Every organization has a strategy – an overarching approach to doing business. Designed to establish and maintain its niche within the marketplace, the company’s strategy should inform every decision it makes, from defining its value proposition to choosing IT systems and HR policies.
Despite its significance, up to 90% of organizations struggle with a disconnect between strategic alignment and decision-making. Without strategic influence, factions within the company may work at cross-purposes, impacting the business’ productivity, competitive edge, and even brand loyalty.
From the C-suite to the mail room, every employee should work together for the organization’s benefit. Here’s how to achieve strategic alignment.
What is strategic alignment?
Defining alignment in business strategy means ensuring every aspect of a company’s operation – including its goals and activities – points in the same direction. Practically, it prioritizes projects and resource allocation to deliver outcomes that fulfill organizational goals established by the company’s strategic roadmap. Every department, team, and individual employee must understand the company’s vision and work together to make it a reality.
Aligning decisions with company strategy empowers employees to respond to changing market conditions, whether economic, technological, or client-based, to achieve long-term goals. This agility allows the organization to revamp its operations when necessary, keeping its products and services relevant.
Strategic alignment example
An IT firm wants to increase the contract renewal rate among existing customers. Upon reviewing its client support processes, the team uncovers communication delays between its CSRs and technical service personnel, which impact customer satisfaction.
Leadership aligns operational processes behind strategy by implementing a new, streamlined communication system that allows CSRs to update technicians’ work schedules and automatically notify clients of their expected arrival in real time.
The importance of strategic alignment
The benefits of strategic alignment are wide-ranging and critical to an organization’s success.
1. Improved performance
Employees who understand their contribution to strategic goals can organize their workflows to minimize time and effort wasted on activities that don’t move the needle. A strategy-informed decision-making process ensures better resource allocation, increases performance, and improves the probability of delivering a project on time and within budget by 50%.
2. Greater likelihood of project success
When organizations prioritize processes, resource allocation, and activities to achieve their strategic goals, they maximize team performance and improve project success rates. Studies show that this makes them 57% more likely to achieve the desired results.
3. Increased organizational agility
A unified company strategy establishes a framework employees use to view and assess marketplace evolution. The entire team becomes more responsive, adapting quickly and innovating new products or services while managing risks.
4. Customer-centric focus
A customer service strategy lays the foundation for improved client satisfaction and brand loyalty. Teams understand expectations and are empowered to act strategically to deliver the best experience and value possible.
5. Better employee engagement
Connecting employees’ contributions with organizational strategy and goals helps them understand the value of their work, giving them a sense of purpose and fulfillment. They share in the business’s achievements, giving them greater job satisfaction while lowering the company’s employee turnover.
How to achieve strategic alignment
Strategic alignment doesn’t happen spontaneously. A business must actively nurture adoption to improve organizational efficiency, productivity, and profitability.
Here’s how to create a corporate culture that aligns with organizational strategy:
1. Begin at the top
Large organizations are often siloed, with each department leader focused on a distinct agenda rather than addressing the company’s needs. Companies can break down these divisions by gathering leadership for a holistic discussion of the company’s current and future state.
Once they agree, each executive is responsible for uniting middle management behind strategy execution and helping subordinates integrate strategic planning and decision-making into their everyday activities.
2. Establish a blueprint
Strategic planning establishes a playbook that guides the company through the steps and projects necessary to accomplish its goals.
The first step is clarifying the company’s vision, mission, and purpose, then distilling those into key business initiatives and goals. Once those are defined, leadership must clearly communicate the blueprint to the rest of the organization and actively support its adoption.
3. Secure buy-in
Securing buy-in is much easier when stakeholders feel included. To ensure their active commitment, provide employees with opportunities to participate in the development of strategic plans.
If company-wide collaboration isn’t possible, leaders can help employees identify ways to contribute by asking how they plan to deliver on the strategic playbook. Asking questions – rather than directing the response – encourages connection and understanding while reducing resistance to the plan and its priorities.
4. Revisit regularly
Strategy alignment isn’t a one-and-done activity. During initial discussions, outline a change process that allows the company to adapt to dynamic market conditions. If the strategic plan no longer serves the company and its vision, stakeholders must update objectives to reflect the current state.
With an established change process, leaders can immediately reevaluate, realign, and execute a new strategy. Collaboration and contribution to team goals become straightforward once everyone weighs in on changes and identifies potential risks and opportunities.
How strategic alignment improves decision-making
Strategic alignment clarifies the decision-making process by providing the following benefits:
1. Business efficiency
When teams align behind a business strategy, team members have a common objective that enhances collaboration. They make resource allocation decisions while maximizing productivity, ensuring everyone has the assets they need when they need them.
2. Prioritization
Alignment eliminates questions about which projects or tasks to execute. Organizations prioritize those with the most significant impact on the big picture, ensuring teams always choose activities that contribute to strategic goals and objectives.
3. Resource allocation
With projects and tasks prioritized around organizational goals, determining where to deploy company assets and capacity is a no-brainer. Resource managers know which projects take precedence and will direct reserves accordingly.
Enhancing strategic alignment and decision-making with Tempo
Your team needs to understand the organization’s strategic organizational goals in order to align with them. Tempo’s Strategic Roadmaps allows team members to define priorities based on the value they deliver to the company. Once leaders establish the roadmap, the application communicates project precedence, helping employees adapt workflows to remain aligned.
Put strategy into action with Tempo’s powerful Strategic Portfolio Manager. This Jira-enabled platform provides a panoramic view of all current and future initiatives. With increased visibility, project managers can coordinate and resource effectively based on current strategic objectives and projected impact.
Align people and priorities organization-wide
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