” Members from each partner organization rate the alliance in areas related to strategic fit, operational fit, and cultural fit. The Association for Strategic Alliance Professionals , a cross- industry organization dedicated to advancing the skills of alliance management professionals, offers a variety of tools and educational and developmental opportunities to support your efforts. MORE

Situation Three: It Does Not Have Good Strategic Fit. Corporate indecision and misalignment of strategic objectives let promising products fall by the wayside. How does your product fit into it? MORE

But a closer look at Smucker's reveals a powerful set of growth strategies driving these results: A strategic approach to acquisitions. In 2001, Smucker's acquired Jif and Crisco from P&G, which no longer saw them as a strategic fit. The idea is that a business unit that no longer fits one company's objectives can become the foundation of new growth somewhere else. This post is part of the HBR Insight Center Growing the Top Line. According to the U.S. MORE

The net present value and strategic fit of a given relationship or initial introduction in one's Lucky Network might be foggy at best, but unintended benefits often manifest for those who embrace relationships with openness. There are no guarantees to entrepreneurial success. Your concept may be bold, your passion high, your intelligence and analysis exceptional, but there will always be external factors beyond your control. MORE

Pharmaceutical companies, buffeted by regulatory changes, new drug technologies that alter entry barriers and competition, price pressures, and an estimated 300,000 job cuts since 2000, seem to fit the popular narrative of large organizations unable to deal with disruptive forces. MORE

This brings the advantages of holding off on anointing an internal executive who may not be quite ready—but at the same time retaining the top contestants and allowing for a strategic redirection. They are less likely to hand-off the process to a search firm, more likely to make company strategy the first criterion in narrowing the field, and more likely to discern who would constitute the best strategic fit. MORE

If you’re involved in CEO selection, this requires that you both hire the right CEO and understand when the company’s strategic situation suggests that a different CEO is more likely to win. Ballmer had done his job, but the strategic needs of the organization had shifted. MORE

The projects all touched on areas of great strategic concern to the company, and the directors required each of the candidates to report their appraisals and plans to the board. Making that “strategic fit” was surely a factor in Microsoft’s selection of Mr. Nadella, who evidently brings a special appreciation for cloud computing and mobile devices, a new world that the next CEO has to face even if his predecessors had belatedly done so. MORE

Becton Dickinson and others have employed a method that my colleague Russ Eisenstat and I developed—the Strategic Fitness Process —to enable employees to speak the truth to management safely about the alignment of the organization with strategy and values. MORE

If, as Michael Porter wrote , competitive advantage stems from how “activities fit and reinforce one another… creating a chain that is as strong as its strongest link,” then strategic fit is something that the Venetian Republic had in spades. One huge advance in technology — ships that could survive at sea for months, even years — weakened Venice’s competitive advantage and the strategic fit of its competencies. MORE

It required an individual who could both think and act strategically, a person who brought a strong sense for strategy and a personal capacity to lead its execution. Becoming a strategic leader is an acquired capacity that can, in our view, be mastered by managers at all levels. MORE

Decisive actions are required to tackle the factors that prompted the spin-off in the first place, which in many cases are underperformance and/or a lack of strategic fit leading to chronic underinvestment in the development of the business. MORE

Are you a leader? Photo: nenovbrothers/ Resource: www.bigstock.com. Are you just a manager or are you a true leader? As a leader you must focus on. people not on transaction. Success and not on failure. future not on the past. If you are a leader you are a people person. MORE

What’s left in apparel and sporting goods is a good strategic fit with Nike’s operations. This is strategic sacrifice. That makes an organization operationally and strategically stronger. Do Less Better is the name of my book. MORE

A marketing manager’s job, for example, might be to ensure strategic fit, while a compliance offer needs to flag regulatory violations. Today, it’s your job to draft an important document. It might be some copy for your Web site, a white paper for clients, or an internal policy document. Whatever it is, it’s important enough that you’re going to spend weeks on it. Here’s the problem: documents like this go through review processes. MORE

Others are a poor strategic fit. This post is part of the HBR Insight Center Growing the Top Line. There it was again in the Wall Street Journal on August 29: a beloved and uplifting, but unfortunately not effective, approach to driving growth through innovation. The idea is that companies need to encourage innovation from everyone and at every level in the organization. MORE