Strategy Has Become a Delivery Risk, Not a Planning Problem

For years, strategy failure was treated as an upstream problem.

Weak analysis. Poor foresight. Flawed ambition.

That explanation is becoming harder to sustain.

New research released in late 2025 points to a more uncomfortable conclusion: strategy is increasingly failing not at the point of design, but at the point of delivery.

And not sporadically but systematically.

This briefing brings together new global execution research, AI performance data, and market signals to examine a growing reality for senior leaders:

Strategy itself has become an enterprise delivery risk.

1. Strategy Failure Is Now Patterned, Not Accidental

The clearest evidence comes from new global research published by the Project Management Institute (PMI) in December 2025.

Drawing on responses from more than 5,800 professionals across industries and regions, PMI’s findings show:

• Only around half of projects meet their original goals

• Failure rates are consistent across sectors

• Outcomes correlate strongly with delivery structure, governance, and decision rights — not idea quality
  

This matters because it reframes the problem.

Strategy failure is no longer best explained by:

• poor intent

• lack of ambition

• insufficient analysis
  

Instead, it clusters around the same structural weaknesses:

• unclear ownership

• slow decision escalation

• fragmented delivery models

• weak feedback loops between strategy and execution
  

In other words, failure is predictable.

And predictable failure is a risk management issue.

2. AI Has Become a Stress Test for Strategy Systems

AI investment has accelerated this exposure.

BCG’s Widening AI Value Gap research, updated in 2025, shows a stark distribution of outcomes:

• Only ~5% of companies consistently generate material AI value

• These firms outperform peers on revenue growth, margins, and total shareholder return

• The remaining majority see limited or no return, despite sustained investment

BCG is explicit: this is not a technology gap.

AI success correlates with:

• execution maturity

• governance clarity

• the ability to redesign workflows

• disciplined prioritisation and reallocation
  

Planview’s 2025 State of Strategy Execution Benchmark reinforces this finding.

Execution leaders are far more likely to use AI across:

• prioritisation

• resource allocation

• risk identification

• reporting and decision support
  

The implication is uncomfortable but clear:

AI isn’t creating execution problems.It’s revealing them faster.

Where strategy delivery systems are weak, AI magnifies waste.Where they are disciplined, AI compounds advantage.

3. Adaptability Has Shifted from Leadership Trait to System Capability

Another quiet shift emerges from execution benchmarks.

Planview’s 2025 research shows that high-performing organisations are not simply “faster” or more decisive.

They are structurally better at:

• reallocating budgets

• reprioritising work

• realigning people

• re-deciding as conditions change

Leaders in the dataset are:

• 9.5× more likely to adapt quickly than laggards

• more likely to exceed revenue targets

• more likely to hit strategic goals

The difference is not urgency. But architecture.

Adaptability has become an operating model choice, not a cultural aspiration or leadership style.

This reframes strategy risk again:if adaptability is system-dependent, then weak systems create predictable exposure.

4. Consulting Spend Is Acting as a Proxy Signal

Another data point reinforces this interpretation.

Market data released in December shows the global management consulting services market growing from approximately $1.02T in 2024 to $1.06T in 2025, with continued growth projected through 2029.

This is often read as a demand story.

It can also be read as a signal.

Organisations are not buying more strategy because they lack ideas.They are buying support because delivery remains difficult to industrialise internally.

Consulting demand, in this context, becomes a proxy indicator for persistent execution fragility.

5. Strategy Risk Is No Longer Abstract, It’s Operational

Taken together, these signals point to a reframing senior leaders can no longer avoid.

Strategy risk is not just:

• market volatility

• competitive disruption

• technological change

It is also:

• decision latency

• ownership ambiguity

• reallocation friction

• execution blind spots

These risks do not appear suddenly. They accumulate quietly, until delivery fails.

Which is why boards are often surprised.

What This Means for CSOs and Boards

The implication is not that strategy functions are failing.

It’s that strategy governance has not kept pace with execution complexity.

For senior leaders, this suggests a different agenda:

• Treat execution reliability as a strategic risk category

• Surface delivery health, not just progress

• Shorten the distance between decision and resource movement

• Design adaptability into the system, not into heroics

• Treat AI as execution infrastructure, not innovation theatre/
  

Strategy is no longer just about choosing where to play.

It is about whether the organisation can reliably move once the choice is made.

Questions to Carry Into Your Next Executive or Board Session

• Where does strategy delivery sit on our enterprise risk register, if at all?

• Which strategic decisions take the longest to convert into real resource movement?

• What delivery failures would genuinely surprise the board and which shouldn’t?

• Is AI amplifying our strategy system, or stress-testing it?

• What parts of our execution model are still dependent on individual heroics?
  

Strategy failure is no longer mysterious.

The data shows where it breaks.The patterns repeat.And the risks are increasingly visible.

The question for leaders in 2026 is not whether strategy will fail.

It’s whether the system is designed to notice, and correct, failure early enough to matter.