Strategy in 2025: Building for Doing
From conceptual frameworks to operating systems that put strategy to work.
“Strategy is becoming.” I don’t agree with everything Seth Godin says—he’s a bit too mainstream and not enough depth for me personally—, but this deserves a motivational poster.
There’s no denying it: Strategy is hot right now—has been for the past year or so. And Seth Godin’s pivot from marketing guru to the more upstream field of strategy is just one of many signals pointing that out.
Second signal is the number of experienced strategists venturing out on their own or little strategy boutique studios popping up. Having taken this step myself a few years ago, I am fascinated by the diversity that the field of strategy offers. Most of these experts honed their skills in consumer marketing or advertising, specializing in creative strategy or campaigns or social media-heavy activation. But a few bring a different mix altogether, priming them to become invaluable business contributors, which I’ll elaborate below. But first, let’s set the stage.
Strategy Renaissance
Upstream strategy work and downstream tactical marketing, product, sales etc. usually work in cycles; deep strategy-intensive periods usually give way to very tactically-oriented cycles. At least this has been true as long as markets, technologies, consumer preferences and business could be anticipated on a year-to-year scale. In other words, conventional strategic planning as is largely still practiced today.
By late 2019 and with the pandemic reality check, companies needed to act fast. For the majority of businesses, strategy became largely subordinate to short-term marketing tactics. The methodical practice of deep strategic thinking had to concede to campaigns geared at maximizing quarterly profits and increasing shareholder value to make it through the next quarter. And what was termed strategy often didn't go beyond annual planning cycles.
Today, it seems we have entered a new era of business consciousness—and demand for longer-term thinking is increasing again. Growth only for profit is being put into question. The pandemic may have been an important inflection point, triggering an “is that all there is?” moment of critical reflection for workers everywhere. The term “business un-usual” refers to this shift in mindset, as well as the increasing unplan-able nature of business today.
This calls for new ways of thinking about and implementing strategy. Concepts like Sustainable Growth and ESG, and certifications like B Corps have emerged. They address a holistic business view, referring to long-term, balanced growth that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
These ideas, where profits meet positive social and environmental impact, require new strategies and systems. Strategic frameworks developed during the golden age of consultancies (1980s–2000s) are too static and linear for today’s dynamic, interdependent realities.
From Specialization to Integration
The majority of strategies fail; the number is somewhere between 67%–90%, which is shocking considering the amount of time and money that is spent on developing them. This illustrates the main challenge surrounding strategy work: A disconnect between planning and execution, between thinking of a solution in a vacuum, and executing it in a dynamic, volatile free market environment.
Conventional strategy work, the type of strategy we learn and read about today, only considers the solution on a conceptual level. It fails on two fronts:
It either fails to address the company’s resources, structure and culture as a crucial component to successful strategy execution. While the outside perspective is important, unless it’s paired back to the internal capabilities, politics and beliefs, strategy remains wishful thinking.
Or it fails to respond to external factors such as emerging behaviours, expectations and wider cultural trends that impact professional and end-consumer groups.
Strategy is useless without a system to execute it.
Systems are the pathways of strategic change. If we believe that “strategy is becoming”, then we need more than a direction and guidance and north star. We need a systematic approach to strategy. See Mini Case Studies below.
The practice of strategy has evolved to reveal two ends of a long spectrum: Those who primarily think strategy, and those who architect its practical manifestation through robust systems and structures.
Conceptual strategists excel in the abstract realm, crafting frameworks and theoretical approaches that map out potential paths forward. Their strength lies in pattern recognition, model development, and the articulation of strategic possibilities—creating the intellectual architecture of strategy.
Large corporations rely on this kind of work to get everyone’s buy-in and ensure clear responsibilities (and bonuses). But for the other 95% of businesses, the smale and medium-sized and solo businesses, it’s just not tangible enough.
This is where integrated strategists come in, bridging the gap between theory and reality, and recognizing that strategy's true power lies in its successful implementation. These practitioners move beyond pure strategic thinking to actively shape the mechanisms of execution—developing processes, building capabilities, and creating the organizational systems that translate strategic intent into tangible results.
As you can see, this requires a different skillset. Experience in translating strategic intent into concrete projects and processes comes on top of a deep understanding of strategy craft. And not all strategists will want to get into the messiness of strategy implementation, which often means adapting as new information arises and even deviating from the original strategy because it failed the reality check.
Practical knowledge of agile methodologies and design thinking, for instance, becomes a valuable asset. As organizations need to constantly and incrementally define, ideate, prototype and test new ideas or solutions, strategies need to consider that wiggle room. I wouldn’t be surprised if that brings a review of existing strategies with it. See Mini Case Studies below.
Strategy Evolution
As we move deeper into 2025, strategy is becoming less about grand theories and more about practical evolution. While industry giants might have the luxury of extensive strategic planning, most organizations need to focus on building flexible, actionable systems that solve immediate challenges while moving toward larger goals.
This means treating strategy not as a separate function, but as an integrated part of daily operations—where each team understands how their work connects to the bigger picture.
But also considering a company’s resources and skills from the get-go, not to limit the vision, but to gradually grow into new fields or domains instead of forcing massive, disruptive overhauls.
The most successful companies will be those that can turn strategy from an abstract concept into a living, breathing part of their organization's DNA, making incremental progress while staying adaptable to change. After all, the best strategy isn't the one that looks impressive in a presentation—it’s the one that actually works, and that helps you become the business the want to be. So, yes, I fully agree: Strategy is becoming.
NB—The balance of thinking and doing, direction and action is what think brand play is aimed at, a practical approach to strategy I’ve been working on for the past year. It’s rooted in the idea of evolution, working with brand teams to develop their capabilities, recognizing their potential and limitations, and focusing on the things that will have the greatest impact with their customers. It’s about learning from new experiments as much as it is about improving what already works.
Ideally, this is what strategy needs to deliver: pathways to sustainable growth.