Strategy is useless! Unless it can be translated into action... | Graeme Cocks

The book The First XI: Winning Organisations in Australia set out to identify Australian organisations deemed to be high performing or winning over the long term and highlight their underlying causes of success.

Graeme Cocks says 'success was based on broad indicators, such as financial, growth, innovation, productivity and efficiency measures - not just profits. We investigated the winning 11 organisations over a 20-year period and a solid financial performance was a prerequisite through the economic cycles.'

Read more about this book here.

According to Graeme Cocks:

'Strategy formulation is usually regarded as the exclusive domain of senior management because it rewards creativity - the most admired and valued of all intellectual pursuits. It is where managers aspire to be because of the challenges, rewards and influence that it brings. By comparison, effective implementation of strategy rarely gets as much kudos or respect. Yet experienced executives know that the most creative and well crafted visions and strategic plans are useless if they cannot be translated into action.'

To read more on Graeme's 2010 examination of emerging concepts for implementing strategy email us at executiveseries@mbs.edu

Graeme Cocks

And if you'd like to learn how to build your own winning organisation, click here.

An IP Strategy application for your iPhone and more | Duncan Bucknell & Michael Vitale

How can you use intellectual property to inform and leverage business strategy, globally? 


What does out-smarting your competition, winning disputes, driving collaboration and innovation have to do with intellectual property?


These questions and more are tackled by Ducan Bucknell's blog, Think IP Strategy, and will be further developed by Ducan Bucknell and Michael Vitale in their highly anticipated Executive Series program Strategic Management of Intellectual Property.


Make sure you look out for the savvy iPhone application, IP Think Tank, on the blog.

Duncan Bucknell

Duncan Bucknell is a lawyer, patent attorney, founder and CEO of the global IP strategy firm ThinkIPStrategy and the author of several books on intellectual property. 

Michael Vitale

Michael Vitale is a professor at Monash University and director of the Monash Asia-Pacific Centre for Science and Wealth Creation. The focus of his research, teaching and consulting is the commercialization of innovation.