"Deciding where to focus companies' scarce resources"

"most companies have very similar strategies and business objectives (e.g.,  growth, expansion, product innovation, market leadership) but just a few succeed in achieving them. What do these successful companies do differently?
...
Up to the late 1970s, an organization's main focus was on core activities reflected in the traditional value chain described by Michael Porter
...
Deciding where to focus companies' scarce resources is one of top management's most important challenges.
...
Improving operations is easier than improving projects. Often, operational processes can be mapped, analysed and finally improved by automating or simply removing the inefficient parts. This is not possible with projects: mapping them is very complex, and they are very difficult to improve m most of the time they are one-off.
...
although very few companies succeed in implementing their strategies, there are a few whose strategy execution is successful.
...
To my surprise, some of these successful organizations were not just reaching but were also exceeding their strategic objectives. While their formula included great leadership and maturity, what made all the difference in their ability to exceed their expectations was the fact that they were highly FOCUSED.
.
What I realized is that in todays world most companies and many employees are highly unfocused. As a result, top management has difficulty setting a dear strategy and communicating a ranked list of priorities; and most staff members end up deciding on their own where to concentrate their efforts; most likely on easy and irrelevant task, This lack of focus results in much wasted money and resources, the inability to execute the strategy, project failures, and unhappy and uncommitted employees. Successful individuals are highly focused, and the same applies lo organizations. In fact, every business is focused when it is just starting up but only those companies that manage to stay focused will likely succeed and remain in business."

Trechos retirados de "The Focused Organization - How Concentrating on a Few Key Initiatives Can Dramatically Improve Strategy Execution" de Antonio Nieto-Rodriguez