Why Also Best Strategies Fail? The Experience of Large Croatian Companies

Referring to previous studies, more than 90% of well formulated strategies fail to be fully implemented (Bonoma 1984; Noble 1999; Nutt 1990; Kaplan, Norton 2005; Speculand 2009). The implementation phase is considered the Achilles' heel of the strategic management process. Most of strategic planning efforts fail during the implementation phase and firms waste significant resources. Although each company faces a variety of problems during the implementation process, studies investigating this area are not numerous. Conversely, in the literature of strategic management, the formulation phase captures much more attention. The aim of this paper is to examine the incidence of certain implementation problems in large Croatian companies. The contribution of this paper is to examine the attitude on implementation problems from different perspectives: top, middle, low management and operative level. The results suggest that implementation problems differ according to the phase the implementation process is in, the ownership form and the application of the Balanced Scorecard methodology. On the other side, it is revealed that the implementation of ISO standards does not reduce the incidence of implementation problems. Moreover, the incidence of implementation problems does not depend on the industry which the company belongs to