ConSIG Session on Implementation of Strategies and ‘Hoshin Kanri’

ConSIG - The consulting club of SJMSOM, IIT Bombay proudly conducted its first session on consulting by Prof. Owen Berkeley-Hill on ‘Hoshin Kanri’. ‘Hoshin Kanri’ is a strategic management methodology based on Japanese TQC (Total Quality Control) principles. It was originated in Japan. Now it is used by many successful firms like HP, Bank of America, Bridgestone tyres, Toyota etc. The session was interactive and full of real life examples. It was well received by students of SOM as well as of other departments.

The session began with an interesting and real observation about many organizations – ‘most of the employees are not aware of the corporate strategy and logically, if they are not aware, they cannot contribute effectively to the efforts of management.’ As session progressed, we gained a better understanding of the issue.

We gained a perspective that Hoshin Kanri is based on the notion that the collective thinking power of all employees should be used to make their organization the best in its field. So the employees should be involved in decisions making. Off course, the corporate goals have to be translated into targets for departments and employees down-the-hierarchy.

We also learnt from the session that best consulting solution are arrived through studying actual scenarios, by meeting with shop-floor employees who actually do the job. Also, organizations must record their tacit knowledge of work for future use. Further, the concept of Hoshin Kanri says that employees must be taken into confidence before taking big decisions. It makes the implementation quicker and hassle-free. Use of kamishibai board (A3 paper for taking acceptance of employees) can make implementation of organizational decisions easier.

Thus Hoshin Kanri, a multi-dimensional proactive process, acts as a lubricant which minimizes internal friction and confusion in an organization. The focus is on having an environment where one is hard on problems, but soft on people. Thus the individual efforts put on solving problems do not result in conflicts between team members.

All in all, this was a valuable session. We got to understand a wonderful approach towards implementation of strategies, which is integral part of consulting profile. We are looking forward to have more such sessions from ConSIG.

Submitted By,

Jay Wadhwa

SJMSOM Batch of 2012