Marketing performance > Hoshin Kanri for clear focus and consistent priorities

If you need a methodology through which to set, declare and align your business around a clear strategy, a strategy deployment approach based on the Japanese management discipline Hoshin Kanri could organise, clarify and structure your priorities so that your staff work together aligned behind a clear shared sense of purpose.

Hoshin = shining golden compass needle.  Kanri = management

With so many competing demands on time and increasingly tighter marketing budgets, many marketing teams today can lack focus, and struggle to be aligned.  Pulling in different directions slows you down, and impacts on your performance.  The bigger you are and the more people you have, the worse it can be.

The Hoshin format makes sure that the whole of your team is focussed on the right things, that they’re all aligned and supporting each other, and that it’s glued together with a simple and easy to use rolling process which the whole team buys into.  Hoshins become part of your business culture by becoming part of the structure of how you operate.  High profile case studies from Toyota and from Hewlett Packard show the benefits of this kind of professional discipline.  It’s not so hard to do once you know how.

Businesses and marketing teams which can focus on the right priorities, with consistent alignment throughout the team can find a better way to operate.  The Hoshin process changes how you think, how you plan and how you work together.  It’s simple, easy to use teamworking that carries your people along so that they believe in it and they enjoy the sense of focus that comes from it.

A Hoshin based approach acts quickly to engage your team from the top down, working first with senior management staffing, then cascading the philosophy down through the team to include all of your staff, agencies and suppliers.  Along the way you’ll spot any gaps you need to plug to be sure your priorities are the right ones.  Plus you’ll find activity that just isn’t aligned with what you’re trying to achieve.

Our experience includes leading the Hoshin approach across Europe for Hertz Europe marketing; across five different markets at Viasat broadcasting; at Whitbread’s Premier Inn in the UK for hotels customer marketing; and at Merlin Entertainments across theme parks and visitor attractions in the UK.

Click here for an example of business performance improvement through the use of our Hoshin based structured management of marketing activity.