Companies can see the big picture and set goals to outperform their competition. But what does it take for a company truly to understand the market and execute its vision? According to Gartner, Inc., a research advisory firm, which evaluates leaders within a market through a Magic Quadrant study, companies can be leaders, challengers, visionaries or niche players. Gartner analyzes a company’s completeness of vision and it’s ability to execute.

A visionary company knows where the market is headed, but isn’t as capable at executing, according to Gartner. So how can visionary leaders take their knowledge and outlook and make them a reality?

Collaborate on Vision
One strong suit visionaries hold is their ability to anticipate changes in the market. Anita Campbell, a small-business consultant in Cleveland, says a visionary company has leaders who meet current needs and demands other companies have not yet caught up to. Her company, Anita Campbell Associates, helps startups grow. “Usually there’s somebody at the helm who has a natural knack for listening to ‘weak signals’ — those very faint vibrations that others don’t hear — and can put those unconnected pieces together to see where the market is headed,” she says.

Some visionaries take collaborative efforts to execute better. Marian Banker, president of Prime Strategies, a consulting firm in New York that consults and trains business owners and executives on strategic planning and leadership, says visionaries often have lots of ideas but are not particularly proficient at executing. “The key to successful realization of the vision is creating a team of the right people to carry out the plan and manage the operation,” she says. Establishing accountability helps move things in the right direction.

Just because a company has a vision that sets them apart doesn’t mean its managers can follow through alone. “A lot of people who are visionary can’t manage their way out of a paper bag,” Campbell says. “As a CEO, you need to help everyone in that company take that vision and turn it into reality.”

This means more than just having a leader, management team or mission with vision. It means leaders need to rally everyone in the company around the ideas so they have the same market understanding. “The ability to align everyone in the company and all the processes, systems and departmental goals toward achieving that vision,” Campbell says, “That’s what makes you and your company truly visionary.”

Outperform the Competition
Mark Taylor, president and CEO of Tyndale House Publishers in Carol Stream, Ill., knows his company has been successful precisely because its vision, to minister to the spiritual needs of people primarily through literature, is articulated then carried through. “A visionary company sees itself as playing a bigger role than just what itself is doing,” Taylor says. “It looks outside itself and outside its own borders and asks, ‘Why do we exist in the first place’?”

Taylor says the way to manifest a competitive edge when your company is visionary is not worrying about what the competition is doing. But that doesn’t mean he’s not paying attention to the competition. “We tend to be very aware of the other key players in our industry, and we know that we are competing with them for key new titles by hot authors,” he says. “But if one of our competitors decides to start selling gift items, for example, that doesn’t make us want to sell gift items. We have identified our strengths and we try to stay in our areas of competency.”

Banker says visionaries see no competition: “There is something they want to accomplish, and it’s not a matter of if they will accomplish it, but when.”