Publication: HRkatha
The five-year strategic plan didn’t evolve. It failed. For decades, organisations relied on long-term planning to create certainty—mapping talent, capabilities and structures years in advance. But in today’s environment, those plans don’t just become outdated.
They become liabilities. Industries are now reshaping themselves every two to three years— sometimes faster—driven by AI, regulatory shifts and changing workforce expectations. In many cases, by the time a five-year strategy reaches execution, the assumptions it was built on no longer hold.
“The risk is not that long-term plans fail,” says Indrani Chatterjee, Group CHRO, Allcargo Group. “It’s that they lock organisations into decisions that are no longer relevant.”
The cost of getting it wrong is significant: hiring for roles that become obsolete, investing in capabilities that lose relevance, and missing market shifts because strategy cannot pivot fast enough. In this environment, the advantage is no longer in predicting the future.
It is in responding to it faster than competitors.