Quantitative Techniques in Strategic Alignment

There is increasing evidence in both the business and technical literature that the operations and strategy processes of many organizations have been aided materially by visualization and modeling techniques. Application of quantitative methods has progressed from relatively well-structured operations to the more speculative aspects of strategy and policy formation. In retrospect, however, the most valuable contribution of modeling has been greater insight: a clearer understanding of the situations and prospects at hand that the mere act of model formulation often provided the planner, This paper illustrates some characteristics of the modeling process, and explores the applicability of quantitative techniques to strategic alignment opportunities, such as current pressures to reduce the “cycle time” of many enterprise functions.