Strategy & Strategic Innovation – Not Planning, But Shaping
Many companies have strategy processes. Very few have strategies that actually hold up. What companies are currently facing in the context of strategy and strategic innovation — and how the verrocchio Institute supports them.
Why Strategy and Innovation Belong Together
Strategy and innovation are treated as separate things in many companies. Strategy is what the leadership team decides at the annual meeting. Innovation is what a department runs alongside it. Both proceed in parallel, rarely truly connected.
This is a structural problem. A strategy that is not capable of innovation loses relevance in a changing market — often faster than classical planning cycles can respond. And innovation without a strategic framework remains creative energy without impact.
Strategic innovation connects both: it asks which innovations will secure tomorrow’s business model, and which strategic decisions need to be made today in order to get there. The verrocchio Institute works precisely at this connection. Methodologically grounded, drawing on the practice of more than 2,000 international projects.
Challenges We See in Companies Again and Again
Strategy gets managed, not lived.
Strategy documents exist, get presented, and then get archived. In everyday operations, teams steer by operational priorities, not strategic guardrails. Strategy becomes an annual process, not an orienting framework.
Planning cycles no longer outpace reality.
Conditions change faster than classical strategy cycles can respond. Those who manage an annual strategy in PowerPoint are navigating with yesterday’s map. What’s needed is strategy as a dynamic process — not as a static document.
Assumptions become outdated unnoticed.
Many strategies are built on assumptions about markets, customers, and competition that may have been accurate when they were formed. Without active review, silent errors accumulate. The company believes it is executing strategy while in reality it is managing PowerPoint slides.
Innovation and strategy pass each other by.
Innovation projects emerge without being clearly embedded in the strategic direction. At the same time, strategic processes lack the question: which innovations do we actually need in order to reach our goals at all? Both sides lose impact as a result.
Leaders think too little strategically.
Strategic thinking is a competency that can be trained but is rarely systematically developed. Leaders are strong operationally and underdeveloped strategically. This is not a criticism — it is a structural gap in most development programs.
AI is fundamentally changing the rules of strategy.
Artificial intelligence is changing not just processes, but value creation logics. Business models that work today can come under pressure tomorrow from AI-based competition. Those who don’t treat AI as a strategic variable are planning past reality.
Sustainability is missing from strategy.
ESG is a reporting obligation in many companies, but rarely a strategic opportunity. Yet it is precisely the connection between sustainability and innovation that holds the greatest untapped strategic potential for many organizations.
How the verrocchio Institute Supports Strategy and Strategic Innovation
The verrocchio Institute helps leadership teams and organizations genuinely connect strategy and innovation in their own strategic practice. The foundation is a pool of more than 1,000 proven methods, documented on innovation.wiki, and the experience of more than 2,000 international projects across more than 30 countries.
The Art of Strategy – Benno van Aerssen's Framework
Co-founder Benno van Aerssen has developed The Art of Strategy — a practice-proven framework for leaders and strategy teams who don’t just want to react in volatile markets, but to genuinely shape them.
The approach understands strategy as a living craft: built in layers, sharpened through deliberate overpainting, constantly in dialogue with reality. Rigid planning processes are replaced by an iterative, dynamic cycle — because one-dimensional strategies no longer work in today’s world. Strategies must be thought in multiple layers and lived dynamically.
The Art of Strategy is the methodological foundation for many of our strategic accompaniments and workshops.
Workshops for Concrete Challenges
Depending on the starting point and goal, we work at different levels.
→ Strategy Workshop: Strategic clarity for leadership teams — with concrete decisions and next steps as the outcome. → Innovation Workshop: When innovation is to be embedded in the strategic framework. → Future Workshop: Developing strategy with a view to scenarios and megatrends. → AI Workshop: Situating and using AI as a strategic variable within the business model. → Design Thinking Workshop: Thinking through strategic questions from a user-centered perspective. → Sustainability Workshop: Opening up sustainability as a strategic opportunity, not managing it as an obligation.
Strategy as a Keynote Impulse
For those who want to use strategy and innovation as an impulse for a larger event: Christian Buchholz, co-founder of the verrocchio Institute, delivers keynotes on innovation and leadership — two topics that directly touch strategic transformation processes. With 700+ talks in 32 countries and 100,000+ people reached.
→ Keynote Speaker Innovation: Why innovation capability is the decisive strategic competitive advantage.
→ Keynote Speaker Leadership: How leadership needs to be rethought in times of strategic change.
Training Programs for Lasting Competency Development
For companies that want to anchor strategic thinking and innovation competency durably in the organization, we offer the verrocchio Innovation Coach training programs as in-house programs. Developed by Christian Buchholz and Benno van Aerssen, awarded the International German Training Prize, and proven with more than 1,000 graduates.
Strategic thinking and innovation as a competency are content focuses in several modules, in particular in the Innovation Master. All programs are delivered as in-house formats directly within your organization, adapted to your industry and starting situation.
Learning Nuggets from the verrocchio Academy
For targeted, modular learning, the verrocchio.academy is available. Strategy and innovation content from the training programs can be booked as Learning Nuggets: compact, directly applicable, without commitment to a complete program.
Strategy Knowledge — From Us, For You
The innovation.wiki contains more than 1,000 proven methods — including an extensive collection of strategy and scenario methods, directly usable in your own strategy processes. The world’s largest freely accessible methods database for innovation work.
The standard reference “The Innovator’s Dictionary” by Christian Buchholz and Benno van Aerssen delivers 555 innovation methods drawn from direct practical experience — with a high proportion of methods for strategic innovation and business model innovation. Learn more | Order directly
Get in Touch Now
Talk to us about your project, free of charge and with no obligation. In a 30-minute initial conversation, we’ll clarify where you currently stand, which format fits your situation, what a realistic scope looks like, and how we can move forward together.
Christina Westing will answer your inquiry personally and quickly.
