Is your strategy inducing confidence or shaking it?

 If one of your biggest clients said "It appears that they're lost right now" about your company, what would you do?

This morning's print edition of The Wall Street Journal includes an article about Hewlett-Packard (H-P), its strategy, and how it has communicated with customers and investors. The first line of the article is: Hewlett-Packard Co.'s recent strategic moves have shaken the confidence of investors. Now customers of the technology giant are also getting nervous. A few paragraphs later a big customer is quoted saying, "It appears that they're lost right now."

It's bad enough that a big customer considers his supplier lost, but the feeling is shared by others--and published in  The Wall Street Journal!

In the article, H-P executives defended their strategy and claimed to be in "constant contact with our customers to explain our strategy and ensure their needs are being met." Apparently their customers are unaware of the "constant contact" because many are confused and disappointed in H-P's strategy.

What has H-P done wrong?

It is unclear if H-P's strategic decisions are wrong--time will tell. What is clear is H-P's communication of their strategy has been wrong. When it comes to inducing confidence or shaking it, communication is key.

Communication with employees, customers, partners, vendors, and investors needs to be precise and targeted so the strategic direction has a chance of working. Poor communication can kill any strategic plan.

What have you done to ensure your strategic direction is confidence-inducing? Have you had enough communication with customers? Do employees understand it and know they're part of it? Whether you are charged with planning the direction of an entire multi-billion dollar corporation or a million dollar non-profit or a department of three, consider communication a critical part of your success.

H-P considers communication critical: Just three hours after the online edition of The Wall Street Journal was published, a second article which more thoroughly explains the strategy and how it is being communicated was published online. H-P has strong market position, so customer confidence has been stirred but not been shaken entirely.

When is the last time you talked with your customers about your strategy? Don't wait for them to voice their concerns to The Wall Street Journal to start the conversations. Confidence should be reinforced throughout each year.

For the full WSJ article:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903895904576544822297017068.html#ixzz1Wo2juG6M