Imagine a government professional services provider where every function, every operation, every executive, manager and employee totally perform in complete alignment with the firm's strategy for delivering value to customers. Or picture a defense equipment manufacturer that is totally synchronized and behaves, operates, and functions at an optimum level to execute the firm's business strategy.

Firms like this, or very nearly like it, exist. They are the leaders in their industries. In consumer products they are the well-known brand names that have consistently grown and profited. Given the thousands of firms in the world, these leaders are somewhat rare.

In the federal technology marketplace, leaders exist as well, though leadership comes in its own distinct form. A larger, government contracting firm 'brand' may focus on intelligence and security missions, reinforced operationally by aligned acquisitions, high-end strategic work, senior executives formerly employed at relevant government agencies and growing customer presence at agencies such as NRO, CIA and DISA.

For smaller federal firms, that brand could mean meaningful market share in a given geographic market, such as at a particular Army R&D laboratory, reinforced operationally by leadership that had spent their career at that facility, technologists who further the major missions supported by that facility and national policy presence in advancement of relevant missions.

Execution is the issue

The problem is not that companies who perform at lesser levels do not want to join the leadership ranks - most do. The problem is how to do it. Company leadership teams create strategy and take actions to be sure everyone understands the strategy. Often, at year-end, achievements fail to meet goals. The problem is execution - not the strategy. This is not unusual - in fact, it is commonplace.

"Flawed strategy is seldom the sin of these failed CEO's. In the majority of cases - estimated 70% - the real problem isn't the high-concept boners. It's bad execution." "Why CEO's Fail" Fortune, June 21, 1999.

The heart of the problem is that company leadership has only their personal judgment and experience to help them analyze what went wrong. Sometimes they isolate and fix the real problem but often, their corrective efforts are misdirected or ineffective.

Value Alignment (VA) diagnostics changes things. With VA, a CEO in virtually any industry can now rapidly review the entire operations and identify elements that are, or are not, operating in alignment with the firm value delivery strategy. Note that the focus is on actually operating in alignment with strategy and not on merely saying that operations are aligned with strategy. This gives the CEO the power to get all the cars in the train on the same track and heading in the same direction. With all elements of the firm operating in support of the strategy for delivering value to customers, the leadership team can focus on improving performance and actually achieving consistent, long-term revenue growth.

What is VA?

VA is new - very new. Valerie Kijewski, Ph.D. and Norma C. Powell, Ph.D., professors at the University of Massachusetts Lowell College of Management and founders of Business Genetics, developed it. Validation testing was completed in June this year.

VA builds on the work of Treacy and Wiersema identifying and defining the three basic categories of strategy for delivering value to customers. Simply put, there are three value delivery strategies: PRODUCT, SOLUTION, and COST. Optimum performance is achieved when a firm delivers unmatched value in one of these three while meeting threshold standards in the other two.

Kijewski and Powell took these three value strategy definitions and identified operational characteristics for each. These operation characteristics, or discriminators, are used to construct data collection and analysis tools. These tools may now be used to rapidly review a firm's operations and identify elements that are, or are not, operating in alignment with the firm's strategy.

VA is the starting point for improving performance. It is the diagnosis of the situation, not the prescription for cure. For many business leaders, knowledge of the problems rapidly leads to effective corrective actions. More complex or subtle problems may require deeper investigation to identify the effective corrective action.

Implementing VA

In practice, VA is applied in three steps: Leadership, Executive, and Management. These steps start at the top, understanding if the firm's leaders share the same strategic view. Steps two and three move sequentially to lower levels, deepening the analysis, finding indicators of alignment, or lack of alignment, and spreading the alignment concepts. At the end of the process, all three levels of management are focused on those elements most in need of alignment correction and share a common definition of that needed to bring the organization into full alignment with value strategy. The inset outlines the three steps.

We are introducing VA diagnostics to the world of government -contracting firms. During this introductory period, Step One is available to qualified firms and organizations at no cost!

VA works for strategic business units as well as independent firms. In general, the size of the firm or business unit ought to generally fit the Leadership/Executive/Management parameters described in the inset. The process is modified as appropriate for organizations that do not fit this model.

Market leadership

CEOs now have more power and capability to turn strategic visions into reality. VA gives them the tools to improve and align their operations with their value delivery strategy and become a leader in the company's chosen market segment.

www.Business-Genetics.com