We next turned to the long-term goals of the company, noting that the strategic plan calls for the following outcomes within three years:
Target new industry markets that are growing and are capital intensive where New England Standard can obtain an industry expertise/knowledge and provide “value” to customers operating within the targeted industry.
Create an improved digital database network for the company
Form appropriate strategic alliances and partnerships with other financial institutions in order to expand markets and create new product lines at minimal cost and risk.
Given that these components of the New England Standard Vision Statement were derived primarily from the company’s strategic plan, members of my team didn’t need to seek approval for the statement. We only needed to check with Gary and the strategic planning task force to ensure that our rearrangement and paraphrasing of the vision statement, short-term objectives and long-term goals were accurate and congruent with the underlying intentions of those who drafted the plan. We found that we needed to make only minor changes.
The Strategic Planning Task Force was also able to make constructive use of our modifications, as they moved themselves toward greater clarity regarding organizational vision. We specifically recommended that the task force switch its planning process by beginning with the long-term goals and then moving to the short-term objectives. We noted that the long-term goals were rather sparse and that these goals should drive the short-term objectives rather than the other way around. The task force members took our observations and recommendations to heart. They began working in this more strategic manner on the vision statement of New England Standard Corporation.
The New England Standard case study regarding the chartering process will continue in the next essay in this series.
