How to build a strategic vision in an industrial SME : Clear, Shared, and Actionable

In many industrial SMEs, strategy stays in the head of the business owner. Not because it doesn’t exist—but because it hasn’t been formalized or communicated. Caught up in day-to-day operations, leaders often lack the time or structure to put it clearly on paper and share it.

As a result, aligning teams, prioritizing projects, or embedding performance over the long term becomes difficult.

And yet… building a clear strategic vision doesn’t require an off-site seminar or 50-slide presentations. It can (and should) start simply, grounded in reality.

Objective: move from ambiguity to an actionable first roadmap

The goal isn’t to create a “perfect strategy,” but to move from a reactive mode to a visible, shared structure—with a few clear objectives to steer action.

The aim: identify a handful of core priorities, make them visible to all, and start linking them to daily operations.

Here is a structured, concrete, and accessible approach, in 5 key steps.

1. A leadership workshop to clarify the vision

Bring together the owner and frontline managers around three key questions:

• Where do we want to be in 3 years?

• What are the top priorities for the next 12 months?

• What are our key dimensions across these 4 axes: Financial health, Customer satisfaction, Internal process efficiency, Learning and skills development?

The goal: establish some major guidelines, even handwritten on a flipchart. This is not a communication exercise: it is a trigger for collective reflection.

2. Define 4 to 6 global (and measurable) objectives

Based on the identified priorities, define 4 to 6 simple operational objectives. For example:

• Reduce non-conformities by 20%

• Improve the on-time delivery rate to 95% (OTD)

• Secure a critical supplier (e.g., dual sourcing or continuity plan)

Link each goal to one clear indicator. Even if basic, it should be easy to understand and track.

3. Share a clear roadmap with all teams

Organize a brief presentation of the strategy to the entire company (30 minutes is sufficient). Create a readable visual support displayed in the workshop and offices: a poster, a "roadmap," or a shared board.

Objective: make make the company direction visible, without jargon or overpromising.

4. Align teams through 1 or 2 concrete objectives

In each department, run a short workshop focused on this question:

“How can our team contribute to these objectives?”

This link is essential to turn strategy into daily action, and to show that everyone has a role to play.

5. Implement a quarterly strategic review

Every 3 months, review progress on key goals with your teams:

• What is moving forward?

• What is blocking progress?

• What actions or decisions are needed?

• What successes should we celebrate?

No need for fancy tools, a whiteboard or shared spreadsheet will do. What matters is consistency.

Test the clarity of your strategy with a single question

Do you think your strategy is clear? Go out into the field and ask:

👉 “What are the company’s top 3 goals right now? And how does your team contribute to them?”

🎯 If the answers are clear: congratulations.

😬 If not: it’s not your teams’ fault. It means the message hasn’t been made clear, visible, or meaningful enough.

Key tools to support the process

All tools are detailed in IndustrialOS Guide (https://leguide.industrialos.io)

• Balanced Scorecard to frame objectives across 4 axes

• The Indicator Tree to connect indicators across all levels

• SWOT, PESTEL, Hoshin Kanri, OKR,...

• Visual roadmap shared across all levels

• Quarterly strategic review

Personally, I recommend combining BSC + Indicator tree to cascade objectives effectively throughout the organization.

What you need to see on the ground

• A strategic roadmap displayed where everyone can see it

• Simple shared objectives

• Team members able to name the company’s top priorities

• Initial performance indicators being tracked over time

Conclusion: a simple, understood, and embodied strategy changes everything 🚀

No need to structure everything at once. The important thing is to start.

• 🛠️ Formalize, even simply, what is in the leader's mind

• 🧭 Share a few clear and measurable goals

• 🧩 Help everyone understand their contribution

• 📍 Organize a regular review to adjust and progress

That’s how you shift from an implicit strategy… to a collective dynamic and truly engaged teams!