counter. Probably have to read twenty articles to piece that example together but its there and its all about major changes to their structure. They struggled to figure out how to realign their structure to implement a strategy that would counter Amazon and finally found it.

      Yes, you will need to do some serious reading and work to find the answer to this question. Hope this helps.

      Reply

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