HMCA’s 2002 Strategic Plan
by José P. Fernández, HMCA Treasurer

Two months ago, your HMCA Board Members embarked upon a journey not traveled before in the Association’s 5-year history - the development and implementation of a strategic plan.

If all of us (you and me) were to be asked, “Do you have a strategic plan in place?”, what would be our answer? There are several possibilities that come to mind and some of them are:
* Sure we do
* Ah, yes, of course, but what do you mean by a strategic plan?
* I’m not sure. I think I’ve heard of something but I don’t quite know what it is
* I don’t think so
* Not at all

If we were to use the first answer &endash; sure we do &endash; I would follow it up with another set of questions:
* What is your Mission Statement?
* What is your Vision Statement?
* What are your key objectives and strategies?
* Do you have action plans do you have in place to achieve your key objectives?
* What key performance measures do you have in order to determine the degree of success of your key initiatives?
* How well is your organization achieving its short, medium, and long term goals?

The aforementioned questions are the key steps in developing and implementing a true strategic plan.

Your Board decided several months ago that in order for us to best serve our #1 customers, i.e. you, we needed to focus our resources and energies in the most effective and efficient manner. Many people use these last two words interchangeably, but there is a difference that all of us need to understand. Being “effective” means doing the right things, and being “efficient” means doing things right. You might have read somewhere that we must “do the right things right”. Well, that is just what being effective and efficient means. It is not only possible, but sadly occurs frequently, that organizations or people chose the “wrong” things to do, but do them very efficiently. Conversely, the rights things are done very inefficiently. Another possibility is for the wrong things being done wrong. Image that? This is not a play on words but something that is very simple but very powerful.

We had decided that if were to do the right things right, we had to think outside the box, we had to rethink our paradigms, and if necessary, go through a paradigm shift. Your Board has had 2 half-day strategic planning “retreats” in order to review where we had been, where we were, and where we needed to go. We have not completed our strategic plan, but have progressed to the point where we are excited about the possibilities for 2002 and beyond. What follows is a summary of the result of our strategic planning efforts. We have developed a Mission Statement (What is the purpose/reason for our existence?), a Vision Statement (Where do we want to be in the future?/What do we want to accomplish?), our Values (What we believe in), our Core Competencies (What we are good at), and our Key Objectives and Strategies (Short and Long Term).

Mission Statement
“To promote excellence in Hispanic marketing”

Vision Statement
“To become Florida’s premier promoter of Hispanic marketing excellence, to play a leadership role in this field, and to be recognized for it”

Key Objectives and Strategies

Short Term

Long Term

As you can see, we have come a long way, but still have much work to do . Our long-term strategies still need to be developed. A true strategic plan is a “work in progress”, or in other words a dynamic document that is constantly used and reviewed to ensure that we continue on our road to success.

We encourage you to contact any of our Board members if you would like to provide comments to the work that we are conducting. Please note that one of our long-term objectives is to gather information and opinions from our members. Our plan is to complete the development of our plan during November and begin implementation shortly thereafter. We will keep you posted.