The Importance of Specialized Knowledge in Strategy

Strategy is essential to an organization’s success, yet more than half of all strategies fail to be executed or achieve their intended outcomes. Why is this the case? Common pitfalls include misaligned leadership, lack of stakeholder buy-in, lack of clarity and unrealistic objectives, resistance to change, ineffective resource allocation and risk management, and failure to turn strategy to action.

Today’s organizations face fast-changing trends, shifting stakeholder expectations, evolving technology, and economic uncertainties. This raises a timely question: are 5-year strategies still realistic? While it’s valuable to plan, strategy cannot be static. Continuous revisions are essential to ensure the assumptions behind your plan still hold true and to adapt when necessary.  

So how can organizations stay ahead through a well-defined and forward-thinking strategy? For us, the answer includes: bring in the right expertise. That means working with highly specialized individuals who not only understand the industry – they’re helping shape its future through cutting-edge research and innovation (better yet, they’re shaping those innovations through their research and inventions). Take a mental health organization, for example. Service providers in this space gain far more by engaging researchers and practitioners on the frontlines than by relying solely on published studies for informing their service and product pipelines.With the increasing need of timely and well-informed decision-making, a traditional review of the literature by non-industry specialists - which may reflect research published months or even years after submission - often lags behind current realities which has strategic implications.

A compelling example of the importance of expertise in shaping decisions and strategies is the rapid formation of advisory scientific committees across the globe to address the COVID-19 pandemic. Rather than waiting for published studies, they drew on the direct expertise of researchers, clinicians, and policymakers who were actively delivering and evaluating health care during the crisis. This enabled timely strategy shifts, more relevant service models, and a stronger foundation for long-term system resilience. While much of the academic literature on digital health tools was still in the publication pipeline, leading organizations turned to researchers and clinicians who were actively studying and delivering virtual care in real time. This collaboration allowed for rapid strategy shifts, adoption of best-fit technologies, and tailored supports – long before the evidence showed up in journals.

A study by Buenstorf & Heinisch highlighted that firms hire PhD-level researchers to either exploit its existing technology base to improve its products and processes or explore new technologies altogether. This denotes the notion of hiring for "exploitation" versus "exploration" with the latter requiring a researcher with a knowledge base which is substantially different than that of the firm's. The authors suggest that working with PhD researchers allowed organizations to tap into tacit knowledge which is highly relevant but is difficult to verbalize, "especially when incentives are missing, or when it is simply not known what must be verbalized". Whether it be exploiting existing products and processes to improve them or exploring new technologies for commercialization, each will have implications on the organization's strategy and operations.

It seems that whenever a major global issue occurs, public and private sector players are quick to tap into scientific knowledge. In recent years and in light of firms' - irrespective of size - need to advance their product offerings through scientific advances, we foresee the inclusion of researchers in decision-making and strategy even in non-emergency situations.

We have seen the most successful strategic plans come from teams that include not just strategists and internal staff, but also clients, community partners, people with lived experience – and crucially, researchers and specialists who deeply understand the field. These are the insights that help organizations lead rather than follow. This is what sets visionary companies from those that continuously play catch-up.

Stephanie Hanna & Brittany Barber