Strategic planning concepts and frameworks

Strategic Planning

Iron Mountain does not publish its core values, but some of them can be interpreted through their mission statement. They have three key missions - protecting and storing information as if it were their own; earning trust with service that is reliable and responsive; and providing comprehensive protection and storage solutions (Iron Mountain, 2009). Thus, the proposed published values are going to reflect the following: treating customers as we would treat ourselves; placing trust above all other factors; delivering quality service; and a commitment to the highest legal and ethical standards.

There is poor alignment between these values and manager's treatment of internal stakeholders. The values reflect the business of Iron Mountain, which is document security. Yet, they do not offer strong benefits or cross-training to their drivers. This results in a high level of turnover, especially given the physical strain of the job. It is difficult to guarantee a high level of security when the people in contact with the sensitive documents have on average less than two years' service.

There is moderate alignment between these values and the internal stakeholders' treatment of each other. Non-management internal stakeholders do not appear to relate to each other as poorly as management and the drivers do. These other stakeholders appear to have more of a sense of the role each other plays in reaching the organization's strategic objectives.

These values have a high degree of alignment with the organization's treatment of external stakeholders. The primary external stakeholders are the customers (Recklies, 2001), and these proposed values are very customer-oriented. These is a less strong alignment with the treatment of other external stakeholders, such as the government, competitors or the environment. This is because these stakeholders are not as directly critical to Iron Mountain's success. However, there is some alignment, as the values reflect a degree of corporate social responsibility.

These values have a high degree of alignment with the organization's short-term plans. Iron Mountain is presently planning to continue its expansion, but also to build stronger brand loyalty in order to fend off competitors who trade on strong customer relationships. These values bring Iron Mountain closer to those competitors in terms of the way Iron Mountain relates to its customers, delivering a high degree of alignment in the process.

There is a moderate degree of alignment with the organization's long-term plans. Iron Mountain's long-term plans include industry domination and expansion in ancillary document security businesses. With respect to the latter, there is a high degree of alignment, as these values will help build a competitive position that they can use to expand into new markets. However, dominating the industry is detrimental to the values, as it erodes trust, discourages the deliver of quality service and may in some cases represent questionable ethics.