Linking the Balanced Scorecard to Strategy Essay Example for Free

Linking the Balanced Scorecard to Strategy Essay â€Å"Balanced Scorecard† is the tool for motivating and measuring business unit performance with four perspectives financial, customer, internal business processes, and learning and growth. These days, it becomes so complicated and complex to navigate competitive environment, thus some people figured out that balanced scorecard could be used as the tool for linking multiple strategies. It contains both financial and non-financial measures. It was revealed that the measure should include both outcome measures and the performance drivers of those outcomes. It turns out that there are strategic measures for the four perspectives each. First of all, Financial performance measures define the long-run objectives of the business unit. Business units can be categorized into three different stages simply rapid growth, sustain, and harvest. During rapid growth stage, businesses make rational amount of investments to develop and enhance new products and services. During sustain stage, they still attract investment and reinvestment, furthermore they are demanded to earn magnificent returns on their invested capital. During harvest stage, they only focus on maximizing cash flow back to the corporation rather than investment. Moreover, there are financial themes that can be linked to the strategies – revenue growth and mix, cost reduction/productivity improvement, and asset utilization/investment strategy. Secondly, in the Customer perspective, managers identify the customer and market segments. It includes customer satisfaction, customer retention, new customer acquisition, customer profitability, and market and account share in targeted segments. Customer retention defines that retaining existing customers in the segment is the way for maintaining or increasing market share in targeted segments. Customer acquisition identifies acquiring new customers as the way. Customer satisfaction is the matter of meeting customers’ needs and it is the measurement of the feedback. Customer profitability means that businesses want to measure not only the satisfaction of the customer, but also the profitability that customers can evoke. Thirdly, in Internal Business Process perspective, executives identify the critical internal processes in which the organization must excel. It enables business unit to deliver on the value propositions of customers in targeted market segments, and to satisfy shareholder expectations of excellent financial returns. On the other hand, it means there are the process that customer need turned into customer need satisfaction through innovation cycle, operations cycle, and post-sale service cycle. Fourthly, in Learning Growth perspective, it identifies the infra-structure that the organization has to build to create long-term growth and improvement. It comes from three sources that people, systems, and organizational procedures. As I mentioned above, it has been the trend to link and mix multiple scorecard measures into a single strategy. The multiple measures on a properly constructed balanced scorecard should consist of a linked series of objectives and measures that are both consistent and mutually reinforcing. The scorecard should incorporate the complex set of cause-and-effect relationships, outcomes performance drivers and linked to financial. Cause and effect relationships can be expressed by a sequence of if-then statements and pervade all four perspectives of balanced scoreboard. It can be described as the process â€Å"employee skills(learning growth)→process quality/process cycle time(internal) →on-time delivery→customer loyalty(customer) →ROCE(financial)†. Outcomes and performance drivers reflect the common goals of many strategies, as well as similar structures across industries and companies. Therefore, a good balanced scoreboard should have a mix of core outcome measures and performance drivers, that’s why businesses care both outcomes and performance drivers. Even though the strategy should have to emphasize both financial and non-financial measures, in the sense of improving business unit performance, we have to consider financial measures little bit more. Ultimately, causal paths from all the measures on a scorecard should be linked to financial objectives. In conclusion, the balanced scorecard is more than a collection of financial and non-financial measurements. It is the translation of the business unit’s strategy into a linked set of measures that identify both the long-term strategic objectives, as well as the mechanisms for achieving and obtaining feedback on those objectives. This thesis could be applied on the Metro Bank case and National Insurance Company case.

Fate in Shakespeares King Lear :: King Lear essays

Fate in King Lear "There's a divinity that shapes our ends, rough hew them how we will." These words from Hamlet are echoed, even more pessimistically, in Shakespeare's play, The Tragedy of King Lear where Gloucester says: "Like flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods, they kill us for their sport". In Lear, the characters are subjected to the various tragedies of life over and over again. An abundance of cyclic imagery in Lear shows that good people are abused and wronged regardless of their own noble deeds or intentions. Strapped to a wheel of fire, humans suffer and endure, prosper and decline, their very existence imaged as a voyage out and a return. The movement from childhood to age and back again, the many references to fortune whose wheel spins humans downward even as it lifts, the abundance of natural cycles which are seen as controlling experience, even perhaps the movement of play itself from order to chaos to restoration of order to division again. Throughout the text, the movements of celestial bodies are used to account for human action and misfortune. Just as the stars in their courses are fixed in the skies, so do the characters view their lives as caught in a pattern they have no power to change. Lear sets the play in motion in banishing Cordelia when he swears "by all the operation of the orbs from whom we exist and cease to be" that his decision "shall not be revoked". How like the scene in Julius Caesar wherein Caesar says "For I am constant as the Northern star" Lear vows to be resolute but dies regretting his decision at the hands of his daughters who claim love him "more than word can wield" and are "alone felicitate" in his presence. That Edmund disbelieves in the influence of the stars adds to the play's recurring theme that part of our fate is our character; that we choose our lot in life by how we choose to act. Similarly, in Lear Gloucester's feelings predict what is to come when he says "These late eclipses of the sun and moon portend no good..." And because of this Gloucester begins to envision a world where "Love cools, friendship falls off, brothers divide..." While his father misunderstands the importance of the celestial bodies, his bastard son, Edmund denies the importance of the movements of the heavenly bodies. He calls it "an excellent foppery" to "make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon and stars." (Just as in Julius Caesar we learn that "... The fault .

Why Do We Shop for What We Do Not Need?

Consumer – One who delights advertisers by acquiring unnecessary products in accordance with the motto â€Å"I spend, therefore I am. † – The Cynics Dictionary All people shop for things that they do not need. When asking a person why he needlessly goes shopping, a typical answer is â€Å"because it makes me feel good. † In fact, there are many reasons why people, particularly in America, feel compelled to shop, spend, and buy things in an almost mindless automation where the consumer rationalizes the question of need. However, why do we shop for a twentieth pair of shoes? Why shop for another gadget that we might need? Why do people spend hours shopping for unaffordable stuff that is merely garnish? Shopping, apart from a practical need, is an emotional experience. This very real phenomenon is as serious as it is intriguing to those interested in this type of behavior. According to Pamela Danziger, a consumer industry consultant, â€Å"There is a desire to satisfy a need [. . . ] that is the simple answer to a profoundly challenging question† (27). In clarifying the meaning of the word â€Å"need† in Danziger's assertion, it is important to understand that this fundamental aspect pertains to an emotional need rather than a practical one. Further, to help answer this question of why people shop needlessly, marketing scientists who study shopper behavior define emotional need as motivators. With this understanding, the question can be addressed: What motivates us to shop for what we do not need? * Shopping is fun and exciting: Perusing, trying-on, and trying-out dazzling new wares at a pulsing metropolistic-wonderland of fashion departments is an ecstatic experience with its mixture of excitement and adrenaline. Comparable to going to an amusement park, it is an occasion where there are people, places, and things to see, do, and . . buy. * Shopping is an escape: Dr. Drew Pinsky, a coping strategies specialist at Las Encinas Hospital in Pasadena, California, professes, â€Å"Shopping is a way of managing unpleasant feelings. † Similar to attending a museum or a movie theater, shopping allows us to take our minds off our problems. â€Å"Time heals† and we can give ourselves ample time at the mall interacting with salespeople as if they are museum guides, or spending a few hours window-shopping as if we are watching it all on the silver screen. Shopping allows us to feel like a celebrity: Generally, whether we are shopping at a warehouse home improvement store, an uptown fashion mall, or the local car dealership, starry-eyed salespeople roll out the red carpet for prospective buyers. This is truly an available fantasy world for an indulging shopper. As shoppers, we can walk into a showroom (as this is our celebrity privilege) greeted by our fans and receive all of the attention we deserve; pampered and fussed over, our stardom is at hand. The above emotional motivators are well-founded characteristics of shopper's behavior per the findings of extensive research by marketing academics. Gary Witt, Professor of Marketing at Western International University, attests, â€Å"[Shoppers] do not want your product or service; they want [. . . ] a secret door to their heart's desires. † This is now common knowledge among marketing strategists who work with advertisers to appeal to shoppers. In this way, we are incessantly subjected to marketing and advertising designed to entice us to shop and buy. All people, even those with the most resistant of base psychological mechanisms regarding this behavior, are in some way influenced by the persistent, ubiquitous bombardment of various media and its message of commanding people to shop. In addition, shopping mediums such as catalogs, the internet, and The Home Shopping Network on cable television, intended to offer convenience allowing a devoid of the annoyances of conventional shopping such as parking and disgruntled salespeople, are only defeating to the communal shopper and the emotional experience a shopping trip provides. Shopping at home does not compare to the escalatored big-city, big-room department store with its buzzing energy and exciting glamour where a shopper is there seeing and being seen. This is the essence of modern shopping. As a an activity in and of itself, shopping is a relatively recent development in which masses of people venture out and seek to moddycoddle their desire to satisfy an emotional need. Shopping provides not just a means to the necessities of life, but a meaning for life. As cleverly promoted by marketing and advertising, shopping is a cultural condition legitimized as â€Å"the good life† and â€Å"the American way. â€Å"

Investment Policy Among Saudi Arabia Essay - 1027 Words

1.0. Abstract The research paper analyzes and critiques a number of literature materials on dividend policy among Saudi firms with much focus on non-financial firms. In Saudi Arabia, dividend policy is an imperative tool because most companies retain close to 100 percent of their earnings in dividends. In this economy, firms are majorly funded by bank loans and thereof, there exists no capital or income gains taxes. Some of the most identifiable factors influencing dividend policy of both non-financial and financial companies in Saudi are discussed in the current paper. The current paper is a report compiled to my firm’s manager’s to help him understand the strategic financial policies in relation to the real life specifically, concerning dividends policy in Saudi Arabia. In order to address all his interests in the topic, I have undertaken to divide the report into sections namely: abstract, introduction, literature review and conclusion. Key words: dividends, financial policies, Saudi Arabia 2.0. Introduction Dividend policy is a major financial decision that a company has to make in order for the shareholders to be rewarded for their investment in the business. It is one of the most predictable and stable element of a firm. Most firms commence dividend payment when the firm matures because at such a period, the firm receives fewer opportunities to invest into in order to raise their capital. It is, therefore, imperative for the management of the company to know predictShow MoreRelatedSaudi Arabi Oil And Natural Gas1749 Words   |  7 PagesQuestion One Saudi Arabia is the largest oil and natural gas producer of oil in the world attributed to its vast reservoir (Jasimuddin, 2001). The economic growth seen over the years has been dependent upon exploration and production of oil for local and international market (Jasimuddin, 2001). 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