Strategic Planning Mission, Vision, Goals

Strategic Planning

Mission, vision, goals and objectives

The company's mission as stated on the corporate website is to "safely deliver any project, any time, in any environment for the benefit of our customers, shareholders, employees and the communities" the company serves. The company is looking to serve its customer with top products within specific time limits, thus emphasizing the importance of their products and services' quality.

The vision is "to be the world's premier contractor delivering projects and services to a global marketplace." This vision is consistent with that of any large company trying to outrun its competition in the globalization era.

Some of the most important company values pay respect to:

Uncompromising commitment to Health, Safety and Environment

Integrity in all they do

Transparency in their business

Accountability for their work

Best in class Risk Awareness

Financial Responsibility to their stakeholders

Basically, these values cover both the external clients - customers and internal clients - shareholders and the environment as well.

2007 Focus Areas/Goals are influenced by the newly status of a publicly traded enterprise. The management considers that the keys to success are the commitment and contributions of each of the members concentrating the company's efforts in four strategic areas: transparency, accountability, discipline and financial responsibility. These areas are considered to drive force for the company to move forward, create new opportunities and increase its commitment to drive more success for the organization.

These four goals are characteristic for companies that already adopted total quality management (TQM). TQM requires the transparency of activities within the PDCA cycle - Plan/Do/Check/Act (see fig. 1).

FIG. 1 - PLAN/DO/CHECK/ACT CYCLE

Source: Engelbart (2000)

Accountability is important in assigning roles to individuals and tasks and responsibilities to each role. The discipline is necessary for a total control over operations and the financial responsibility is meant to satisfy both customers and shareholders, while maintaining the organization's financial health.

2. TQM management style vs. KBR's management style

TQM is promoting a participative management style where the entire organization is working to achieve total customer satisfaction. This style is replacing top-down management with a decentralized form of management that is customer-driven and is best suitable to large, complex organizations. The management style associated with TQM has been categorized as democratic (Morgan and Murgatroyd, 1997) and many suggested that this same style is the kind of participative one that "...involves soliciting input from empowered employees" (Goetsch and Davis, 1994).

TQM is a management system that is focused on a continuous improvement process. The rationale behind this process is that 90% of process are a system-related consequence, rather than employee-related. TQM system is made of two parts: a hard one and a soft one. The hard one pays respect to the techniques, tools and systems engaged to reach continuous improvement, whereas the soft one pays respect to the way organizations deal with their employees and customers. Thus, some of the soft concepts associated with TQM are:

Continuous improvement

Total employee involvement

Empowerment

Teamwork

Democratic/Participative management style

Management commitment and support

Cultural change

Total customer satisfaction

Given that KBR is working with public entities, discipline in everything the company does is essential. The discipline is reflected in the management style. Employees have strict code of conduct that has to be compliant with the laws and the company regulation. This type of management style is an authoritarian/autocratic one. Managers usually make decisions unilaterally, without consulting the employees. The employees' participation and empowerment is considerably reduced compared to the participative style.

By adopting this management style, KBR is missing valuable inputs from its employees, which are essential to innovate and innovation is important in its industry. Also, employee motivation is expected to be lower than that of a participative style. Employee motivation is important because it drives productivity.

3. The characteristics of TQM companies vs. KBR's characteristics

TQM is a total organizational approach for meeting customer needs and expectations that involves all managers and employees in using quantitative methods to improve continuously the organization's processes, products and services" (American Federal Office of Management Budget Circular cited in Milakovich, 1990).

TQM companies make extensive use of techniques, tools and systems to achieve better results. Some of the most famous tools are: Statistical Process Control, ISO 9000 series, Pareto Analysis, Matrix Diagram, Histograms, Tree Decision Diagram, Critical Path Analysis, Fishbone or Ishakawa Diagram (Psychogios and Priporas, 2007).

KBR is employing a number of high tech solutions for its activities, such as warehouse management strategies. The company makes sure to engage the best warehouse solutions that fit its business: people, technology and processes, given that a considerable number of its contracts are with the American Army. During wars (e.g. Afghanistan and Iraq), KBR was responsible for delivering a number of resources to the American Army. Timing and specific provision were essential for these contracts. The company is employing such techniques along its supply chain to be able to deliver results as expected.

Other characteristics of companies that adopted TQM refer to the management style mentioned in the previous section. As specified, KBR's style was rather different than the participative/democratic one, being oriented more towards an autocratic one.

4. Implementing TQM in KBR

TQM may not be 100% compatible with an organization as KBR. On one side, TQM techniques and tools may have a positive impact on the company's activity and some of them were successfully adopted by the organization. KBR's activity needs precision and quality and timing are essential to achieve customer satisfaction. The techniques and tools just mentioned serve those objectives. Nevertheless, TQM's soft component implies a participative management style, which is not compatible with the strict discipline required to work on military projects or alike.

KBR has a lot to learn from companies that already embraced this management system and it can start by adopting all the hard components recommended by TQM. This step should increase the company's efficiency and efficacy.