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STRATEGIC RENEWAL
STRATEGIC RENEWAL:
MANAGEMENT 101 MEETS PERFORMANCE ARCHITECTURE

The last 18 months have been a corporate wake-up call: uncertainty, scandal, stock market meltdown, business failure, losses, new regulations, excess capacity, double dip, triple dip, stagnation, recovery, recession, depression, deflation, inflation. Too many senior executives allowed their operations to become fat, happy, and lazy through the bubble cycle, losing sight of true performance management in the shadow of performance manipulation. It was too easy to let basic business disciplines become lax. Confronted with dramatic market, economic, and socio-political change coupled with unprecedented competitive pressures, the survival of business and individual careers hinge on adaptation and rapid strategic renewal.

Survivors in today's corporate wasteland have solid balance

JOHN KITTREDGE is the Practice Leader for Focus Management Information, Inc.'s Process Improvement and Management Team and an associate of Journal of Cost Management Advisory Board member Paul Sharman.

sheets, reliable and consistent cash flows, demonstrable competitive advantage or differentiation, effective customer relationship management, determined cost management, and a capacity for well-directed change implementation. "Optics" and other camouflage for chronic management inertia or incompetence will no longer

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
 Sudden downturns in the economy make strategic renewal difficult in the face of operational cost management imperatives because employees at all levels have become complacent and uninformed about the interrelationships of the key operational processes that support strategy.
 Deliberate strategic renewal processes carefully take stock of how people understand their work in relation to strategy.
 This article presents a four-step process for strategic renewal that focuses on how organizational performance can be communicated and managed in terms of the architecture of its key systems and processes.

suffice. Winners are positioned for effective rapid response in both offense and defense.

Business management needs a return to fundamentals, self-discipline, and a renewed understanding of (1) what is really done in the business; (2) why it is done; (3) how it is done; and (4) how well it is done. Whether among the survivors or the thrivers, it's never too late to discover the perennial values of "Management 101": effectiveness and efficiency.

The effectiveness and efficiency focused tools of performance management (strategic alignment, process inventorying, key process relationship analysis, process impact analysis, performance loops, process ownership and measures) help determine corporate vital signs, identify weakness, and stimulate curative action to restore good health. Used in conjunction with a solid understanding of actual costs and how they are driven by human spending behaviors, a comprehensive performance architecture can be developed as a template for companies that are at risk and in need of strategic renewal.

 
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©2003 - Reprinted with permission from the May/June edition of the Journal Of Cost Management (Volume 17 Number 3)
Author: John Kittredge of CEO Performance Inc.
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