Why Growing Industrial Companies Lose Strategic Clarity and Why More Data Won’t Fix It

By Liliana Domingues

“Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.”
- Often attributed to Albert Einstein

Executive Summary

We are only just beginning 2026, and already many industrial leaders are experiencing a quiet but persistent frustration.

The 2026 strategy is done or almost done.
The spreadsheets are solid.
The dashboards are live.
The forecasts are more detailed than ever.
AI tools are embedded in planning, reporting, and performance tracking.

And yet, something feels… off.

Despite more data, more tools, and more effort than ever, strategic clarity feels weaker, not stronger. Leadership teams struggle to align. Decisions take longer. Priorities blur. Execution feels busy, but not decisive.

This is not a failure of intelligence, effort, or technology.
It is a systemic failure in how strategy is being conceived in growing industrial companies.

And adding more data will not fix it.

The Illusion of Control: When Data Becomes a Substitute for Strategy

Over the past decade, industrial companies have made enormous investments in data:

•   Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems

•   Advanced cost control and forecasting tools

•   Operational KPIs down to machine and shift level

•   AI-supported planning and reporting platforms

For years, leaders were taught that more data leads to better decisions, and therefore better strategy.

In practice, the opposite often happens.

Multiple studies show that over 65% of strategic initiatives fail to deliver their expected outcomes, not because of poor data, but because of a lack of strategic clarity and alignment. In industrial companies, this figure is often higher due to tight margins, capital intensity, and execution risk.

What leaders rarely admit openly is this:

Data has become a psychological safety net.

It provides a sense of control in an environment that is increasingly volatile:

• Supply chain disruptions

• Regulatory pressure (CSRD, safety, emissions, compliance)

• Workforce shortages

• Capital constraints

• Accelerating technological change

But data only describes the past and simulates scenarios.
It does not decide what

truly matters.

When strategy becomes a data exercise, three dangerous patterns emerge:

1. Analysis paralysis - teams wait for certainty that never arrives

2. Local optimisation - each function optimises its KPIs, weakening the whole

3. False confidence - numbers appear precise while strategic direction remains vague

Industrial leaders rarely lack information.
They lack strategic synthesis.

And that is the real issue.

The AI Strategy Trap: Why Intelligence Is Not the Same as Judgement

AI has fundamentally changed how industrial companies plan and operate.

AI excels at:

• Pattern recognition

• Scenario modelling

• Forecasting and optimisation

• Operational efficiency and scheduling

But many leadership teams are making a dangerous leap:

Confusing analytical intelligence with strategic judgement.

AI can support planning.
AI cannot own strategy.

Why?

Because strategy requires human capabilities that no algorithm can replicate:

1. Intuition shaped by experience
The ability to sense weak signals before they appear in data

2. Courage under uncertainty
Making asymmetric bets when information is incomplete

3. Contextual awareness
Understanding culture, power dynamics, regulatory nuance, and informal systems

4. Moral and strategic trade-offs
Choosing what not to pursue, even when the numbers look attractive

In industrial companies, this distinction is critical.

AI may tell you:

• A market is growing

• A process can be optimised

• A cost can be reduced

Only human judgement can decide:

• Whether that market aligns with your capabilities

• Whether optimisation undermines resilience

• Whether short-term savings destroy long-term optionality

Planning is computational. Strategy is existential.

When leadership teams outsource strategic thinking to tools, they do not become more objective, they become strategically passive.

Early 2026: Why Many “Finished” Strategies Are Already Obsolete

There is another uncomfortable truth industrial leaders must face: The traditional annual planning cycle is no longer fit for purpose.

Many companies are finalising their 2026 strategies using:

• Assumptions defined in mid-2025

• Market data that is already outdated

• Regulatory interpretations still evolving

• Workforce realities that have shifted

In industrial sectors, where investment cycles are long, assets are capital-intensive, and errors compound quickly, timing matters as much as content.

The result:

• Strategies that are technically robust but strategically late

• Plans optimised for a world that no longer exists

• Leadership teams locked into commitments that reduce adaptability

The issue is not that planning happens annually.
The issue is that strategy is treated as a calendar event, rather than a living system.

The Missing Layer: Why Industrial Strategy Fails Without Systemic Thinking

Industrial companies do not operate in linear environments.

They operate within interdependent systems:

• Supply chains

• Regulatory regimes

• Energy and resource markets

• Technology ecosystems

• Workforce dynamics

• Capital structures

Yet most strategic plans still treat these as isolated variables.

This is one of the most damaging blind spots in industrial SMEs.

What happens when systemic thinking is absent?

• Cost-reduction initiatives increase safety risk

• Productivity drives accelerate attrition

• Compliance programmes slow operational agility

• Growth strategies overload supply chain capacity

Each decision makes sense locally.
Collectively, they erode resilience.

For large corporations, these failures are absorbed by scale.
For SMEs, they can be fatal.

“In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.”
- Dwight D. Eisenhower

Case Study: A Construction & Infrastructure SME at a Strategic Crossroads

Consider a mid-sized construction and infrastructure services company operating across transport and public works projects.

Context

• Strong growth over seven years

• Revenue above €120 million

• Increasing regulatory scrutiny

• Rising cost pressure and workforce shortages

The 2026 Strategy

• Aggressive margin improvement targets

• Investment in AI-driven project controls

• Expansion into two adjacent markets

• Strict cost and productivity KPIs

On paper, it was a “best practice” strategy.

Within 12 months:

• Project overruns increased

• Senior project managers left

• Safety incidents rose

• Client relationships deteriorated

Why?

Because the strategy treated cost, growth, compliance, and workforce as separate problems.

No one modelled the systemic interactions:

·       How margin pressure affected safety culture

·       How workforce stress increased delivery risk

·       How compliance raised indirect costs

·       How expansion diluted operational focus

The failure was not execution.
It was strategic architecture.

A Pause for Reflection: A Short Strategic Self-Assessment

Before reading further, ask yourself:

1. If we removed 50% of our KPIs, would our strategic direction become clearer or riskier?

2. Can our leadership team clearly articulate the three trade-offs we are consciously making in 2026?

3. Which strategic decisions rely more on courage than on data and are we avoiding them?

4. Do we understand how changes in regulation, workforce, or supply chains cascade across our system?

5. Are we optimising for short-term efficiency or long-term resilience and what are we sacrificing?

If these questions feel uncomfortable, that is not a weakness.

It is a warning signal.

The Growth Paradox: When What Made You Successful Starts Working Against You

Almost every growing industrial company faces the same paradox:

• Early growth came from speed, intuition, and operational focus

• Scaling introduced structure, processes, and governance

• Maturity brought layers, reporting, and control

Somewhere along the way, clarity was replaced by complexity.

More people.
More meetings.
More dashboards.
More alignment sessions.

And less decisive strategy.

Founders and senior leaders often feel this but struggle to articulate it:

“We are doing more things right, but moving less clearly.”

This is the moment when companies do not need:

• More frameworks

• More benchmarks

• More tools

They need strategic integration.

What Systemic Strategy Looks Like in Practice

Systemic thinking is not about adding complexity.
It is about understanding leverage.

It means:

• Identifying critical interdependencies

• Anticipating second- and third-order effects

• Designing strategy as an integrated whole

“You cannot understand a system until you try to change it.”
— Kurt Lewin

In practice, this means:

• Growth decisions evaluated through operational strain, not just market size

• Cost initiatives tested against safety, quality, and retention impacts

• Digital investments aligned with workforce capability

• Compliance treated as strategic positioning, not overhead

• Strategy conversations focused on trade-offs, not consensus

Here, data supports strategy, but does not lead it.

Planning vs Strategy: A Distinction Too Often Ignored

Planning answers:

• What will we do?

• When?

• With which resources?

Strategy answers:

• Why this and not something else?

• What are we willing to sacrifice?

• Where will we deliberately say no?

AI, data, and tools are powerful for planning.
Only humans can do strategy.

Especially in industrial SMEs, where capital is constrained, errors compound quickly, and culture and trust matter deeply.

A Different Way Forward

The companies that will outperform in 2026 and beyond will not be those with:

• The most data

• The most advanced AI

• The most complex dashboards

They will be those with:

• Clear strategic intent

• The courage to make conscious trade-offs

• The ability to think systemically under pressure

At AMARNA Vida, Strategic+ was built for this moment to help industrial SME leaders rebuild strategic clarity without oversimplifying reality.

Not by rejecting data,
but by putting it back in its rightful place.

Closing Thought

If your strategy feels heavy, slow, or overly complicated, the problem is not a lack of intelligence.

It is that strategy has been reduced to a technical exercise in a world that demands human judgement.

And no amount of data will ever replace that.

If this resonates, it is likely not accidental.

Strategic confusion is a clarity problem, more than a data problem.

If you want to:

• Stress-test your 2026 strategy

• Identify the hidden trade-offs you are already making

• Understand how your decisions cascade across your system

Strategic+ is designed precisely for that conversation.

Start with a Strategic Integrative Diagnostic and find out whether your strategy is truly integrated, or merely well documented.

Because clarity is a leadership responsibility, we are here for you.

With clarity,

Liliana Domingues (Founder and CEO @ AMARNA Vida)