30 OGSM Strategy Examples Across 6 Industries (And How to Write Your Own)
An OGSM Strategy is a deliberate choice about how your organisation will achieve its Goals. It sits between the ambition (Objective and Goals) and the proof (Measures) — and it’s the element most teams get wrong, either writing vague generalities or confusing Strategies with tasks. This article gives you 30 concrete OGSM strategy statement examples across six industries, the rules for writing one properly, and the tests to apply before you lock in your own.
What an OGSM Strategy Actually Is (vs. a Goal)
Before diving into the examples, the distinction matters.
A Goal tells you what you want to achieve: “Grow revenue to £10m by year 3.” It’s a measurable outcome with a timeline. A Strategy tells you how you’ve chosen to get there: “Build a direct-to-consumer channel to remove distributor margin and shorten the feedback loop with buyers.” It’s a directional choice — something you’ve consciously decided to do instead of other things you could have done.
If you’re new to the framework, what OGSM actually means is worth reading before this article. The distinction between Strategies and Measures is also subtle — the OGSM Measures guide covers that in full.
The most common mistake teams make: writing OGSM Strategies that are actually Goals (“Increase market share”) or tasks (“Launch a website”). A well-written Strategy is a choice. It implies a trade-off. It gives the team direction without dictating the detail.
The 3 Rules for Writing a Good OGSM Strategy Statement
Rule 1: A Strategy implies a choice. Every real Strategy has an implicit “instead of.” “Build a direct sales team” implies “instead of relying on resellers.” “Focus on enterprise accounts” implies “instead of chasing SME volume.” If your Strategy doesn’t have an implicit trade-off, it’s probably a platitude — something everyone would agree with, which means it’s not a decision, it’s a wish.
Rule 2: A Strategy is directional, not granular. A Strategy sets a course. The plans, campaigns, and tasks that execute it live underneath in project management tools, not in the OGSM. If your strategy statement runs to three sentences and includes timelines and deliverables, you’ve written an action plan. Aim for one crisp sentence that a new team member could use to make daily prioritisation decisions without needing further instruction.
Rule 3: A Strategy connects to a Goal. Every OGSM Strategy should answer the question: “Which Goal does this primarily help us hit?” If you can’t make that connection, either the Strategy is irrelevant to your plan, or you’re missing a Goal that should be there. Both are worth resolving before you finalise the OGSM.
Keep three to five Strategies on the page. More than five and you’ve stopped making choices — you’ve listed everything you could do and dressed it up as direction.
30 OGSM Strategy Examples by Industry
The examples below are grouped by sector. Each one is a single strategy statement — the format it would appear in an actual OGSM. They’re intentionally specific: generic statements like “improve customer experience” aren’t strategies, they’re aspirations. A strategy tells you how and implies what you’re choosing to do instead.
Retail and E-Commerce
The pressure on retail margins and the shift to direct-to-consumer channels makes strategy choices sharper here. These five examples reflect the kinds of real choices retail and e-commerce businesses are making now.
Launch a loyalty programme that rewards repeat buyers with early access to new product drops and exclusive pricing, to increase purchase frequency in the existing customer base.
Shift 30% of the product range to own-brand labels to improve gross margin and reduce dependence on third-party suppliers with competing distribution strategies.
Open a flagship experiential store in a high-footfall city location to drive brand awareness and build a direct offline data capture capability.
Build a personalised email recommendation engine using purchase history data to surface relevant products at the right moment and increase average order value.
Partner with independent creators in the sustainable living space to reach a first-time buyer audience that paid and organic search channels aren’t converting.
Professional Services and Consulting
For consultancies and professional services firms, Strategies often centre on market positioning, talent leverage, and building thought leadership as a pipeline driver. The choices here determine whether a firm competes on price or on expertise.
Develop a proprietary benchmarking tool that gives prospects a free assessment of their operational maturity against industry peers, to generate qualified pipeline from buyers at the research stage.
Narrow our market positioning to the financial services vertical and deprioritise generalist mandates to sharpen credibility with target buyers and improve win rates.
Build a structured internal training and certification programme to reduce delivery dependency on senior consultants and improve our ability to scale engagements without margin erosion.
Launch a fixed-price entry-level diagnostic service to attract SME clients who can’t afford full engagements, and create a natural upsell pathway to multi-phase work.
Publish a quarterly sector insights report to build credibility with C-suite buyers in target verticals before they enter a formal procurement process.
SaaS and Technology
Growth Strategies in SaaS hinge on a small number of pivotal choices: which segment to target, what the acquisition motion looks like, and how to retain customers through product experience. These five examples reflect strategies at different growth stages.
Build a native Salesforce integration to eliminate the primary implementation barrier cited by enterprise prospects during the sales process.
Launch a freemium tier with deliberate feature gating to capture self-serve users in the SME segment and convert them through in-app upgrade prompts.
Redesign the onboarding flow end-to-end to reduce median time-to-first-value from 14 days to under 48 hours, making early retention the primary growth lever.
Establish a customer advisory board drawn from our top-ten power users to co-develop the product roadmap and reduce feature mismatch as a driver of early churn.
Enter the European market through an established regional reseller network rather than building a direct sales team, to test market fit before making a fixed-cost commitment.
Manufacturing and Operations
Operations Strategies are often about cost structure, supply chain resilience, and quality. The choices made here determine whether a business competes on efficiency, consistency, or capability.
Consolidate from six suppliers to two preferred partners across core materials to reduce procurement complexity, lower unit costs, and improve quality control through closer relationships.
Implement a lean manufacturing programme across all production lines over 18 months, targeting the six highest-waste processes first, to reduce rework and improve throughput.
Automate the three most labour-intensive assembly stages to reduce per-unit cost and create a consistent output quality that manual processes can’t sustain at volume.
Develop a direct-to-customer fulfilment channel for a curated range of products to reduce dependence on distributors and capture margin currently lost in the channel.
Pursue ISO 14001 environmental management certification to meet the procurement requirements of key European customers and position ahead of incoming regulatory requirements.
Non-Profit and Charity
The Strategies that work for charities look different from commercial businesses — the constraint is usually unrestricted funding and volunteer capacity rather than market share. These examples reflect real choices non-profit leaders make.
Build a corporate partnership programme targeting 10 mid-sized businesses in the region for multi-year unrestricted funding commitments, reducing dependence on grant income.
Launch a peer-to-peer fundraising platform to activate the existing supporter base as active fundraisers, not just passive donors, for major annual campaigns.
Expand service delivery into three new regional areas by partnering with established local organisations rather than building direct delivery capacity, to grow reach without adding fixed costs.
Develop a fee-generating social enterprise arm that provides commercial services to businesses, using surplus to cross-subsidise core charitable activities.
Create a structured volunteer development pathway — induction, role progression, recognition — to improve 12-month retention and reduce the cost of ongoing volunteer recruitment.
Healthcare and Wellness
Healthcare Strategies must balance clinical quality, patient experience, and the operational realities of capacity and regulation. These examples span both clinical and commercial dimensions.
Introduce a hybrid care model that combines in-person initial consultations with structured remote follow-up, to increase practitioner capacity without proportional headcount growth.
Build a formal referral partnership programme with GP surgeries in the catchment area to increase new patient registrations through a trusted clinical channel.
Launch a corporate wellness subscription programme targeting local employers of 50 or more staff, to diversify revenue beyond direct patient fees and smooth the income curve.
Develop a digital self-management tool for patients to use between appointments, to improve adherence to clinical recommendations and reduce avoidable re-attendance.
Pursue a quality excellence accreditation by embedding a continuous improvement programme across all clinical and operational teams, to differentiate on quality and meet rising commissioner expectations.
Common OGSM Strategy Mistakes
Even experienced leaders get these wrong. Here’s what to watch for.
Strategies that are actually Goals. “Increase market share” is a Goal. “Launch a mid-market product tier at 60% of our flagship price to compete for volume buyers we’re currently losing to lower-cost alternatives” is a Strategy. If your Strategy sounds like a target, it belongs in the Goals row.
Strategies that are actually tasks. “Redesign the website” is a task. “Shift our primary acquisition channel from outbound to inbound by building a content and SEO programme targeting mid-funnel buyers” is a Strategy. Tasks belong in project plans. The OGSM holds the choices that determine which tasks are worth doing at all.
Too many Strategies. Three to five is right. If you have ten Strategies, you haven’t made choices — you’ve listed everything you could do. That’s not a strategy; it’s a backlog. The OGSM template builds in the constraint to keep you disciplined.
Strategies that nobody disagrees with. If every person in the room reads your Strategy and immediately nods — no pushback, no alternative view — it’s probably not a real choice. Real Strategies generate healthy debate because they imply trade-offs. If there’s no debate, push harder.
Changing Strategies every quarter. Strategies should be stable for the planning horizon — typically 12 to 36 months. If you’re revising them every 90 days, you’re either reacting to noise or the original choices weren’t credible. Measures should update more frequently. Strategies should not.
How to Pressure-Test Your OGSM Strategies
Once you’ve drafted your Strategies, run each one through these four checks before locking them in.
The choice test. Complete this sentence: “We chose this instead of \_\_\_\_.” If you can’t fill in the blank with a plausible alternative, the Strategy isn’t real enough. A real choice always has a real alternative.
The Goal connection test. Identify which Goal each Strategy primarily supports. If a Strategy doesn’t connect to any Goal, either remove it or add the Goal you forgot to write. Orphaned Strategies are a sign of incomplete thinking.
The granularity test. Read your Strategy out loud. If it sounds like a campaign brief, a project plan, or a specification document, it’s too granular. A Strategy should be something a team lead can use to make a daily prioritisation decision — without needing to ask the CEO what it means.
The disagreement test. Ask someone outside your immediate leadership team whether they’d make a different strategic choice to achieve the same Goal. If they immediately agree with your Strategy without hesitation, probe further. Real choices have real alternatives, and the best strategies have been genuinely tested before they’re locked in.
If your Strategies pass all four tests, you’ve done the hard thinking. From here, the cascade process takes each Strategy and translates it into team-level plans. Read how to cascade OGSM through your organisation for the full step-by-step.
Writing OGSM Strategy Statements: The Short Version
A strong OGSM Strategy is:
- One crisp sentence
- A genuine choice with an implicit trade-off
- Directly connected to a Goal
- Stable enough to guide decisions for a year or more
Start with your Goals. Ask “how?” for each one. Write down every reasonable path. Then make the call — which two or three of those paths represent the best route forward given your resources, your market, and your competitive reality? Those are your Strategies. Everything else — campaigns, projects, roadmaps, tactics — lives underneath them.
Rock on.