Tools & Techniques to Ensure Alignment of Corporate Activities and Initiatives with Overall Company Strategic Objectives

Organizational Alignment Strategies & Best Practices

1. Are your employees focused on driving toward your strategic objectives, day after day, week after week, quarter over quarter? Or are they focused on lesser important tactical tasks that don’t always support these strategic objectives?

2. Can you specify which percentages of your team’s activities are spent working toward your strategic goals vs. the percent spent on tactical, non-strategic objectives?

3. Do you have a set of tools to easily and simply track progress toward completion of strategic objectives, down to the initiative, project, and task?

4. Do you have a set of world-class program and project management tools to leverage to ensure organizational alignment with company priorities?

If you answered “No” or I don’t know to any of the above questions, the rest of this blog is dedicated toward helping you get to “Yes” for all of the above 4 questions in 4 easy steps (my “4-in-4” delivery promise).

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Organizational Alignment – Step 1

STEP 1 – Develop and Prioritize Top Strategic Company Objectives

Above is a set of strategic objectives I helped develop for a financial services client who was struggling with customer loyalty and experiencing higher than standard customer defection rates to their competitors.  Through a series of interviews, workshops and visioning sessions, we arrived at the top four (4) strategic CRM objectives above and then mapped out the major customer interaction outlets (a.k.a. touch-points) in order to map the stakeholder groups that would be involved in helping my client achieve these four strategic objectives.

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Organizational Alignment – Step 2

STEP 2 – Map Top Strategic Company Objectives to both Functional Areas and to Supporting Major Initiatives

Organization Alignment Step: The next step in the process was to map the customer interaction outlets shown on the previous slide and then perform the following:

• Overlay the stakeholder groups (shown on the outer part of the above diagram) that will be involved in helping achieve each of the four strategic initiatives shown in the center.

• Map the strategic objectives that each of the stakeholder groups would be involved with implementing (i.e. bulleted items “Customer Information Profiles”, “Customer Needs Fulfillment”, etc.)

• Develop a program and project plan with required resources from:

1. From outside the company (consulting),

2. From each of the stakeholder groups (subject matter experts, project liaisons, etc.)

3. Technology Purchases

4. Sourcing Agreements

5. etc., etc.

   
   

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Organizational Alignment – Step 3

STEP 3 – Map Top Strategic Company Objectives to Supporting Major Initiatives, Projects and Activities

The next step in the process is to develop a mapping from Strategic Objectives to the Supporting Initiatives and the projects/activities that support these major initiatives. It is important to develop a unique coding system (or Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)) for each strategic objective, major supporting imitative, project and activities within each project so they can be tracked within a time management system. Here is an example as partially illustrated in the above diagram.

Organizational Alignment – Work Breakdown Structure

WBS Level 1: Strategic Objective 4 = “Correct Action, Correct Time, Correct Customer”;

    WBS Level 2: Initiative 1 Supporting Objective 4 = 4CR1 or “Customer Referrals”

      WBS Level 3: Project 1 Supporting Customer Referrals = 4CRCCIFG1, “Conduct Customer Incentive Focus Group”

          WBS Level 4: Activity 1 Supporting Conduct Customer Incentive Focus Group = 4CRCCIFG1A1, “Determine Focus Group Participants”

Once you have determined the entire work breakdown structure for all strategic initiatives, tracked to initiatives, project and all activities, down to the 4th level (i.e. 4CRCCIFG1A1), you can then load these into your time management system to track how much time is being spent on these strategic objectives & tasks vs. all other time management tasks.

Organizational Alignment – Need Assistance?

Related to the above topic, does your organization need world-class and experienced assistance increasing Organizational Alignment or any of the following related initiatives?:

• Determining your next strategic direction?

• Setting prioritized strategic goals?

• Driving organizational efficiency and Organizational Alignment?

• Ensuring corporate strategic initiatives are aligned with current projects, activities and tasks?

If so, give me a call, I call help you achieve Organizational Alignment andworld-class strategic programs that enable you to surpass your competition and bring your organization to the next level of strategic goal development and attainment.

Lastly, this is just one article of 60+ total I have written on Customer strategy, CRM, marketing, product management, competitive intelligence, corporate innovation, change management – all of which I have significant experience in delivering for Fortune 500 companies.  In fact, my blog is now followed by nearly 160,000 world-wide.

For Additional Information on The Topic of Organizational Alignment

Organizational alignment is a critical success factor for organizations seeking to improve performance, execute strategy effectively, and create sustainable competitive advantages. When business objectives, processes, people, metrics, and customer priorities are aligned, organizations are often better positioned to improve decision-making, increase collaboration, reduce inefficiencies, and achieve superior business results.

In many organizations, organizational alignment challenges occur when departments operate independently, objectives conflict, or performance measures fail to support strategic goals. Effective organizational alignment helps ensure that employees understand priorities, leadership communicates a consistent vision, and resources are directed toward common objectives. As organizations become increasingly customer-focused and digitally connected, alignment across functions becomes even more important to long-term success.

For additional information on organizational alignment and strategy execution, review these resources:

• Market Research and Competitive Analysis
  https://www.sba.gov/business-guide/plan-your-business/market-research-competitive-analysis
• What Is a Balanced Scorecard?
  Balanced Scorecard Institute

Organizations that successfully align strategy, operations, customer objectives, and performance measures are often better able to improve execution, strengthen competitive positioning, and achieve sustainable growth.gy are often better able to improve performance, increase agility, strengthen customer relationships, and achieve long-term competitive success.