See how Quantive can help you achieve more of your strategy.
Try for freeAsk any business leader, "Do you have a strategy?" and they’ll say, "Of course!"
But is it working? If not, something’s missing — likely the right set of goals and tactics.
Strategy is nothing without execution. Successful companies turn strategy into action with the right mix of goals and tactics. Without them, strategy is just a theory — an aspiration with no real-world impact.
To move your company into the winner’s column, you need a holistic, inclusive approach to strategy management:
- Strategy without tactics and goals? Just a vision.
- Tactics and goals without regular reviews? A recipe for disaster.
The first step to building a winning business is mastering the link between strategy, goals, and tactics — and finding the right frameworks and platforms to make them work for you.
Read More: Strategic frameworks help you organize your approach to creating and executing a strategy. Here are 10 strategic frameworks that can assist you with overcoming common challenges.
Defining strategy, goals, and tactics
To use strategy and tactics effectively — and connect them to your goals — you first need clear definitions for each. These deeply interconnected concepts work together as a system that continuously drives you toward your business objectives.
How do those parts go together?
- Your strategy is the business's destination, where you want to go.
- Your goals are milestones along the way, ensuring you're on the right path to reach that point.
- Your tactics are the vehicle you use to drive toward the destination and the techniques that get you there on time.
Here's a more detailed look at how the three ideas converge and diverge, alongside the role of technology in:
What is a company strategy?
Your company’s overarching strategy is a set of choices that define how it competes, allocates resources, and adapts to achieve long-term objectives while sustaining a competitive advantage. Without a strategy to act as its backbone, the company would lack direction, and its efforts would be scattered and disconnected.
How Quantive StrategyAI Helps:
Setting the right strategy requires deep insights into market trends, competitive positioning, and organizational capabilities. Quantive StrategyAI’s AI-powered strategic planning tools analyze business performance to support informed decision-making with actionable insights. Your organization can assess its current position, identify opportunities, and formulate a strategy that aligns with long-term objectives.
What are company goals?
Goals are specific, measurable outcomes that align with the business strategy. As the company follows the strategy, it needs waypoints to indicate whether it's on track to achieve larger business objectives. Goals play this role.
Teams should use structured performance-tracking methods to assess progress. By regularly evaluating key business metrics and goal results, teams gain insight into whether strategic initiatives drive results or need to pivot and adapt. Strategic leaders use these insights to refine their approach, optimize resource allocation, and ensure daily execution remains aligned with the overarching strategy and company goals.
How Quantive StrategyAI Helps:
Once a strategy is in place, translating it into clear, measurable goals is critical. Quantive StrategyAI enables dynamic goal-setting and tracking, ensuring every tactical move is aligned with overarching objectives. Its real-time KPI dashboards provide visibility into progress, helping you understand whether your efforts are driving the expected outcomes — or if adjustments are needed.
What are company tactics?
Tactics are the specific actions, methods, or initiatives companies use to achieve their goals as part of a broader strategy. While goals define success, tactics determine how to get there. Businesses that don't use thought-out tactics risk keeping their strategies theoretical.
Choosing the right tactics helps teams and departments work together toward progress and problem-solving. A strong business performance comes from consistent methods, repeated actions, and measurable results.
How Quantive StrategyAI Helps:
Tactics are where strategy comes to life, but blindly executing initiatives without understanding their potential impact can waste time and resources. Quantive StrategyAI empowers your team with AI-powered suggestions and recommendations. You and your team evaluate these and decide which actions make the most sense within your context. This process ensures that strategic decisions remain human-led and informed by technology.
Uniting the pieces into a smooth journey for your business is always easier when you have reliable technology like Quantive StrategyAI.
Examples of strategy vs. tactics
While the definition of goals is relatively clear, it's easy for leaders sometimes to use strategy and tactics interchangeably. Delving into a few example cases that involve both ideas is a good way to remember which is which:
Retail
A global retailer facing declining foot traffic has implemented a strategy to increase profitability through a better in-store experience. Implementing goals like "increase average order value by 15%" and "boost loyalty enrollments by 25%" push the company to use tactics like adding exclusive in-store discounts, deploying convenient AI-powered checkout software, and revamping store layouts based on movement analytics.
Logistics
A company facing rising logistics costs struggles with shrinking profit margins and a growing carbon footprint. To address this, it has adopted a financial strategy for the next year to increase profitability by cutting costs accordingly. Goals include a 10% reduction in supply chain expenditure and a 5% reduction in CO2 emissions. Tactics to achieve that end involve renegotiating supplier contracts, implementing energy-efficient equipment, and streamlining logistics processes.
Production
Part of a business's strategy for the new year focuses on becoming a socially responsible brand known for sustainability. This decision follows audience polling, which revealed sustainability as a key priority for its target market. Its goals include reducing its supply chain's carbon footprint by 10% and giving 1% of its profits to charity. Their tactics involve implementing green logistics operations, adopting biodegradable packaging for its products, and donating profits to philanthropic causes.
The strategy is the theory of how we win in business. The real practical application comes with tactics and goals. By planning the right goals and tactics to measure progress, you can take a sensible approach to achieving even the most ambitious business vision.
Read more: Learn how effectively using KPIs allows organizations to track their progress toward their goals.
What's first: Strategy or tactics?
Rather than existing in isolation, strategy, goals, and tactics fit neatly within a larger organizational framework: strategic management. Understanding how they interact — especially within strategic planning — helps leaders make informed decisions, drive alignment, and turn efforts into meaningful results.
Vision and mission
Before you begin strategic planning, you should define your company’s vision and mission. These statements clarify where your organization is headed and why it exists, ensuring team alignment.
Strategy
The strategic planning process starts with identifying challenges, analyzing the market and competitors, and outlining key strategic priorities, the major focus areas that will drive progress over the tactical planning period. These priorities act as guiding pillars for decision-making and resource allocation.
Goals and metrics
From there, your organization should clear success indicators to track progress. These indicators, which may include OKRs and KPIs, help your teams measure whether their efforts are effective and whether adjustments are needed.
Tactics
Finally, you define your tactics, concrete initiatives, and actions to bring the strategy to life. Your tactics strategy should be adaptable, allowing teams to adjust dynamically based on real-time performance insights.
By following this process, your business can create a living strategy that remains relevant, adaptable, and consistently aligned with your long-term ambitions.
Read more: See how the strategy and tactics stages fit in with the rest of the 7 components of strategic management.
Strategy and tactics tips for organizations
Always-on strategy refinement
Setting your strategy and tactics using various tools like KPIs (key performance indicators) and OKRs is a valuable way to prepare for the year ahead. Despite its importance, however, this isn't the only time you can or should adjust.
The Always-On Strategy Model is based on the premise that there's value in adjusting frequently based on your strategic progress. If your company isn't making sufficient gains, it's better to shift direction as soon as possible than spend the entire year out of step with your strategy.
Changing conditions in your industry and the larger business world can demand shifts. By using a framework that accommodates changes in tactics, you can keep up with the market's reality.
The power of continuous alignment
Modern strategic management focuses on reviewing progress and identifying necessary changes regularly. One key decision is adjusting tactics to stay aligned with business goals.
To conduct one of these evaluations for your strategy, you should:
- Define your goals and KPIs
- Collect and measure data relevant to achieving your goals
- Analyze that data for actionable insights
- Use those insights to take a new course of action if needed
- Set up a regular review cadence for future evaluations
Shifting your tactics isn't an admission that your strategy is failing. It’s acknowledging that you've found a better way to achieve your objectives.
Read more: Learn the correct use of strategy evaluation within strategy management.
Technology as a strategic and tactical enabler
Purpose-built strategy management technology platforms such as Quantive StrategyAI are hubs around where you can organize your strategy. These centralized digital repositories will become vital analytics, collaboration, and record-keeping tools as strategies become goals and tactics.
A suitable digital platform assists at multiple steps of the overall strategy management process, from the creating a good strategy at the beginning of a new planning period through tactical execution and ongoing evaluation.
- Strategic planning
- Strategic planning capabilities provide a digital AI assistant that turns existing performance data into actionable insights and strategic goals that may inspire a new strategic direction.
- Collaborative digital whiteboards let team members visualize the strategy, goals, and tactics together for aligned execution.
- Goal-setting and tactical ideation
- Assist in developing the right goals, KPIs, and projects based on your strategy.
- Integrations connect your tech stack data with your goals, tasks, and KPIs to ensure you see your whole business state in one place.
- Tracking and evaluation
- Real-time KPI dashboards and progress updates deliver timely insights on what’s going on.
- Weekly check-ins identify wins, roadblocks, requests, and team status updates.
Using AI-powered strategy management capabilities, businesses can free teams from tedious manual tracking and help them focus on high-impact strategic work and strategic vision. Quantive StrategyAI continuously analyzes performance data, surfacing insights that help leaders refine their strategy tactics in real time and align them with the broader strategy and long term vision.
Many organizations rely on disconnected, limited planning tools or outdated legacy methods tied up in inefficient manual spreadsheets. Now, successful strategy management has to be faster and more precise.
Quantive StrategyAI is the leading option for businesses shifting away from legacy methods, providing a unified, collaborative view of strategic elements:
- Diagnose strategic challenges and opportunities using AI-powered insights to create a clear strategy.
- Set clear, measurable goals that align with the business vision.
- Connect your data sources and get powerful strategic insights and measure strategy.
- Monitor strategic progress in real time and adjust on the fly to achieve strategic goals.
See how you can revolutionize every stage of your strategy management process with Quantive StrategyAI: Try it for free.
