NPD Management Corner

It’s Time for a Return of Strategic Thinking

The past few years have left our industry with extremely lean workforces, fanatical expense controls, a plethora of bean counter policies and a dangerous near term revenue focus. The cultural shift has produced an unbalanced tactical approach to business, a risk hiatus that must come to an end for the very survival of a business in this competitive landscape. The pendulum must now swing back to a point of balance between long term strategic thinking and the day-to-day tactical approaches to new product development.

A strategic emphasis remains outside the realm of daily activities, allowing it to be unconsciously set aside until it is too late. The last few years have illuminated the battle wounds inflicted by a lacking strategy for many companies, many which were viewed as too big to fail. The irony is that many companies opted to become less strategic for cost reasons at the same time others were experiencing the backlash from years of operating with a strategic deficit. Large or small, a limited strategic culture will one day reveal itself in a fashion that appears abrupt, although it has actually been in the making for many years.

Strategic thinking is best defined as the identification and execution of objectives that will position technology, business processes and products that enable long-term financial and market objectives. Decision practices in this long-term environment will always favor investment philosophies over a pure cost perspective. A balanced strategic culture will exhibit reduced fire-drill management through an emphasis on “how” process improvement strategies in addition to the classic “what” product roadmaps.

It’s common practice to tie long-term objectives to purely tangible deliverables, however that leaves some important goals out of range. The scope of a strategic culture must stretch beyond products and technology to include organizational processes and system enablers. An incessant necessity for urgent near term solutions is definitely a red flag that should highlight a deficiency in a businesses strategic culture, one that is lacking emphasis on the procedural roadmap that will enable strategic products and next generation systems.

It’s time for a return to strategic thinking in the semiconductor business. The industries extreme cost based focus comes from a being a component supplier instead of a system enabler. We must move up the food chain in our thinking and strategically place ourselves dead center in the middle of next generation systems. “How” will we do that? Welcome to strategic thinking!