A project using balanced scorecards

This project was carried out in a multinational network services company. Our contact was a division manager, also a member of the executive board. The company operates in a fast-changing and strongly regulated technological sector.

The aim of this mission was to set up a system to ensure that every department was in line with the company’s short-, medium- and long-term objectives. One of the key objectives was to enable the company to combine short-term reactivity with strategic “breaks anticipation” capabilities.

The phases of the mission

1. Preparation and animation of a two-day seminar with the division managers and high-potential executives

During the seminar, the group’s strategic stakes and the resulting priorities for the division were discussed. The participants were then trained on the main principles of the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) method. The participants worked in small groups on possible strategic options, selected on the basis of four factors:

• shareholders value
• customer satisfaction
• organisational processes
• competencies to develop An action plan was made to pursue and implement the BSC approach in all departments.

2. Nine months later: audit of the BSC implementation among the department managers

3. Presentation of the results during a second seminar

Corrective actions were decided on to improve the efficiency of the approach:

• strengthen the awareness of the method and train the managers
• accelerate the implementation of the key indicators
• integrate the BSC approach in the Human Resource process (consistency in the annual evaluations, financial incentives…)
• dedicate resources to the work streams prioritised by BSC

Conclusions

After one year of preparation, the company was able to develop a strategic plan in which the vision is highly consistent with its implementation. The division now has a management tool to:

• clarify and structure shared objectives,
• mobilise and federate (not sure about the use of the word federate) the energies of all departments,
• implement the value-creation approach,
• determine priorities within a common timeframe.