How to achieve alignment across your business

William Buck’s Jeremy Raniti and Samantha Zebrowski break down the key components of achieving alignment across your business.

In today’s rapidly changing environment, it is critical that manufacturing businesses in Australia have a well-documented and cohesive vision, mission statement, set of values and strategy to remain competitive and achieve alignment across all divisions. These four pillars of an organisation are essential for capitalising on its strengths, positioning the business as a choice for customers, employees and stakeholders, and ensuring that it performs at its full potential.

Below, we break down the key components required to achieve alignment across your business.

Vision

Founders usually establish a manufacturing business for one of a few reasons:

• After identifying a gap in the market

• To capitalise on their passions, or

• To utilise efficiencies, expertise and developments in technology to advance society.

Your organisation’s vision should articulate what you aim to achieve and why. It is the foundation upon which your business is built and should be clearly communicated to all stakeholders. As your organisation grows and changes, it's important to revisit your vision to ensure it remains relevant. It’s also imperative that your vision is authentic and resonates with those who have a vested interest in driving change to achieve this goal.

Mission statement

Once your vision is documented, the next step is to formulate a mission statement. A mission statement defines how your organisation will achieve its vision. It should act as a blueprint for all within the organisation to follow and should include slightly more detail than the vision. Where the vision at times is more of an overarching philosophy, a well-thought-out mission statement should be clear, concise, and genuine. As advisors, we see well defined mission statements being the inspiration for:

• Critical decision-making

• Actions that protect the welfare of employees

• Assessing the profitability of a capital investment, and

• Discussions regarding an organisation’s ESG Policy. By publishing its mission statement, an organisation is also able to portray its vision and values to a wider audience, which can increase brand awareness and enable stakeholders including potential clients and customers to align with the business.

Values – what ingredients do we need to achieve our mission?

The values of an organisation are the principles that drive the business and the way in which it operates. These values should consider not just what the management of an organisation believes to be true, but also the perspective of both an organisation’s staff and customers. By determining your values this way, you work towards creating a culture which all stakeholders can align with. The process does not stop there. It's important to integrate these values into the administration, management and daily processes of your organisation to drive alignment across all departments. They must be visible in both a physical and behavioural sense to encourage staff to align themselves with the organisation's goals.

Strategy

Only when you are clear on your vision, mission statement and values can you begin to develop a strategy to drive meaningful growth in your organisation. It will also ensure that the processes taken to drive this growth are considered and are aligned with your organisation's goals. This approach provides several benefits to management, including:

• Allowing divisions to act autonomously while still being aligned to an overarching strategy.

• Fosters an inclusive culture which celebrates innovation and diversity, and

• Increases profitability through improved efficiencies and best practices.

Summary

A well-documented and cohesive vision, mission statement, set of values and strategy are essential for achieving alignment across your organisation. Without these critical ingredients, your organisation can face a culture of misalignment, resulting in inefficiencies and decreased profitability. Therefore, it is essential for manufacturing businesses in Australia to invest their time and resources into achieving alignment across all divisions, with the hope of increased profitability, staff retention and a culture that fosters innovation and care.

Contact one of our manufacturing specialists for help developing your company statements or for a deeper look at your overall strategy.

Jeremy Raniti and Samantha Zebrowski are both Senior Managers in Business Advisory at William Buck. William Buck is a leading firm of accountants and advisors. Ph: 03 9624 8555 williambuck.com