Closing the Strategy Gap — Execute Lumière 2030

A four-round, advanced strategy-execution simulation set inside Lumière Cosmétique S.A., a mid-market French cosmetics and personal-care manufacturer in Lyon (EUR 720M revenue, 12% operating margin, 2,100 staff). Six months ago the board approved, with fanfare, the award-winning ‘Lumière 2030’ sustainability strategy — refillable packaging, certified sourcing, a 50% Scope 1+2 cut and a clean product line worth one-third of revenue. The deck won a sustainability award; the execution rate is near zero. Of 14 flagship initiatives, 11 have not started, two are stuck in pilot, and one marketing relaunch raced ahead of the supply chain. On 11 May 2026 a non-executive director, prompted by a sustainability-linked loan covenant, asks the simple question: ‘We approved this six months ago — what has actually changed?’ You are the new Strategy & Transformation Director, handed a fixed EUR 30M change budget and 18 months to demonstrate real execution — not more strategy. Drawing on Lisa Thomas on barriers to strategy implementation, the knowing-doing gap (Pfeffer & Sutton), the execution premium (Kaplan & Norton; Sull), agency-theory incentive alignment, and value co-creation, you (1) diagnose WHY a well-formulated, well-communicated strategy produced near-zero execution, separating structural barriers (incentives, capability) from sequencing problems (initiative overload); (2) sequence the 14-initiative portfolio under the EUR 30M cap, building unglamorous foundations — eco-design capability, supplier development, incentive redesign — before the board-pleasing flagship refill range that fails without them; (3) remove the barriers — reweight manager incentives away from pure cost/volume despite the Operations Director's resistance, assign accountable owners, build the missing capability, and engage 38 suppliers and two demanding retail customers (22% of revenue) as co-creators rather than compliance targets; and (4) consolidate a quarterly-checkpointed 18-month execution plan and defend a credible barrier-removed → initiative-delivered → 2027-milestone-met chain to the board. The math rewards focus, foundation-first sequencing, incentive alignment and co-creation, and punishes the five classic errors — re-strategising instead of removing barriers, optics-first flagship funding, untouched incentives, keeping all 14 initiatives alive, and compliance-mode stakeholders. Final KPIs track Execution Rate %, Stakeholder Buy-in, Sustainability KPIs Met, and Change-Cost Efficiency against the fixed EUR 30M budget, with a 2027 loan-and-customer milestone and a near-zero-execution escalation that shelves the strategy.