McKinsey. Have you tested your strategy lately. January 2011

Afresh strategic insight—something your company sees that no one else does—is one of the foundations of competitive advantage. It helps companies focus their resources on moves that separate them from the pack. That makes the following interesting: in a recent survey, only 35% of 2,135 global executives believed their strategies rested on unique and powerful insights. That figure was dramatically lower than the average—62 percent—for nine other tests we asked executives to measure their strategies against.
What's more, only 14 percent of surveyed executives placed novel insights among the top three strategic influences of financial performance. One likely explanation: the widespread availability ot information and adoption of sophisticated strategy frameworks creates an impression that "everyone knows what we know and is probably analyzing the data in the same ways that we are. " The danger is obvious: if strategists question their ability to generate novel insights, they are less likely to reach for the relative advantages that are most likely to differentiate them from competitors.
For the complete survey results, see "Putting strategies to the test: McKinsey Global Survey results. " on mckinseyquarterly.com.