Summary
Most organizations strive to ensure that ‘the whole is greater than the sum of its parts’, striving to work seamlessly together and gain synergies where possible. More often than not, however, multiple units/departments in an organization operate in silos. Without an understanding of a common set of objectives and priorities, the organization falls short of achieving the desired outcomes. At this juncture, it becomes essential for the leadership team to take a step back and get a holistic view of the strategic objectives. A consensus-based way forward direction is the key to formulating and implementing a strategy.
Two important factors are key to driving a successful strategy planning session: structure and consensus. Cedar’s Balanced Scorecard (BSC) framework gives a top-down approach to building a strategy and conducting a planning session in a structured manner. There are four perspectives to the Balanced Scorecard framework – Financial, Customer, Internal Processes and Organizational. Strategy planning using the BSC framework helps an organization to answer simple questions of objectives that are to be aligned with its mission and vision. An example illustrated below:
- Financial | “If we succeed, how will we look to our shareholders?”
- Customer | “To achieve our vision, how must we look to our customers?”
- Internal Processes | “To satisfy our customers, what management processes must we excel at?”
- Organizational | “To achieve our vision, how must our organization learn and improve?”
Cedar has been assisting clients globally, across industry sectors, in formulating strategy using the Balanced Scorecard framework for 30+ years. With over 400+ strategy planning workshops completed, Cedar assists clients in building consensus around the 20-25 strategic objectives aligned with the way forward strategy, across the four perspectives.
How we add value
- Strategy Formulation Expertise: Building consensus is the key. Cedar’s approach to strategic planning is unique and time-tested over multiple engagements for 30+ years across industry sectors. Cedar not only drives strategy planning workshops for leadership team members of an organization but also facilitates discussion to arrive at 20-25 strategic objectives aligned to the way forward strategy using the Balanced Scorecard Framework. Cedar drives the leadership workshop to ensure consensus on the strategic objectives across the leadership team.
- Objective Measures: Arriving at a consensus on the 20-25 strategic initiatives is the first step. The next important step is to define the metrics to measure these objectives. Cedar guides clients in identifying the appropriate measures and defining the ownership and frequency of calculation. More importantly, Cedar also helps the client in defining the appropriate formula for the calculation of the measures, leveraging its library of over 2,000+ lead and lag measures across industries.
- Initiative Identification and Mapping: It is imperative to identify initiatives aligned with the strategic objectives. Cedar helps organizations with the identification and articulation of key initiatives that will help achieve the 20-25 strategic initiatives. These initiatives are defined along with key parameters such as timelines, budgets and ownership to ensure clarity and smooth execution.
