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Vision and Strategy Realization

Client Situation: Our client was an aerospace and defense systems company who counted on the orders for new systems to keep coming.  They spent all their development time and money on a new technology.  By 1990, they had dropped from a market share of over 50% to less than 30% – a big drop for a former market leader.

The goal was to develop a vision and strategy for the company that would guide it through the year 2000 and beyond. Our client wanted to claim number one in market share in both the commercial and military systems. The vision and strategy process was to be implemented in a highly participative way to ensure organization buy-in and support for all elements of the strategic plan. Our solution aligned processes and organizations to support the direction in the strategic plan and assisted the company in the ongoing monitoring and evaluation of the strategy's effectiveness and implementation.

Endeavor Management Solution: We worked as the architects of the overall vision and strategy process, working in direct cooperation with the CEO, to design and implement strategic planning processes involving more than 200 managers and technical personnel.  The strategy process was designed to directly meet the requirements set by the CEO.  The strategic planning process, designed and led by Endeavor, included the following key elements and process sub-steps:

1. Develop mission statement that described the overall business the company wanted to be in, the role they would take in the industry, and the kind of customer needs required to be met.
2. Assessment of the business, technical and political environment with multiple employee teams doing external and internal research for a SWOT analysis to identify Opportunities, Threats, Strengths and Weaknesses.  This analysis revealed several worldwide opportunities and a few critical competitor vulnerabilities.
3. A vision for what the client wanted to be in the year 2000, and the strategy for getting there was completed by evaluating seven strategic alternatives.  The team of senior managers, driving off the SWOT analysis generated the alternatives.  Each alternative was detailed, performed and evaluated by the strategy sub-team made up of a dozen managers and technical personnel.  Customer reaction was also used to identify and evaluate the strong and weak points of each strategic alternative.  The senior management team selected the final vision and strategy based on their assessment of the evaluated alternatives.    
4. The vision and strategy was communicated to the organization through a very timely, comprehensive communication program.  Endeavor led a communication team in the development of a plan for effective communication. Effective communication of the company's direction was ensured through all hands management meetings (led by the CEO), written storage documents distributed and discussed in each division and department of the company, frequent newsletter articles that clarified and explained the strategic direction of the company, etc.
5. Strategy implementation planning was conducted with the team of Senior Managers.  This planning process included a company-wide audit of the company's products, services, work processes and technologies in order to identify changes that would need to be made to align the organization with the strategic direction.  After company-wide planning was completed, each functional department in the company was led in the development of detailed functional plans.
6. Annual meetings of the company's 100 top managers (as well as selected employees from all levels -- including union officials) were developed and conducted to reiterate, reevaluate and restate the strategic direction of the companies.  Each 4-day meeting was used to ensure that the organization was on the right track in terms of the managers being: knowledgeable of the strategic direction, signed up to proactively support that direction, and aligned with corporate needs through their operational goals for the upcoming year.
7. Key target tracking meetings were implemented to give a month by month look at the implementation of the company's strategic direction. These meetings, led by Senior Management, are attended by 60 to 80 key managers and employees whose commitment and support is needed for strategic success.

Results and Benefits: Since the implementation of the strategy, the client moved from No. 3 in market share to No. 1 -- from approximately 30% share to approximately 70% share in commercial systems. They have made similar gains on the military side. The client has moved from essentially the third place company in a four horse race to the recognized world leader in their sector and service, thanks to the superior leadership of a dedicated CEO who built strategic direction and commitment through a well-guided, highly participative planning process.