his paper presents a longitudinal case study of strategic transformation in a complexorganisation – Her Majesty’s Naval Base (Clyde). The research identifies nine Critical Suc-cess Factors from the change management literature and analyses their position in driving the transformation. Findings suggest that many of the success factors suggested by the literature were not present during the transformation. However the presence of a robustperformance management system within the organisation resulted in significant progresstowards the strategic goals despite the absence of other factors. This paper demonstrate show strategic change can be accomplished by the use of more operational toolsets such as performance management systems.