Strategic Alignment

Strategy is often expressed in terms of a company vision statement, objectives, goals, and initiatives. However, studies have shown that:

  • Only 5% of a company’s workforce understands their company strategy
  • Only 25% of managers have incentives that are linked to strategy
  • 60% of organizations do not link operational budgets to strategy
  • 86% of executive teams spend less than one hour per month discussing strategy with their workforce
     

Strategic planning for most companies usually involves spending some time at an “off-site” location, brainstorming a few ideas, writing them down, hanging the mission statement on the office wall when you get back and putting the winning strategy, ideas and objectives into a binder that nobody looks at ever again. If this sounds familiar, then it is time to have UT CIS help you create a strategy deployment plan that gets results.

The Hoshin Kanri strategy planning method provides a way for creating a comprehensive communication system between all levels of employees, keeping everyone focused on meeting the organization’s goals. Hoshin Kanri ensures that everyone in the organization knows the company’s strategic direction and creates a working communication system that focuses on common goals. Hoshin Kanri is founded on the guiding principle of inclusion.

Hoshin Kanri, also known as Policy Deployment, is designed to ensure the strategic goals of a business are driving progress and action - at every level.

Hoshin Kanri is a top-down approach, with the goals being mandated by management and the implementation being performed by employees. As a result, systems need to be in place to ensure that objectives from senior management are effectively communicated all the way down the chain of command.

When implemented effectively, the seven step Hoshin Kanri process forces the leadership team to develop a vision and a list of breakthrough goals, create a cascade of complementary goals, which ensures alignment, and provide the necessary leverage for successful execution. Hoshin Kanri bridges the gap between strategy and execution by creating alignment, focus, and participation.