Strategy drives Process, Process determines organizational structure and the type of People that are deployed, and the role of Technology is to keep everything aligned and moving effectively. These are the elements of Success.

Key questions include: Is yours predominantly a product-centric company, or a customer-centric one? Is the profits-realization strategy front-loaded or based on an income-stream over time? Are the personalities and skill-sets of the principal employees fully aligned with and appropriate for the strategic goals and objectives? What is the Customer Retention Rate?

A company where the strategy and process are ill-defined may still succeed for a while, at the expense of over and above efforts by some of its people, but the results are not sustainable. Likewise, even a company with a clearly defined strategy and a tuned process will fail if the wrong people are in key roles or if the organizational structure is not optimized.

Interim strategies and short-term tactics naturally change over time as a company grows, and the rest of the elements need to be realigned as well. The ultimate strategic goal, however, remains constant: sustainable profitability over the long term.