BENCHMARK STUDY

The State of Strategy Execution: Balancing Speed, Adaptation, and Control

Global Benchmark Study Reveals How Leading Companies Find the Sweet Spot Between Execution Speed, Responsiveness, and Effective Governance

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Commissioned by Planview
Conducted by Lawless Research

Key Findings Research Methodology Get the Report

Can your organization balance speed, quality, and governance in today’s complex environment?

Do leading companies use structured approaches to navigate competing priorities, or simply react in the moment?

While organizations have improved at balancing execution speed with quality outcomes since the 2021 benchmark study, they now face the added complexity of rapid adaptation to constant change, creating a three-way tension between speed, quality, and governance.

Planview commissioned a global benchmark study in 2025 to assess how organizations navigate this modern strategy execution challenge and what separates companies that master this delicate balance from those that struggle.

The complete findings are detailed in the report: The State of Strategy Execution: Balancing Speed, Adaptation, and Control

800 business professionals from across the globe rated their organization’s speed of response to disruption and quality of outcomes across the five core strategy-to-execution competencies:

Pivoting strategies and plans
Reallocating funding and budgets
Reprioritizing work execution
Realigning people and teams
Accessing and analyzing data for decision-making

By mastering the balance between speed, quality, and governance, companies can execute with confidence during disruption and capitalize on new opportunities.

Below are five key findings that were revealed.

1

The execution divide revealed: Leaders pull ahead in speed and quality

Based on speed of response and quality of outcomes across the five strategy-to-execution competencies, respondents were assigned a Strategy Execution Index score and categorized as:

Strategy Execution Laggards: Struggle with speed and quality while lacking systematic adaptation capabilities
Strategy Execution Challengers: Achieving improved speed and quality, but are inconsistent in adaptation responses
Strategy Execution Leaders: Excel at speed and quality while mastering systematic adaptation to constant change

Leaders have mastered the delicate balance between speed, quality, and governance, outperforming the rest. The performance gap reveals that organizations must find their sweet spot between execution speed and effective governance or risk falling behind competitors who have.

Research categorized Strategy Execution Laggards, Challengers, and Leaders based on scores calculated from the Strategy Execution Index.

2

67% of Leaders have immediate access to data for crucial decision-making

Leaders outperform in technology enablement and data accessibility, creating significant competitive advantages in strategic execution.

Leaders have universally equipped themselves with effective technology and immediate data access, while Laggards struggle with data quality and lack timely access to decision-making information.

Strategy Execution Leader insights:

4X

more likely than Laggards to
have immediate access to accurate data

100%

have effective strategy execution technology in place
vs 65% of Laggards

Immediate data access and technology integration
provides Leaders with better decision-making capabilities

3

Leaders are 8x more likely than Laggards to use AI across the organization for multiple use cases

Leaders are significantly ahead in AI adoption and implementation, creating competitive advantages through organization-wide AI integration for strategy execution.

Results show that Leaders are 8x more likely than Laggards to use AI across the organization for multiple use cases. Most Laggards are still in early phases of using AI.

4

Governance is a top barrier to strategy execution

Organizations face the strategy execution paradox: balancing the ability to execute fast, adapt to change quickly, and apply the right amount of governance and oversight.

Top barriers to strategy execution are:

39%

Complex governance/approval processes

33%

Lack of alignment between strategy and execution

32%

Slow/ineffective decision-making

Complex approval processes and misalignment continue to create bottlenecks that hinder strategic success, with governance challenges compounding as organizations struggle to find their sweet spot between speed and control.

However, strategy Leaders have cracked the code by designing governance that accelerates rather than constrains their execution capabilities by implementing centralized coordination that supports speed, developing quality-focused processes that enhance outcomes, and adopting streamlined approaches that move beyond traditional structures that slow execution.

5

Strategy Execution Leaders deliver better business outcomes across key metrics

Leaders achieve dramatically better business results, with 91% seeing increased revenue compared to only 61% of Laggards. Superior strategy execution capabilities act as a performance multiplier across various aspects of organizational success.

Strategy Execution Leaders achieve higher:

How does your organization compare?

Review the key findings and best practices of Strategy Execution Leaders, recommendations to find the sweet spot between speed and governance, and learn how the most successful organizations are:

Balancing speed in execution and adaptation with optimized governance that enables rather than constrains strategic outcomes
Building centralized coordination, superior data access, and AI-powered technology capabilities for confident decision-making at speed
Executing faster while maintaining the right amount of oversight to achieve quality results across all core competencies

Download the report “The State of Strategy Execution: Balancing Speed, Adaptation, and Control” to learn more.

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