According to the dictionary, strategy is a “plan designed to achieve a particular long-term aim” or “the art of planning and directing military activity in a war or battle”  - I’m not suggesting that implementing a management system is akin to a war zone but I am suggesting that implementing a management system without an understanding of the context and strategy of the business is not going very effective.

Having (and being able to articulate) a strategy is so important – whatever the size or sector of business, (even if this year the strategic aim of some of my clients has been survival – but then it has been a very interesting year so far) Another way of looking at defining your strategy is why are you doing what you are doing? And where do you want to go?

Understanding our client’s strategic direction is a very important part of an implementation project as we need to design and build the management system to make daily operational activities more effective and support the journey towards that overall vision. Interestingly it is an explicit requirement of ISO 9001:2015 that ‘top management’ (usually the Directors) review the quality management system to “ensure its continuing suitability, adequacy, effectiveness and alignment with the strategic direction of the business” , so if you don’t know what your strategy is, it is very difficult to make a judgment call on how effective your management system is.