232  Blockchain

Strategy sign-off

Getting a sign-off of the strategy is one of the most important steps in the

transformational journey of IOSpeed. The following are the steps to get

approval of the strategy:

• Review the presentation for the strategy with the senior management

of IOSpeed

• Set up workshops to go through the strategy with the Board of

Directors of IOSpeed

• The presentation must be clear and concise and deliver an impactful

message to the IOSpeed Board

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⚬Current state of the company and its position in the market

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⚬What is the need for a new strategy?

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⚬What are the benefits of the new strategy?

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⚬What are the budget requirements?

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⚬Timelines to execute the strategy

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⚬What would be the ROI?

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⚬What would be the future state post successful strategy execution

(To-Be state)

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⚬What is the impact if the new strategy does not get signed off and

executed?

• Strategy presentation is like a sales pitch for a start-up to get budget

approved in order to deliver strategic outcomes to transform the com-

pany. There needs to be a great deal of preparation before presenting

the final strategy to the board of the company. IOSpeed carried out a

deep dive on internal and external factors along with detailed analysis

of the prospective solutions to launch a digital marketplace for ART.

• The final outcome of the strategy pitch was a full approval of budget

to deliver the brand-new platform to digitalise the ART marketplace

using blockchain technology. This was a good win for IOSpeed.

Strategy execution

The excitement starts for IOSpeed after the strategy approval by the Board

of Directors. We have already discussed the process of strategy execution

in Chapter 6; however, in this section, we will apply the same concepts on

IOSpeed as part of this case study.

Strategy planning

The first step to execute the strategy is to go through a planning exercise.

A full-fledged strategy to transform the whole organisation usually takes

around 3–5 years. In this case study, we are focused on uplifting IOSpeed’s

capabilities to transform itself to be more competitive in the market through

the blockchain-based marketplace to buy and sell art. This is a subset of the

overall strategy and will deliver the strategic outcome in 2 years timelines.