By Janelle M. Lewis, Attorney, Business & Legal Strategic Consultant

What does it mean to bridge the gap between law and business strategy?

It means to see the law as a proactive tool in helping an organization create value unique to its business strategy, while mitigating risk (and potential costs). It also means to consider the law as an important factor that is necessary to the development of business strategy.  How to bridge the gap can be done using legal-based, business strategic frameworks that guide businesses in their analysis of how the relevant laws/regulations affect current and proposed business strategies.

What role does data play in building the bridge that bridges the gap?

The data derived from a legal-based, strategic framework provides organizations with information that combines legal and business data that is used to assess an organization’s specific value proposition. The information from the data allows the business stakeholders make business decisions that incorporate legal factors. The law is a part of business and needs to be integrated in the business strategy. How the law is perceived, however, needs to inclusive and viewed not only from lawyers, but non-legal stakeholders units within an organization. This facilitates the alignment of legal factors that impact the organization with strategic goals that further the value proposition. This results in the creation of value that is specific to the organization’s objective that ultimately creates value while mitigating risks.

Legal-Based, Business Strategic Frameworks

Below, are four legal-based, business strategic frameworks that are used to help businesses bridge the gap between law and business strategy as it relates to the following:

• Achieving Competitive Advantage Through Work Arrangements
• Assessing the Impact of Regulations on Business Strategy
• Creating Value Through Remote Work
• Value Chain Analysis During a Disruptive Event

Achieving Competitive Advantage Through Work Arrangements

Today, valuable competitive position can be derived from having a unique work arrangement that speaks to the specific values, opportunities, and capabilities of the organization. No two organizations are alike – so why should their work arrangement be the same? Should an organization have an office only work arrangement, or would a hybrid model be better suited for the organization because it better aligns with their valuable competitive position.

The Achieving Competitive Advantage Through Work Arrangements (ACAWA) Strategic Framework analyzes an organization’s internal capabilities and the external competitive environment in order to develop a unique work arrangements that create opportunities to achieve competitive advantage. It was was created to help decision-makers assess the best work arrangement model for their organization that establishes their valuable competitive position to achieve a competitive advantage. The ACAWA Strategic Framework uses a both SWOT Analysis and Weighted SWOT Analysis to determine the impact relevant legal factors have on various work arrangements to assess which work arrangements help the organization achieve its competitive advantage.

Why factor the law? Because the laws that regulate labor, employment, privacy, data and IP are factors within themselves that can be used to assess the strength, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of a work arrangement model for the organization. In addition to the organizations values, opportunities, and capabilities, the legal context in which the organization operates creates opportunities for achieving and maintaining the organization’s valuable competitive position.

The ACAWA Strategic Framework allows organization to bridge the gap between law and business strategy so that they can balance the needs and interests of both employers and employees for the overarching purpose of achieving competitive advantage through work arrangement.

Assessing the Impact of Regulations on Business Strategy

No company is immune from the impact of both existing and/or potential regulations. Understanding the impact of regulations on business strategy is imperative for an organization to navigate the regulatory landscape, while maintaining their ability to achieve their strategic goals. “Assessing the Impact of Regulation on Business Strategy” is a strategic framework designed to help decision-makers, consultants, strategists, and other key stakeholders streamline their assessment of the regulation on various aspects of their business strategy.

Although regulations can create and/or increase a company’s accountability, cost and liabilities, while also inhibiting existing organizational activities that create value and growth, there is an upside. Regulations can create opportunities for organizations if the impact of regulations are properly assessed through a strategic framework within the organization’s business strategy. Once properly assessed, organizations have a more comprehensive understanding of the regulatory impact of the existing/potential regulation on pertinent aspects of their business strategy. This allows organizations to then discover opportunities to further strategic goals, such as achieving/maintaining competitive advantage or business growth under respective regulations.

Creating Value Through Remote Work

From necessity to value creation, remote work is becoming a viable option for many organizations that are seeking to reposition their competitive position. First seen as temporary shift to deal with the pandemic, remote work is now increasingly becoming a means to enhance an organization’s competitive position. Remote work policies, however, do not operate in a vacuum. They cannot be drafted without considering how the interests of all relevant stakeholders are impacted by incorporating remote work arrangements.

The Creating Value Through RemoteWork (CVRW) Stakeholder Analytical Framework was created to facilitate strategic decision-making about incorporating remote work arrangements. Using stakeholder issue and impact matrices, the CVRW Stakeholder Analytical Framework assesses the importance and impact of various remote work policies on primary stakeholders.

The CVRW Stakeholder Analytical Framework serves two purposes:

1) To align the Interest of primary stakeholders by helping organizations understand the importance of remote work issues created by various remote work arrangements for each stakeholder. This allows for strategic decision making regarding remote work policies that incorporate respective aligned stakeholder interests.

2) To create value for primary stakeholders and the organization by helping organizations find, occupy, and protect a valuable competitive position through their remote work strategy. This results in the development of a remote work strategy that creates overall value for both stakeholders and the organization.

Value Chain Analysis During a Disruptive Event

When there is a disruptive event, such as the global pandemic or natural disasters, contractual agreements are impacted and affect an organization’s ability to produce goods or services. Contracts are a tangible, critical source of an organization’s capabilities that affect their value chain. The Contract Based Value Chain Analysis (CBVCA) Framework is a strategic framework that analyzes the Value Chain during a disruptive event using contract analysis to assess the costs and revenue of the value chain. Through contract analysis, the value chain can be properly evaluated and provide a comprehensive understanding of how the organization’s value chain is impacted during a disruptive event. This allows businesses to revisit and redesign their business strategy accordingly.

Bridging the Gap Between Law and Business Strategy

Using legal-based strategic frameworks provide organizations with the opportunity to unlock hidden information by providing a new perspective from which to gather and interpret data. The data that comes from legal-based strategic framework is one way of bridging the gap between law and business strategy.

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For more on the strategic frameworks mentioned in this article, please visit this link.