“It is not worth seeing later. What matters is to see now and be prepared ”. Jose Marti.
The experience accumulated in the attempts to implement or carry out Strategic Management in medium and small companies has faced, among one of the barriers, the lack of a logic consistent with the system of theories, techniques and concepts that on the main terms and categories associated with this endeavor, we find in the different bibliographies.
The model and its foundation that we present here, constitutes a proposal that conceptually revolutionizes the classic models of conceiving the process of introducing strategic management in companies, based on the Strategic Exercise carried out by the members of their management team with advice or not of a team of consultants or facilitators. Its application in several companies in recent years has allowed its constant improvement.
The Model for Corporate Characterization and Strategic Projection (MCPE) 1 is composed of four stages or methodological moments:
- Corporate Characterization
It is the conception and design of the desired or necessary organization. The bases of the business project by defining the Profile-Vision pair. Situation Analysis
It is the search and analysis of relevant information to validate the relationship between the real and the desired state. Strategic Problem and Mission
It is the definition of the problem or gap between the real state and the desired one as well as its great solution. Strategic Projection and Feedback
It is the process of making decisions and defining actions to solve the problem and achieve the desired state, it includes the objectives and actions that will guide strategic management, as well as the way to measure and evaluate its results.
The MCPE category system is grouped into two Primary Categories and twelve Basic Categories. (annexed).
The Corporate Characterization
- The Corporate Profile The Corporate Vision or Service Vision
The Strategic Projection
- The Situation Analysis The Strategic Problem The Key Result Areas The Key Success Factors The Mission The Central Policies The Corporate Strategies The Strategic Objectives The Action Plan The Evaluation And Feedback System.
As observed in the Model, the new approach or way of conceiving the process is found in the Corporate Characterization category, which contains the Vision but with a new connotation and resolving a dialectical pair with the Corporate Profile category.
corporate profile
It contains the essence of the Corporate Project, the major purposes defined for the organization, its corporate purpose, how it should be organized, the managerial style, the expectations about its performance to respond to its audiences, the characteristics of its human resources, the support technology of its services and products, the fundamental lines of services, the elements of Identity. It is the BEING, the essence, the content of the new quality, which makes it different from other organizations. The Profile, with the Vision, complements the Organizational Identity and the discourse that defines the base organization of Corporate Communication.
Corporate vision
It is the response to the type of organization that is desired, it defines the expected behavior and the way to respond to our users and the general public. Talk about the characteristics of the new Corporate Culture to guarantee services. It includes the System of Corporate and Personal Values, the presumptions and main norms of the organization, manifested as corporate competencies. It illustrates the commitment with employees, with society and with the rest of the public. Draw together with the Profile, the Corporate Dream, what if it ceased to be, the organization would cease to exist; it sums up technical and cultural doing. The Vision endures, it is reinforced by the actions of the organization and the demands of the environment. It is being, knowing how to behave there, it represents the new quality, it is the new phenomenon,the form of the new organization, the Vision, responds to the content of the essence contained in the Profile.
In summary, the Corporate Characterization contains the basic elements of Identity, among which, according to Costa2, we can point out the name or verbal identity and cultural identity and, according to de la Tajada3, in the Corporate Characterization we find the eight variables of Identity: axiological, social, service, administrative, institutional, marketing, technical and economic-financial.
This points to the Corporate Characterization, as the central nucleus of the Corporate Identity.
A second moment of the new conception is found in the definition and place of the categories: Strategic Problem, Key Result Areas, Key Success Factor and Mission.
The Strategic Problem is perhaps the most important of the categories because it is the carrier of contradiction and, therefore, the source of change. Its definition starts from the Situation Analysis, from the assessment of the gap between the real state and the desired state. Its definition allows us, in the first place, to know what is preventing the organization from having an effective performance or at least according to its Corporate Characterization in the strategic period. Once the problem is known, the organization will be able to more accurately determine the causal factors, that is, where we must act to eliminate the Strategic Problem and reach the desired state.
The Key Result Areas (KRA) are those non-functional areas or places of the organization's management, closely related to the processes of the organization and where we cannot stop acting if we want to eliminate the Strategic Problem and reach the desired state in the strategic period. The ARC are the causal factors that control the Strategic Problem and organizational performance. Based on their determination, the Strategic Objectives, Central Policies and Strategies can be defined.
The Key Success Factors are related to those values or attributes that users expect from the service, for which they are willing to pay with what they recognize the quality of the services and how the company fulfills its Social Responsibility. They guarantee the competitiveness of the organization in its sector or market segments by being associated with user expectations and tell us if the company has a competitive advantage. The FCE category is a guide for effective management.
The Mission of the organization for the strategic period is the solution to the Strategic Problem, the great organizational goal that shared among all collaborators becomes a coordinating soul and glue at all levels for that stage. It is the category that marks the quantitative changes that the organization must achieve in pursuit of the new quality defined in the Vision. The Mission, therefore, is modified, redefined with the changes that the environment imposes on the company, it allows the orientation towards the desired state, depending on what is happening in the environment and within the organization. Strategic management is closely associated with this category as it demonstrates the organization's ability to define its strategic problems and, hence,propose a Mission that allows it to guide the quantitative changes that gradually lead it to the new and desired quality contained in its Corporate Characterization. This quality or organizational competence is associated with the concept of learning organizations.
As a summary, we present the methodological bases of this important management tool.
- The MCPE considers the process of organizational change in all its dimensions and characteristics and, especially, that of projecting the change from a desired vision state, capable of pulling the organization towards that future. it occurs from a real or current state to a desired state, hence the Corporate Characterization is introduced as the definition of that desired state viewed; but that in addition to containing who we are (there) PROFILE, it contains how we act (there) VISION.Corporate Characterization starts from designing or dreaming a results-oriented organization, hence the Vision is nothing more than the statement of achieving managerial effectiveness based on a performance oriented towards satisfying the needs and expectations of internal and external users,Therefore, it will be based on the company's process map. The performance and behaviors declared in the Vision are based on the system of corporate and individual values defined and shared. As can be seen, the Model is also based on Management by Values. The definition of Corporate Characterization, in a shared way, allows the creation of meanings for the associated publics and therefore lay the foundations for organizational communication. The text of the Identity of the company that we want to build, is the source for the definition of the communication strategies in charge of creating the desired Image in the public. It considers Strategic Management as a process to solve future problems,previously viewed by the Directors or those in charge of the Business Project. This implies recognizing the problem solving process for what defines the concept of Strategic Problem as what is preventing the organization in that period from reaching its desired state or corporate dream. In this way, it assumes that the causes of this problem are related to what we call Key Result Areas.The concept of Mission is related to the possible solution of the problem, it is the managerial hypothesis, what we must achieve in this period to solve the problem. problem and reach the desired state. The Mission becomes the definition of the great corporate objective for that strategic period.The Management by Objective (DPO) constitutes the skeleton of the MCPE, the objectives guide and sustain the permanent improvement process,Promoting internal and external communication, motivation and integration of collaborators. The MCPE allows to dialectically relate the elements of the Corporate Identity with the behavior expected by the public and therefore, the Image that they have of that organization that we want. Important element of the design or conception of the Model is the decision-making process. Knowing who we are or who we should be (Corporate Characterization), we look for all the relevant information within the organization and in the external environment to validate to what extent we can be that, using, among other techniques, the SWOT matrix and that of the most probable scenario. This process will enable us to determine the gap or problem and, through its analysis, find the causes and make policy decisions,objectives and strategies that allow to put the organization in the desired place.The PDCA or Quality Cycle is present in the idea of the Model, it allows Planning from the objectives, making decisions, Directing the organization towards its desired state, Controlling deviations and Act on this performance by systematically taking corrective measures.creation of participatory groups trained and led by internal consultants in charge of the systematic analysis of the situation, implies the emergence of three Knowledge Communities that will be continuously nurtured with information and knowledge, making it explicit and turning it into organizational knowledge, we are talking about knowledge management, which is the same, it promotes the formation of a company that learns, is In other words, an intelligent company, capable of defining its own strategic problems and finding a solution for them, and most importantly, by creating added values generated by its members, on the other hand, defining the system of corporate and personal values, as well as the degree of compliance with the indicators of excellence in services, they base the design of the HR Success Profile that the organization needs, hence the usefulness of the Model to guide Management by Competencies and therefore,of the recruitment, selection and socialization system of newly incorporated HR as well as to determine the potentialities of current workers and to be able to develop their career plan.The Model allows the organization to determine its competitive advantages and the factors or causes that the determined from the analysis of the sector (market and competition). This allows us to know if we are good in costs or for the quality of our services for the target market or segment we serve and decide the most appropriate strategy system. It should also be noted that the defined strategy system becomes the support for change organizational, itself,Each one is capable of reflecting or determining the different quantitative changes that, if fulfilled, will guarantee the qualitative change reflected in the Mission for the strategic period in question. The process of control, evaluation and feedback is based on self-control and evaluation in teams of the results and performance fostering self-discipline, integration and development of employees.
Bibliography consulted
- Costa Joan, The corporate image in the XXI century. de la Tajada Sanz Luis A, Integration of the Identity and Image of the Company, ESIC, Madrid, 1994. Finnigan, JP (1997). Business benchmarking guide. Prentice Hall SA México.García Sehweret Pablo, Communications in the company. Scientific-Technique 1983 Gibson, W. Games, E. (1996). The organizations. Editorial Irwin. Madrid.Goldhaber Gerald M, Organizational Communication. Diana. 1994. Hammer, M.; Chanpy, J. (1993). Reengineering. Ed. Norma, Bogotá. Kaplan RS and Norton DP, Editora Gestión 200,1997Margulies, N.; Raia, A. (1983). Organizational development. Values, Process and Technology. Editorial Diana. México.Mintzberg H et al., Safari a la Strategy, Granica, 1999 Scheinsohn Daniel, Beyond the Corporate Image. Machi 1997.
Model for Corporate Characterization and Strategic Projection.
