Summary

In the 1990s, BKK, a Norwegian producer of electrical power, became a vertically integrated provider and also diversified to capitalize on emerging market opportunities such as broadband services. As a result, BKK faced a challenge in aligning managerial principles and approaches across the group. In response, BKK successfully implemented a bottom-up, group-wide process improvement program, driven by the identification of Critical Success Factors (CSFs) and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).

Summary

One of the world’s leading creative organizations, Saatchi & Saatchi provides solutions to leading clients like Carlsberg, General Mills, Lexus, Procter & Gamble, Sony Ericsson and Visa International.

In 1997, Saatchi & Saatchi was close to bankruptcy. A new senior management team was appointed to engineer a turnaround. The senior team presented to stakeholders a new vision and a detailed strategic blueprint for recovery, with very ambitious targets for a 3-year timeframe. With survival at stake, the group had only one chance to make the plan work.

Summary

Scandinavian Bottlers was set up in the late 1990s as a regional bottler for a major soft drinks corporation. From the very start, the management decided to use the Balanced Scorecard as its core strategic management tool because they perceived it as a powerful mechanism to align the company’s vision, goals and strategic initiatives. In fact, the Strategy Map and Scorecard were created before the launch of the organization. Key inputs to the scorecard came from the Annual Business Plans formulated by functional heads.

Summary

The Subordinate Courts of Singapore handles over 400,000 cases annually, amounting to 95% of the country’s judicial caseload. In 1997, the then Senior District Judge (equivalent to a CEO) was introduced to the Balanced Scorecard concept at a Harvard Business School program. The concept seemed tailor-made for developing a predictive and proactive measurement and management system.

In 1998, the Court launched a pilot project to assess the Balanced Scorecard. A Steering Committee reviewed and monitored the scorecard every month. Six months later, the Balanced Scorecard was helping the Court to see what they were doing and how they were doing it. As a two-way system, it was changing the paradigm of communication, performance, monitoring, measurement, and improvement. The leadership was convinced and decided to cascade the scorecard organization-wide.

Summary

The Commercial Vehicles Business Unit of India-based Tata Motors manufactures the full range of commercial vehicles and is one of the world’s top 10 truck manufacturers.

Years of poor financial performance had thrown off-track the Unit’s objective of being among the world’s five most profitable commercial vehicle makers. The CVBU developed a strategy for effecting turnaround, creating sustainable growth and profitability. Earlier studies, using the Malcolm Baldrige model, had highlighted the unit’s weakness in strategy deployment. In response, senior managers chose the Balanced Scorecard as the preferred driver of change and strategy implementation tool.

Summary

The Balanced Scorecard was introduced in 1992 and has since, given rise to a wealth of material that describes the concept’s preeminence for enterprise performance management (or corporate performance management, as it is also referred to). The material also covers themes like scorecard implementation and cascading the scorecard. However, very little has been written about the roles and responsibilities of the Balanced Scorecard Manager. This article seeks to fill the gap because expertise in strategy management is the most critical prerequisite for success in today’s dynamic business environment. Acknowledging this prerequisite, experts have proposed new concepts like the Office of Strategy Management.

Summary

Management writer and educator James Creelman is, in the words of David Norton, co-creator of the Balanced Scorecard, ‘the foremost chronicler and historian of the Balanced Scorecard movement.’ Author/co-author of 16 important management reports and books, James Creelman here answers a question seeking his view of the new Office of Strategy Management (OSM). In response, James Creelman traces the origin of the Office of Strategy Management concept, believes that it has actually taken a rather long time to emerge and how it is now creating a space for strategic management as a core organizational function, much in the same manner as HR or finance. He then goes on to describe the seven responsibilities of the Office of Strategy Management.

Summary

Management writer and educator James Creelman is, in the words of David Norton, co-creator of the Balanced Scorecard, ‘the foremost chronicler and historian of the Balanced Scorecard movement.’ Author/co-author of 16 important management reports and books, James Creelman answers a question about how to get the right balance of strategic objectives in a Strategy Map, so that it does not become unmanageably complex or far too simple with no meaning.

Summary

This article looks at the rationale for designing and implementing pilot projects for introducing the Balanced Scorecard concept in organizations.

It begins by showing that the ideal text-book scorecard implementation process, which begins with the global organization’s executive committee creating the first Strategy Map and Balanced Scorecard and cascading it down successively to the divisional heads, business unit heads and functional heads to create fully aligned scorecards is an exception rather than the rule. Perhaps less than one in 10 ten scorecard implementations start at the executive table. Rather, typically, the scorecard is piloted at a lower level in the organization before wider adoption.

Summary

This interview features Barbara Possin, Vice-President for System Quality and Strategic Alignment of the Minnesota, USA-based St Mary’s/Duluth Clinic Health System (SMDC). The SMDC incorporates 20 clinics, four hospitals and an array of specialty care services  and was inducted into the prestigious Balanced Scorecard Collaborative Hall of Fame in 2002.

In this interview, drawing from her experience of having facilitated the Balanced Scorecard program in SMDC, Barbara Possin presents a practitioner’s viewpoint regarding various aspects of the Balanced Scorecard concept.

Summary

This interview features Bjarte Bogsnes, Project Manager Beyond Budgeting for Stavanger, Norway-based Statoil, an integrated oil and gas company with about 25,000 employees and activities in 32 countries. In this interview, drawing from his experience of facilitating the Balanced Scorecard program in Statoil, Bjarte Bogsnes presents a practitioner’s viewpoint regarding various aspects of the Balanced Scorecard concept.

Summary

This interview features Felix Kwok Wah Ng, Standards and Performance manager of the Hong Kong based MTR Corporation, which operates a railway network of 91 kilometers with 53 stations. With a daily patronage of over 2.4 million passengers, the MTR railway system is one of the most intensively utilized in the world. In this interview, drawing from his experience of facilitating the Balanced Scorecard program in MTR, Felix Kwok presents a practitioner’s viewpoint regarding various aspects of the Balanced Scorecard concept.

Summary

This is an interview done with John Monczewski, when he was Manager, Balanced Scorecard for The GO-Team of the global management consultancy Booz Allen Hamilton. With then about 900 employees and headquartered in McLean, Virginia, USA, The GO-Team is an amalgam of the support functions of a conventional corporate structure. In this interview, drawing from his experience of facilitating the Balanced Scorecard program in Booz Allen Hamilton, John Monczewski presents a practitioner’s viewpoint regarding various aspects of the Balanced Scorecard concept.

Summary

This interview features Julian Taylor, director of strategy development and network performance for Scottish Enterprise Network (SE), which is Scotland’s main economic development agency and comprises Scottish Enterprise National (the coordinating body) and 12 Local Enterprise Companies (LECs) that collectively cover 93 per cent of the nation’s population. In this interview, drawing from his experience of facilitating the Balanced Scorecard program in Scottish Enterprise, Julian Taylor presents a practitioner’s viewpoint regarding various aspects of the Balanced Scorecard concept.

Summary

This interview features Lawrence Ganti, Corporate Director, Office of Strategy Management, for the Geneva, Switzerland based Serono, which reported 2005 revenues of more than $2.5 billion, making it the largest biotechnology company in Europe and among the leaders in the world. It has eight manufacturing plants and 4,900 employees spread across 45 countries. Serono’s groundbreaking work includes its treatments for infertility, growth hormone deficiency and multiple sclerosis. Serono was inducted into the prestigious Balanced Scorecard Collaborative Hall of Fame in 2006.

In this interview, drawing from his experience of facilitating the Balanced Scorecard program in Serono, Lawrence Ganti presents a practitioner’s viewpoint regarding various aspects of the Balanced Scorecard concept.

Summary

An enterprise-level Balanced Scorecard is owned by the senior team (which is responsible for strategy). To create a high level Scorecard and formulate a robust plan for strategy implementation, the initiative needs to take into consideration the people-related elements that need to be addressed at the very outset. This article, structured in a Q & A format, answers the question ‘What is the role of the HR function in creating an enterprise-level Balanced Scorecard?’