In today’s business environment, any organization that wishes to exceed customer expectations and stay competitive needs a long-range strategic plan. This plan must be forward-looking, visionary, and achievable, while at the same time striving toward continuous improvement of the organization’s key business processes. The organization must, in effect, keep both hands on the wheel to move forward successfully. The hoshin strategic planning process in use at Hewlett-Packard Co. has been highly successful in meeting these requirements.

The hoshin process is, first of all, a systematic planning methodology for defining long-range, key, entity objectives. These are breakthrough objectives that typically extend two to five years with little change. Second, the hoshin process does not lose sight of the day-to-day business fundamental measures required to run the business successfully. This two-pronged approach provides an extended period of time for the organization to focus its breakthrough effort while continuously improving key business processes day to day.