For years, companies have searched for the best way to direct the objectives set towards the organization's vision and mission.
The mission of an organization is a concise phrase, with an “internal” focus, of the reason for the existence of the organization, the basic purpose towards which its activities point, and the values that guide the activities of its employees. The mission is linked to core values. They also describe how to compete and generate customer value.
On the other hand, the Vision of an organization is a concise phrase that describes the medium and long-term goals. The Vision is "external", market-oriented, and should express in a colorful and visionary way how the organization wants to be perceived by the world.
To achieve this "ideal" condition, companies set objectives that will allow them to complete stages that will place them in a position that is increasingly closer to their vision. Likewise, in order to achieve the objectives, it is necessary to discover a “how”, this action plan is known as Strategies. For a company to be aligned from design to practice, it must focus its strategies. It is important that they are in line with the objectives and contemplate as a north the vision of the organization.
Sometimes managers have too many objectives and this means that people do not have a defined path of where they want to go because there are simply going to be a myriad of strategies, which may even contradict each other. Hence the importance of prioritizing objectives first. This does not mean that objectives will be set aside and will never be attended to; rather, in the short and medium term, efforts should be concentrated on those that generate competitive advantages. Today, the companies that stand out are those that offer greater competitive advantages. In order to prioritize, it is essential to bear in mind that not everything important is Strategic,Many times the mistake is made of trying to control all aspects of the organization and devising strategies for all these factors; This can generate a serious misalignment of the company, because there will be people focused on some aspects and others trying to reach other points that may go in the opposite direction.
For example, today in Venezuela with the serious problem of supplies, import restrictions and the acquisition of foreign exchange for import, a company may have the following objective: To achieve sales of one million units. However, the company has an inventory policy of less than three (3) months of demand and has only three (3) months to make purchases due to the validity of the Certificate of National Non-Production that requires government regulation for the acquisition of foreign exchange. This limitation forces you to make high-volume purchases to be able to supply the inventory and meet the proposed sales; however the inventory policy does not allow you to make such extensive purchases. In this case, the objectives are not aligned and it is necessary to review the strategic focus of the organization.
A good tool to define focused strategies is the Strategic Map, this is nothing more than a graphic representation of how the mission is going to be achieved, and normally in for-profit organizations it should be aimed at how to obtain more income and how to reduce costs
The strategic map aims to communicate the strategy clearly so that employees can align their efforts to achieve the stated goals. It also allows expectations to be leveled, because in this way it is known what can be expected and what aspects are not contemplated to be reached in a certain period. It also tests hypotheses, because the fact that the objectives are linked to certain strategies, does not mean that in practice these strategies are really the correct ones to achieve with the objectives.
A Strategic Map must have the following characteristics:
- From 2 to 4 strategic topics.Focused.Clear.Without too many objectives.Precise.Communicable.Integral.Structured (on 1 page).
The structure of the strategic map allows to visually represent what is to be achieved and how it is to be achieved, and covers the following points:
- Financial perspective, clients, internal processes and learning, and growth: they are ordered from the most measurable to the least measurable, since the latter are subjective.The main strategic objectives are to comply with the strategy: what you want to achieve in relation to each perspective. cause-effect relationships between the objectives. The strategic themes: which are the vertical parameters of the map.
This tool allows you to keep the focus on the strategies that will allow you to meet the objectives and achieve the vision. The success of a company depends largely on being focused, that all team members; In other words, human capital is aimed at working on the same path and towards the same goal, and not trying to cover too many aspects that make efforts less concentrated. This is surely achieved with the reinforcement and training of personnel, who are the only ones with the capacity to generate positive changes.
