Felix Oberholzer-Gee: The formula for keeping your strategy simple and focused

Purpose In his new book Better, Simpler Strategy: A Value-Based Guide to Exceptional Performance, Felix Oberholzer-Gee offers business leaders and strategists guidance on a basic idea: unless an initiative creates value for customers, employees or suppliers, it is a waste of time and resources. Design/methodology/approach In this interview with S&L contributing editor Brian Leavy, Prof. Felix Oberholzer-Gee explains: “All you need to ask is, ‘Can my organization create differentiated value, can we raise customer willingness-to-pay (WTP) or lower employee and supplier willingness-to-sell (WTS)?’”. Findings Value-based strategy is “back-to-basics” in the sense that the approach insists on value creation as the foundation for every activity in the business. Practical/implications A comprehensive understanding of employees’ work lives is likely to reveal many chances to create value. Originality/value The interview explains why and how firms should seek to exceed expectations where it counts, and sustain excellence by diverting resources from lower-ranked value drivers.