Balanced Scorecard Designer

Verizon Communications Gets Human Resources On Track with a Balanced Scorecard Approach

Summary

Emerging from a recent merger and industry deregulation, and entering a time of increased competition, Verizon Communications needed to prepare for aggressive customer acquisition if it was to survive the telecomm wars.  The company decided to take a hard look at human resources, a department that was not historically linked to profitability in any way, and create profit-linked goals and accountability to guide their activities.

Introduction

In 1997, the merger between Bell Atlantic and GTE was named Verizon Communications.  The newly merged company was the largest local phone company in the U.S. and the largest wireless phone company, with about 260,000 staff in its employ. The company managed 63 million local-access lines and 27 million local and five million long-distance customers generating annual revenues of approximately $60 billion, with room for considerable growth in the long-distance market once they were approved for expansion in this area. Verizon Communications offered voice, data and wireless services as well as published print and electronic directories.

The Challenge

When the Telecommunications Act of 1996 created new and significant challenges for Verizon Communications, the company needed to cope with the new competitive landscape created by deregulation.  Suddenly, telephone, cable and Internet providers were vying for the same customers, and in an effort to achieve economies of scale, many began offering consolidated services, including local, long-distance, wireless, video and Internet.  Deregulation incurred a wave of consolidations, of which Verizon was just one, with more than $10 billion in worldwide telecommunications industry acquisitions and mergers.

Verizon needed to be ready to build its long-distance customer base as soon as it received regulatory clearance, and also needed to aggressively seek to increase its overall revenue base.

At the same time, they were dealing with high employee turnover rates of 20 to 25% per year. This problem compounded by record lows in unemployment rates. Customer service was suffering and smaller, newer telecommunication companies were using better service to lure customers away.  Deciding that improved, consistent customer service was integral to customer retention, Verizon chose to focus on their human resources department.

The human resources department had historically not operated under specific performance metrics.  As a non-revenue-producing department, human resources employees were generally written off as costs.  Verizon decided to break with tradition and link human resources activities to productivity, product cycle times, sales and other metrics to determine how these activities affected overall business goals.

The Solution

Because the Balanced Scorecard approach puts the focus on measurable performance, and on bringing all business functions into alignment, it was the perfect choice for Verizon’s objectives.  Human resources needed to determine department goals that supported and could be measured against Verizon’s overall corporate strategy: “To profitably offer an complete bundle of high-growth telecommunications services.”

The human resources leadership team came up with five strategic directions:

• Talent: enlarge talent pool, invest in professional development, ensure workplace diversity
• Leadership: find ways of identifying high-potential employees and grooming them for leadership roles
• Customer Service and Support: determine retention issues, promote HR-related products and services available to employees, support employee engagement
• Organizational integration: create better information-sharing systems between business units and with the unions
• Human resources capability: build human resources capacity by rotating key talent, creating a measurement system that highlights dept achievements and invest in tech solutions

Next, the team created a measurement model to support these strategic directions.  They started by asking company presidents in each business area what their human resource-related questions and concerns were, and developed 118 performance measures, organized into four perspectives (strategic, customer, operations, financial) that answered these questions.

They assigned targets for each of these perspectives, with one-quarter of these targets being taken from benchmark data for the telecommunications industry, and the remaining targets being based on a projection of internal data against which they could measure their actual performance.

To communicate their Balanced Scorecard results throughout the organization, they usedPbViews software. This enabled them to report, online, the quarterly Scorecard results.  It also allowed them to show how the results cascaded through all levels of the organization, including a color-coding system that allowed them to visually identify problem areas at a glance.

Online video and audio resources to train employees to use Scorecard data were also made available online.

Because both the measurement systems and the targets were new, a period of adjustment took place.  After six months, the Balanced Scorecard targets and measurement protocols were adjusted and refined, and also changed as needed to reflect changing organizational goals.  Most importantly, compensation throughout the department was now linked to these targets.

The Result

The Balanced Scorecard approach achieved significant results within the organization, both in terms of targets reached and in terms of effecting a change in mindset throughout the human resources department.

One of the main targets set was to reduce call center employee turnover.  The Balanced Scorecard gave the human resources department the tools to determine what issues were causing employee dissatisfaction and helped them rectify the problem. They ultimately achieved a reduction of 1%, which represented a savings to the organization of $23.6 million.  The Balanced Scorecard not only enabled them to set targets, but also gave them the tools to measure their performance and express improvements in actual cost savings.

Not only did the Balanced Scorecard help human resources to set and achieve specific targets, it allowed them to reframe themselves as a profit-conscious department.  From being a largely unaccountable part of the organization, they now feel as though they are driven by, and responsible to, Verizon’s overall corporate strategy.

Trademarks mentioned in this article belongs to the respective owners.

admin Case Studies Case Studies, telecom, telecommunications

10 questions to Balanced Scorecard Expert Forrest W. Breyfogle III, Smarter Solutions, Inc.

1.    Please, summarize in few words what is your expertise and background with Balanced Scorecard.

I have worked with many companies that have used the Balanced Scorecard.

2.    It is known that Balanced Scorecard is used by more than 50% of Fortune companies. Do you think this concept is for big companies only?

All companies large and small need to have scorecards that lead to the 3 Rs of business; i.e., everyone doing the Right things, and doing them Right, at the Right time.

A Wall Street Journal article “Strategic Plans Lose Favor: Slump Showed Bosses Value of Flexibility, Quick Decisions” is available through the link. This article illustrates what I think is a flaw with traditional applications of the balanced scorecard. With traditional implementations metrics are to be aligned with strategies, which according to the article, now need to be more dynamic than in the past to address changing environmental conditions.   This dynamic environment would cause havoc with traditional implementations of the balanced scorecard.

3.    While BSC concept is popular now, what other business performance measurement concepts can you recommend for companies to consider?

The following article describes an enhanced business performance management system that helps organizations toward achievement of the 3 Rs of business: “C-Suite: The Need to Re-think our Business System’s Strategic Planning, Scorecard Creation, and Process Improvement Efforts”

4.    Please, share your opinion about key ideas that should be kept in mind for successful implementation of BSC?

Think that it is important to have a natural balance rather than a forced balance; e.g., don’t want to sacrifice quality for improved on-time delivery.   Organizations benefit from a system where scorecards are long-lasting and have a predictive format, as described in the article “Creation of Effective Organizational Predictive Metrics that Lead to the 3 Rs of Business”

5.    The BSC is a business performance measurement concept, but should only top managers and CEO use it? Or should it be used company-wide? Should BSC be implemented in all departments or for instance only in HR?

Scorecards should be created throughout the organization where they make physical sense, recognizing that it is important not to force a scorecard metric where not appropriate.

6.    While there are certain benefits of BSC, do you see there any limitations or possible problems? Some areas where BSC does not work properly or is inefficient.

Shortcomings are described in: “The Balanced Scorecard: Issues and Resolution”

7.    The BSC concept is discussed widely. What do you think, if most companies understand the importance of BSC development? Are they willing to invest in BSC? Is it hard to get decisions makers to conclusion that it is necessary to use BSC?

It is important for executive management to have effective performance metrics. An enhanced balanced scorecard system that structurally integrates with process improvement efforts so that the business as a whole benefits is described in “Corporate Performance Management: The Integrated Enterprise Excellence System“

8.    The practical implementation is always as important as theory itself. There are a lot of ways to implement BSC from simple Excel files to software, web-based services and full integration with company business system. What do you think is the best implementation strategy in terms of quality/price? What type of tools would you use to do implementation?

Need to have a system for real-time predictive metric reporting that get organizations out of the firefighting mode and improvement metric needs pull for the creation of improvement projects that benefit the business as a whole; e.g., avoiding silo projects that might reporting a savings of 100 million dollars but nobody can find the money.

9.    There are companies that already use BSC, we read about them in business magazines, we read their case-studies and success stories.  What advice would you give companies that just start considering the implementation of Balanced Scorecard concept?

Performance scorecards need to be part of a business system that addresses the problems of the day as described in “The Elephant in the Room: Corporate Performance Management Issues and its Reinvention, Going Beyond Lean Six Sigma and the Balanced Scorecard”

10.    Thank you very much for your answers. I think our readers would like to know more about your company and service you provide. If possible share also your detailed experience with Balanced Scorecard here.

Smarter Solutions, Inc. helps organizations create a balanced, predictive scorecard system that integrates with analytically/innovatively determined strategies that creates/executes improvement projects so that the business as a whole benefits.

admin Interviews interview, Smarter Solutions

Evaluation of approaches to devising Key Performance Indicators (KPI)

Title: Evaluation of approaches to devising Key Performance Indicators (KPI)

Page number: 44

Summary: This paper reviews the background literature on the use (and abuse) of key performance indicators and then offers practical advice on constructing, integrating and reporting KPIs.

The report includes 70 KPIs with judgement and analysis of their practical application.

• Buy full version as a part of  Balanced Scorecard Toolkit

You will learn:

• Approaches and uses of Key Performance Indicators;
• Practical advice on constructing, integrating and reporting KPIs;
• Integrating and Reporting KPIs;
• Practical Examples of KPIs;

Buy full version as a part of  Balanced Scorecard Toolkit

Table of contents:

Page Examples

Evaluation of approaches to devising Key Performance Indicators (KPI)

Qualitative or Quantitative Measures? Measuring Intangible Variables

admin BSC Toolkit approaches, design, devising, kpi

The Summary

The National Marrow Donor Program set an ambitious goal of facilitating 10,000 transplants per year by 2015.  They needed a strategic plan that would allow them to evaluate organizational performance based on overarching goals rather than approaching projects and initiatives discretely. The Balanced Scorecard approach helped them develop a broader strategy that included multiple perspectives and allowed them to leverage total organizational strengths.  The Scorecard also helped them access the data they needed to make timely and informed funding and operational decisions.

Introduction

Launched in 1987 with a registry of just 10,000 volunteers, The National Marrow Donor Program (NMDP) now includes seven million donors and over 150,000 cord blood units, the largest and most racially and ethnically diverse registry of its kind in the world. Since its inception, the NMDP has arranged for more than 35,000 transplants, giving these patients a second chance at life.  Medical advances are making marrow and umbilical cord blood transplants available to more patients all the time, and in 2009 alone, the NMDP facilitated more than 4,300 transplants.

The Challenge

In order to meet the needs of all patients, NMDP is committed to meeting the needs of all its patients, which means it must more than double the rate of transplants to reach 10,000 per year by 2015.

Although they had a strategic plan in place, they realized that it focused on activities and projects without reaching as far as specific outcomes.  The strategy was also too narrowly focuses on processes and financial considerations; they needed a broader strategy that accounted for customer and stakeholder perspectives and helped them build on the strengths of their people, knowledge base and technology.

With an ambitious, long-term organizational goal, NMDP needed to know with pinpoint precision where performance improvements were needed and how to take corrective action.  Organization leaders needed to be able to track the way performance was affecting strategic objectives and make impactfulfunding decisions, instead of simply evaluating individual projects and initiatives.

And the organization needed to get everyone working in synchronization towards a single result with an easily understood strategy document that was relevant across all departments.

The Solution

The process began with a comprehensive SWOT analysis and the development of renewed vision and mission statements and strategic themes during an intensive session involving NMDP officers and senior management.

They emerged with a new, more concise and straightforward mission statement—“We save lives through cellular transplantation – science, service, and support”—that specifically defines their mission and the areas that support it.  They also developed an Overarching Strategic Result that gave the organization a concrete goal to work towards: “Meeting the need for 10,000 transplants per year by 2015.”

Next, four strategic themes were developed to provide specific goals towards supporting the Mission Statement and reaching the Overarching Strategic Result:

• Global Access and Acceptance  (overcoming barriers to transplants such aslack of insurance, transportation, and post-transplant support)
• Deliver Excellent Stakeholder Experience (make sure a cell source donation is available when it’s needed)
• Research (pursue research to improve cell transplantation as a therapy)
• Culture of Excellence (seek out talent, structure and resources needed to continually improve transplant services)

Next, detailed roadmaps were developed for each theme area, with specific objectives identified.  The four maps were combined into an organizational strategy map of 13 strategic objectives, 46 strategic measure and seven strategic initiatives. This Scorecard was named Vision into Action (ViA) and with board and senior management approval, it was cascaded throughout the organization to the different departments.

A ViA communications team was appointed to communicate the Scorecard itself and the organization’s progress towards Scorecard goals throughthe distribution of newsletters, intranet messaging, contests, e-mails from the CEO, leadership training, all-staff meetings and employee check-ins.  These communications activities helped every employee to understand and get excited about their role in supporting the Overarching Strategic Result.

At the same time, groups of five to 10 key members of each department held sessions to develop their own Objectives, Measures and Initiatives. They were tasked with outlining each department’s contribution to the Strategic Objectives and NMDP mission, and creating a toolkit to identify gaps, overlaps and synergies between departments, identify priorities, correct unsuccessful measures and establish a funding request process for new opportunities.

In 2009, the NMDP decided to automate their Balanced Scorecard processes and reporting usingCorVu, a performance management and business intelligence software system.This made the collection of measurement data much easier and more consistent.  It also allowed specific reports to be made available to different audiences, providing a tailored view of the information they needed to make informed decisions.

The Result

The implementation of the Balanced Scorecard approach has given NMDP a clear set of Strategic Objectives in support of the ambitious but critical goal of doubling their capacity by 2015.

All departments enter measurement reports into the software system each quarter, along with comments on performance and predictions for the end of the fiscal year. This information is accessible to senior management, giving them a complete and timely picture of each department’s performance, and allowing them to address issues promptly.

The Strategy Maps providesimple, at-a-glance references that can be used during staff meetings to guide discussions on performance measures and to establish corrective action plans for department measures that are shown to be underperforming based on measurement data.  The data also allows them to celebrate and learn from successful measures.

The Balanced Scorecard has also allowed NMDP to allocate resources more intelligently; all requests for funding must be supported by specific and tangible descriptions of the ways in which they further the ViA Strategic Objectives.

Although currently restricted to management, soon all employees will be able to access the ViA Balanced Scorecard data online using the CorVu application, providing direct access to relevant strategy and supporting data throughout the organization at every level.

Trademarks mentioned in this article belongs to the respective owners.

admin Case Studies Case Studies, health care

10 questions to Balanced Scorecard Expert Gavin Lawrie, Managing Director at 2GC Active Management.

1.    Please, summarize in few words what is your expertise and background with Balanced Scorecard.

My first exposure to Balanced Scorecard was in 1995, when I joined Renaissance Solutions, a  specialist consultancy in Boston USA that had been set up by David Norton (of Kaplan & Norton fame): my first project for the International Telephony Business of AT&T in the USA, but my focus was in developing Renaissance’s business outside the USA – helping establish an office for the firm in London, UK.  From the UK I had a tremendous opportunity to lead Balanced Scorecard projects in Europe, the Middle East and Asia, and learn about the challenges of applying the techniques Renaissance had developed in the USA in other markets: our insights from this international work led to the team becoming thought-leaders in several areas – including the development of what would become known as the 2nd Generation Balanced Scorecard, and the ‘cascading’ of Balanced Scorecards within large organisations.

In 1998 David Norton left Renaissance to form another firm in the USA, and the firm began to break up.  I set up 2GC in the UK in 1999, and it has since grown to become a leading global expert on performance management – working for clients in 40 countries across 5 continents, and completing roughly 200 Balanced Scorecard designs for a broad spectrum of clients drawn from private, public and NGO sectors.  During this time 2GC has also sought to remain at the cutting edge of thinking on strategic performance management, and is now recognised as a thought leader by both academics and practitioners.

It is known that Balanced Scorecard is used by more than 50% of Fortune companies. Do you think this concept is for big companies only?

Not at all.  2GC is a small firm, and we have had and used a Balanced Scorecard since our inception 10 years ago, and during that time we have worked for a variety of small firms.  What is clear from our experience is that Balanced Scorecard serves a slightly different purpose in a small firm compared to a large one – and this affects how you go about designing the Balanced Scorecard and subsequently how you use it.  If you want to find out more about Balanced Scorecard in small firms, 2GC has written a couple of case studies, a short presentation and a research paper on the topic – all can be downloaded for free from the 2GC web site’s resources section (http://www.2gc.co.uk/resources).

While BSC concept is popular now, what other business performance measurement concepts can you recommend for companies to consider?

Do you mean performance measurement or performance management?  Balanced Scorecard is a performance management tool that helps an organisation choose which performance measures it should focus on, and to justify this choice to others, but in itself it doesn’t actually help you measure things.  There is a rich literature on how to measure things – wherein discussions tend to be focused by ‘type of measure’: for example the literature on financial measures is distinct and different to the literature concerning measuring brand strength, which in turn is distinct from the literature on measuring workforce competence.  Recommending a single source here is tricky – but a good start is to look at the literature on measuring and managing intellectual capital which covers much of the territory at a high level.
Regarding performance management, most of the material available focuses on Balanced Scorecard – a lot of which simply restates the content of the original Kaplan & Norton articles in one way or another.  I guess there is a market for it, but in the main the quality is pretty low.  One exception to this rule is a book called Performance Drivers by Nils-Goran Olve, JanRoy & Magnus Wetter, published in English translation in 1999.  It is a bit dated now, but remains the best single book on performance management around I think.  There are some interesting books and articles about performance management thinking coming from the NGO and public sector, which has had to perhaps be more innovative over the years (as the original Balanced Scorecard concept was never really set up for non-profit organisations).  I particularly like recent work on the “Results Based Management” framework by the UN since 2000, and work from Canada on “Outcome Mapping” approach.

2GC has published a suggsted reading list on performance management – find it on the 2GC web site.

4.    Please, share your opinion about key ideas that should be kept in mind for successful implementation of BSC?

Many Balanced Scorecard implementations fail to deliver the value their sponsors hoped for.  The most common reason appears to be a simple one – that the managers within the organisation simply don’t use the Balanced Scorecard.  If it isn’t used, it is hard to see how a Balanced Scorecard is going to do any good – and so from the outset 2GC’s aim in any Balanced Scorecard project has been focused on getting the device designed to be used.  This focus has implications for how you design the device, and also for how you support its introduction into an organisation.  There are many aspects to consider, but a couple worth highlighting are: keeping it simple, and ensuring it is ‘relevant’ to those who will eventually have to use it.  Adding more measures to a Balanced Scorecard  usually doesn’t make it better – aim for about 20.  Ensure ‘relevance’ by involving those who will use the Balanced Scorecard directly in its design – even if this results in a less ‘sophisticated’ design than experts might come up with.

5.    The BSC is a business performance measurement concept, but should only top managers and CEO use it? Or should it be used company-wide? Should BSC be implemented in all departments or for instance only in HR?

Actually it is a business performance management concept – but I know what you mean.  Designing a good Balanced Scorecard is quite resource intensive exercise, an investment justified by hoped for improvements in the quality of decision making and focus of a management team.  Clearly it is easier to justify the cost of Balanced Scorecard design for a senior team (where a small improvement in performance can yield substantial value), and as a result most Balanced Scorecard work we do is for top teams.  But in sufficiently large organisations, similar value from better decision making can justify developing Balanced Scorecard for lower level management teams.  2GC has had the good fortune to be involved in the running projects to develop ‘cascades’ of Balanced Scorecard in a variety of private and public sector organisations – and we have documented these experiences and the learnings arising in case studies and research papers that can be downloaded from the 2GC web site.

The idea that Balanced Scorecard is somehow different in form or should be restricted to use in functional departments (usually HR, or IT) arisises from a fairly basic misunderstanding of what Balanced Scorecard  is – and seems to be the result of attempts to sell differentiated management books rather than any useful understanding of the topic.  Balanced Scorecard can be applied usefully (though perhaps not always economically) to any management team’s activities regardless of functional specialisation.

6.    While there are certain benefits of BSC, do you see there any limitations or possible problems? Some areas where BSC does not work properly or is inefficient.

Of course.  Although the original suggestion by Kaplan & Norton was that Balanced Scorecard would help senior management teams ensure their strategic plans were properly implemented, since 1992 the framework has been extended to cover a wider range of uses.  2GC recognises four main ones – strategic management, operational management, monitoring and evaluation, and payment of incentives and rewards.  All uses work OK, but each use demands a quite different approach to the selection of measures used within the Balanced Scorecard, and are supported by quite different patterns of use by the managers concerned.  A major cause of problems is where a design processes best suited to one kind of application is used to build a Balanced Scorecard used for some other purpose – usually the results of such compromises fail.  For an illustration, read the “Arran” case study that illustrates this problem occurring in a Financial Services firm – download it for free from http://www.2gc.co.uk/resources-casestudies.

7.    The BSC concept is discussed widely. What do you think, if most companies understand the importance of BSC development? Are they willing to invest in BSC? Is it hard to get decisions makers to conclusion that it is necessary to use BSC?

Most managers are familiar with the term Balanced Scorecard, and probably a majority of organisations in OECD economies have had some experience of Balanced Scorecard by now.  But whether this means the managers understand the potential value of a well designed Balanced Scorecard is not at all clear.  Unfortunately ‘completing’ a Balanced Scorecard is much easier than building a good one, and for many people their only experience of Balanced Scorecard has been a dodgy device produced by unscrupulous consultants or accountants looking to make a quick buck: a disappointing kind of short-termism from the consultancy profession that does no one any good.  However the basic need that Balanced Scorecard addresses is persistent – however it is done, managers need some mechanism to identify and track key financial and non-financial measures.  2GC is proof that organisations are willing to invest to develop Balanced Scorecard (we get almost all our revenues from such work).  Most of our work comes by referral from past clients – which suggests that when you do Balanced Scorecard well, it truly adds value.

8.    The practical implementation is always as important as theory itself. There are a lot of ways to implement BSC from simple Excel files to software, web-based services and full integration with company business system. What do you think is the best implementation strategy in terms of quality/price? What type of tools would you use to do implementation?

In our view, a well designed Balanced Scorecard comprises a selection of about 20 financial and non financial measures, reported quarterly.  The idea that you might need specialist software to support this activity for a single Balanced Scorecard is laughable.  Our view is that specialist software is not required (and is sometimes a distraction) for reporting a single Balanced Scorecard – the software is typically expensive compared to the alternatives (e.g. Excel) and usual not much more functional.   However if you have to report many Balanced Scorecards in a period (more than five is our current thinking), automated reporting solutions become more attractive.  It really depends on your organisation though, and there are no reliable hard-fast rules you can follow.  What is clear however, is that none of the (about 100) available software solutions will help you design a Balanced Scorecard – they are simply automata that make reporting a Balanced Scorecard design easier (regardless of what the vendor might say).

9.    There are companies that already use BSC, we read about them in business magazines, we read their case-studies and success stories.  What advice would you give companies that just start considering the implementation of Balanced Scorecard concept?

Balanced Scorecard only does good if it gets used.  Simply having a Balanced Scorecard that everyone ignores won’t make anything better (any more than having a strategic plan that sits on the shelf will lead to strategic success).  So from the outset think about how your organisation is going to use the resulting Balanced Scorecard(s).  How are management meetings going to change?  How with the Balanced Scorecard integrate with your budgeting and planning systems?  How will you train the managers in your organisation to get best value from the device?  If you are building more than one Balanced Scorecard, how will you ensure that they all ‘align’ with each other to deliver the organisation’s overall objectives?  All these issues are peripheral to the activity of designing a Balanced Scorecard – but require careful thought and investment.  Approach the design of a Balanced Scorecard as a disconnected exercise, and you’ll struggle to get it to ‘work’ within your organisation.

10.    Thank you very much for your answers. I think our readers would like to know more about your company and service you provide. If possible share also your detailed experience with Balanced Scorecard here.

2GC Active Management is now one of the worlds most experienced specialist performance management consultancies, having spent over a decade at the leading edge of the field.  A small firm based in Europe, but with representative offices the Middle East and Asia, 2GC comprises a collection of dedicated performance management experts offering Balanced Scorecard design and audit services, and Balanced Scorecard training to private, public and NGO sector clients on a global basis.  A particular area of expertise is the design of sets of Balanced Scorecard within large / complex organisations – 2GC has worked on some of the most complex multi-level strategic Balanced Scorecard design projects ever documented.  For more information on 2GC and its experience, see the 2GC web site – http://www.2GC.co.uk/a2gc

admin Interviews 2GC, Gavin Lawrie, inverview

Balanced Scorecard is a concept used by more than 50% of Fortune companies, about 10% of our customers are from Finance industry. Companies from banks and insurance companies to financial advisers and accounting small businesses use BSC Designer and KPI products to measure and improve business performance.

Balanced Scorecard for finance companies: case studies, ready-to-use KPIs and guides on balanced scorecard

Case studies:

• BSC Designer helped Financial Institution to improve the strategic and control efficiency
• Balanced Scorecard helps insurance companies;

Products for financial industry:

• BSC Designer – software for balanced scorecard design
• Ready-to-use KPI pack: Finance and Accounting Management
• BSC Toolkit – guide that covers all aspects of BSC development and implementation

BSC Designer is used for:

• Risk management;
• Strategy visualization with strategy maps;
• Improving control efficiency;

Some of our customers from Finance industry:

• Afrisia Management Services, LLC – Afrisia Management Services, LLC provides lifecycle accounting, contract and tax expertise to government agencies and entrepreneurial companies who contract with the government. Afrisia Management Services, LLC bring an educational approach to help you plan for the future, uncover efficiencies, and improve performance. And we’ll continue to meet your evolving needs as you become more successful. Our team possesses extensive firsthand experience in government contracts accounting, and we use this expertise to empower small businesses to attain certifications, remain compliant and uncover new opportunities with their federal and state customers.
• Ahli United Bank – Ahli United Bank B.S.C. (AUB) reported a net profit of US$ 183.7 million for the nine month period ended 30 September 2009, compared to US$ 280.1 million for the same period in 2008. The net profit for the third quarter ended September 2009 was US$ 40.1 million (Q3/2008 – US$ 68.4 million).
• American Fidelity Assurance – The Oklahoma City-based company serves more than one million customers in 49 states and 23 countries. American Fidelity has been ranked among Fortune magazine’s 100 best companies to work for in the United States each year since 2004, and has been the highest ranked insurance company on the list all five years. Since 1982, AFA has consistently been rated “A+” by A. M. Best Company*, one of the leading insurance company rating services in America.
• Aviva – Aviva is the world’s fifth-largest insurance group and the largest insurance services provider in the UK. We are the leading provider of life and pension products in Europe and are actively growing our long-term savings businesses in Asian markets, Australia and the USA. Our main activities are long-term savings, fund management and general insurance*. We have premium income and investment sales of ?51.4 billion and ?381 billion of funds under management. We have 54,000 employees serving over 50 million customers in 28 countries around the world.
• BizCare LLC – Full Service Accounting, Payroll, Payroll Reports Small Business Start Up, 15 Years Experience, Income Taxes, Sales Tax Reporting, Quarterly Taxes, Estimated taxes,Sole proprietor, LLC, Corporation, Non Profit, New Product And Service Analysis, New Business Analysis, Irs Audits, Business plans
• Citco Fund Services (Dublin) Ltd – A financial services group comprised of international banks, trust and fund companies offering its clients a broad range of corporate, fiduciary, financial, and fund services.
• Deloitte – “Deloitte” is the brand under which tens of thousands of dedicated professionals in independent firms throughout the world collaborate to provide audit, consulting, financial advisory, risk management, and tax services to selected clients. These firms are members of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu (DTT), a Swiss Verein.
• DNBNOR – DnB NOR is Norways largest financial services group with total combined assets of NOK 1 600 billion. The Group consists of strong brands such as DnB NOR, Vital, Nordlandsbanken, Cresco, Postbanken, DnB NORD and Carlson.
• Ernst & Young – Ernst & Young is a global leader in assurance, tax, transaction, advisory services and strategic growth markets. We aim to have a positive impact on businesses and markets, as well as on society as a whole.
• FBL Financial Group – FBL Financial Group, headquartered in West Des Moines, Iowa, is a holding company whose primary operating subsidiaries are Farm Bureau Life Insurance Company and EquiTrust Life Insurance Company. FBL currently underwrites, markets and distributes life insurance, annuities and mutual funds to individuals and small businesses.
• FGB – As one of the leading banks in the UAE, First Gulf Bank (FGB) has Shareholder Equity at AED22 billion making it one of the largest equity based bank in the UAE. Established in 1979 and headquartered in the UAE capital Abu Dhabi, the bank provides financial services in various business and industrial areas with a wide network of branches across the Emirates. Under a visionary leadership, expert management and a professional, committed and talented team the bank maintains a strong flexible synergy that fosters sustained growth.
• First Merchants Corporation – First Merchants Corporation is the largest financial services holding company located in Central Indiana. With the addition of Lincoln Bank, First Merchants Corporation will have 80 locations in 24 Indiana counties and 3 Ohio counties. We provide our customers with broad financial services delivered locally by bankers who are known and trusted in their communities. We offer consumer banking, mortgage banking, business banking, cash management services, wealth management and insurance.
• GROUPAMA ZASTRAHOVANE – Firmly embedded in the French economic and social fabric, the Group makes its products and services available to private individuals, professionals, SMEs and institutions under two major brand names, GROUPAMA, distributed by the Groupama Regional Mutuals and GAN, distributed by networks of intermediaries.
• LAC Associates – LAC Associates, LLC. is a full service tax, accounting, consulting and financial services firm. We provide exceptional financial services that are individually tailored to meet each client’s specific needs. Our mission at LAC Associates is to provide world class tax, accounting, consulting and financial services in conjunction with building mutually beneficial long-term relationships with our clients.
• M&T Bank – M&T Bank Corporation, one of the 20 largest independent bank holding companies in the U.S., with assets of more than $69 billion and more than 800 branches, 1,800 ATMs and 15,000 employees located in New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Washington D.C., Virginia, West Virginia and Delaware.
• M&T Bank – Established in 1856 as Manufacturers and Traders Bank, today we’re the M&T Bank Corporation, one of the 20 largest independent bank holding companies in the U.S., with assets of more than $69 billion and more than 800 branches, 1,800 ATMs and 15,000 employees located in New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Washington D.C., Virginia, West Virginia and Delaware.
• Standard & Poor’s – Standard and Poor’s 500 equity stock trading system provides individual stock analysis and a free stock analyzer.
• SustainLINK – SustainLINK is an independent research and scorecarding firm that profiles and monitors only eco-intelligent banks and credit unions.
• The World Bank Group – The World Bank is a vital source of financial and technical assistance to developing countries around the world.
• WOMEN’S WORLD BANKING – WWB is a global network of 40 microfinance providers and banks, working in 28 countries to bring financial services and information to low-income entrepreneurs. The network serves 20 million micro-entrepreneurs.

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Top-manages and CEOs use Balanced Scorecard to improve performance of health-care organizations

According to our statistics about 10% of our customers are from Health Care industry. BSC Designer software is a powerful tool that helps measure and improve performance of health care organizations. More than 50% of Fortune companies use Balanced Scorecard concept. Our BSC Designer provides top-managers and CEOs with easy to use desktop balanced scorecard software.

• Check case study: balanced scorecard in health care

There are several products that will help top managers:

• BSC Designer – tool for CEOs and top-managers that supports Balanced Scorecard concept
• Ready-to-use medical KPIs – the pack of ready to use KPIs
• BSC Toolkit – guide that covers all possible aspects of BSC analysis and implementation

Learn more about successful use of Balanced Scorecard concept.

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When trying to define the qualities of the excellent manager, a term entrepreneurial comes to mind. Someone who can see trends, is aware of market dynamics, as well as dynamics within the organization. As a true entrepreneur, not only been keenly aware of the realities, but being able to envision things that are not yet. A visionary who sees opportunities and is able to impart these visions to others. The ability to dream, to envision, to imagine opportunities is no less crucial than anything else. After all, if a manager cannot dream, how can the come up with something truly new and unique.

For all the awareness and vision, an ideal manager is an actor, a doer, somebody who does not get stuck analyzing trends or dreaming up new markets, rather someone who quickly plans and rapidly executes activities in such a rapid succession that people are unable to comprehend how things can be done so quickly.

Finally, no manager can be truly excellent without the comradeship of his staff, without being keenly aware of their feelings and emotions, without being able to empathize with and support his co-laborers.  Communicating effectively, workload balancing and such are only possible when the manager is aware of both mental logic and emotional state necessary to successfully engage their team.

So, to summarize the foundations of good management are based on four variables that are listed in no particular order: 1) awareness; 2)task management/ability to execute; 3) cohesiveness of the team; and 4) ability to dream/use imagination.

If you think of these four variables, they are also the four ways in which we perceive the world and think. To borrow the language of Myers-Briggs and Jung these are 1) Sensing; 2)Thinking; 3)Feeling; and 4)Intuition. And while the whole old theory about the brain is questionable, these same four elements are often referred to as 1) Left Front; 2)Left Back; 3)Right Front; and 4)Right Back. To use our everyday language these four ways of thinking are 1) Thinking with our senses, eyes, hands; 2)Thinking with our mind, using logic; 3)Thinking with our heart; and 4)Thinking with our gut.

Awareness of these four ways to think is ancient, and yet the application of the awareness that all four must be developed and trained to work in a cohesive union has not been systematically applied to the development of leaders in the fields of management and business.

Conventional wisdom is that we typically have only one of these thinking approaches well developed, may be two, but rarely all four. I submit to you that it is true, but it does happen. Perhaps, what is more important then classifying and pigeon holing everyone to a specific mental process, it is more valuable to help us all develop our brain in such a way that we get better in all four approaches to thinking. Rather than seeing people as a particular personality type, let’s work together to insure that we all have a wonderful personality that is flexible enough to be the type that is necessary under the circumstances and tolerant enough to accept and appreciate people who deal with things differently than we do.

There are two ways to build teams that are much stronger than the sum of their parts. One is through a relationship of people who while personally lean toward one or two of these mindsets but can recognize and value others, who think in a way that is different from theirs and who grow in their specialization on the team. Another is in a team that is constantly cross training and consists of people who can perform all other functions on the team as well. These two are not mutually exclusive. But rather they both point to growth. Growth of each team member in their field, as well as growth in their ability to help out in the fields that are the specialty of their teammates. As well as growth in the closeness and effectiveness of the interconnectedness of the team that so greatly reduces the transaction costs of doing business.

This brings us to the actual measurement of the management team’s growth and business development. We can take a more combinatorial approach. By first measuring the change in in each manager’s skill in each of the four thought approaches and then combining those numbers as a total team score, while keeping in mind the team cohesiveness variable. This may be more precise and may even allow us to compare individual managers against other managers, across business units, thus assuring that we deploy our best talent on our most important projects, but it has two, in my mind, fatal flaws. It is great in theory, but the amount of measurement and calibration involved to assure this measurement may well be prohibitive for most organizations. Perhaps even more importantly, even if we can get past the difficulty of measuring the metrics precisely enough to avoid type one and type two errors that are so demoralizing to  the individual and the team, we still have a motivational problem.  The problem that emerges in the environment of individual measurement an internally competitive environment  that discourages cooperation is bred.  This environment vastly increases the transaction costs, lowering the cohesiveness of the team and defeating the whole value of the measurement.  This  introduces the death spiral of reduced organizational performance that is paralleled by the inevitable inflation of the individual ratings and of the egos. The whole fiasco resulting in the rejection of the measurement tool altogether, in light of better performance by the organizations who do not employ it.

Thus, I propose a different measurement route, one that is at the heart of a growth and development activity that all organizations should embrace anyways and that is collaborative gaming where monthly, or weekly a team is challenged to perform a task together that involves sensing awareness of the five senses and intuitive sixth sense of the gut, logic of the thinking brain and sensibility of the feeling heart. By performing this activity regularly, a change in the performance can easily be tracked and thus provide a crucial indicator of the quality of the management team, while acting as a tool for the improvement along this, most essential,  KPI.

—

Oleg Tumarkin is an Adjunct Professor of Business at Lakeland College and Concordia University of Wisconsin. His firm, FutureWorks, in partnership with Bucket Brigade and AKS-Labs provides business coaching and Balanced Scorecard implementations.  His life’s passion is the development of a universal business measurement and management system that would cause management in to the realm of a repeatable, replicable, yet humane and flexible science.

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BSC Designer helped CAJA RURAL DE SALAMANCA to improve the strategic and control efficiency

It has been a year since CAJA RURAL had started implementation of the Balanced Scorecard system using BSC Designer tool. Easy to understand but powerful software product became a perfect solution to organize the implementation process softly. Let’s check out the experience,  AGUSTIN GARCÍA, the director of planning and control shared with us!

Introduction

CAJA RURAL DE SALAMANCA is a big financial institution located in Spain. It provides a wide range of financial services including loans, credit card operations, savings, checking and many others. The company showed economic growth in the recent years. Dealing with such great number of activities inside the company and increasing number of customers, the top management decided to implement the system of Balanced Scorecard. After research was conducted, BSC was considered a perfect tool that could help not only to create a well organized structure of activities but also to understand the company’s goals and perspectives and to make a realistic expectations and forecasts of the future performance growth.

The Challenge

The process of localizing changes, mangers expected from Balanced Scorecard system to perform, already helped the heads of the company to better understand the entity of their business and its purposes. The four years plan of implementation consisted of lots of goals to be achieved, including:

• Development of the strategic department;
• Building a chart of activities to get the map of company’s perspectives (Strategy map);
• Reviewing the strategic and planning activity, finding leading and lagging indicators;
• Establishment of the linking process between strategic and operational activities;
• Monitoring of the operational activity to be directed on strategic goals;
• Improvement of company’s performance (as the most important one);
• And others.

As a department, responsible for strategy, planning and control department started to provide the implementation of Balanced Scorecard as well as choosing the tool, that could present a useful dashboard, saving time and resources. After viewing several dashboard programs, BSC Designer was chosen as a tool providing every function, was needed. Also BSC Designer appeared to be easy to use (that saved a lot of time of teaching personnel how to use the software).

After the dashboard had been chosen, the department of planning and control started implementation, centralizing the utilization of the program. The evaluated areas were commercial and marketing, Human resources, General Intervention, Investments, Organization and Data processing. The calendar has been adapted to the period of performance of each department’s actions. The time horizon is four years, but the actions of the department are in a year.

BSC Designer solution

The director of planning and control became the one, responsible for providing the information to the program BSC Designer in coordination with a group of work that designs and realizes the follow-up of the Strategic Plan. The output information was used by the Headquarter and departments heads.

The technical support was realized in the department of planning and control: their function was to solve any appeared problem along with email and telephone support service of BSC Designer. For example, one of the problems was the need of reports in Spanish; it was successfully solved in several days.

Year ago, when the implementation process started, it was decided to use BSC Designer offline: the goals were evaluated periodically and revised by the working group. But the management thinks over the possibility to set up online functioning of the program, creating a network of dashboards which could improve cascading model of management and reduce the reduce and time waste on providing up to date information.

As for activities and departments monitoring, the group responsible for BSC, proceeded to an analysis of internal processes in collaboration with department heads, bearing in mind the needs of the client and also had begun to receive, collect and analyze the information for Customer, Innovation and Learning and Financial Perspectives.

CAJA RURAL’s specialists used not only project’s tree model of BSC Designer but also some other functions the tool can provide. The mostly used functions were:

• Imported indicators: the function was used to consolidate information imported from the Entity;
• Strategy Map: company’s specialists carried out a strategic map with causality entering each of the strategic objectives;
• Reports: the team used reports (both HTML and MS Excel based) for monitoring the Strategic Plan and to report the results of their work to the upper hierarchy level (Headquarter). The most commonly used reports are were the HTML Report and the Dashboard Report;
• Custom formulas: specialists use custom formulas occasionally (several indicators needed some special formulas to be calculated).

Result

After a year since the starting date of BSC system’s implementation process, provided by BSC Designer as a dashboard, the company had successfully develop its strategic activity – the important management subsystem, letting the company the direction where to move.

The department of planning and control, the team responsible for system’s implementation had reviewed the strategy, determining the strategic goals and their weights. Inputting this information to BSC Designer’s project step by step, the team had created a clear and exact strategy map. BSC had managed to transfer specific goals agreed with the vision of the Financial Institution. After that, the strategic goals begun to be translated into operational tasks with help of departments heads. The process of this translation is not finished by now but the management has excellent expectations about it.

By now, the level of current implementation is for department of planning and control. All other departments are only starting to work under the system’s coverage. But BSC already gave some benefits to the company. For example, it allowed standardize the Strategic Plan of the Entity for four years. Also, together with the Strategic Plan and BSC, Caja Rural has made a strategic map that supports the actions proposed by each department. This is going to provide and evaluate the objectives of the Plan.

For a big company, it needs time to implement any system or application; even new calculator could be implemented for months. Balanced Scorecard is not something easy to implement, it needs a huge amount of work to link build BSC map and to link it with every subsystem of management. In other words, the entire management system should be overviewed according to the company’s strategy. BSC Designer is aimed to help the brave managers, who decided to implement this system, providing them with useful tools to prevent time and resources waste and make their job easier. After the implementation is over, the program can provide its maintenance, calculating performance values, organizing linking to the parts of database and atomizing the process of BSC functioning in many other ways.

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10 questions to Balanced Scorecard Expert Sandy Richardson, BSc, MEd;  President and Managing Consultant at Strategy Focused Business Solutions Inc.; www.sfo-consulting.com. Sandy Richardson is also running interesting business blog.

Could you please, summarize in few words what is your expertise and background with Balanced Scorecard?

I have seen both sides of balanced scorecard creation, implementation, and management – both as a hands-on practitioner and as a consultant.

As a BSC practitioner, I had the opportunity to participate on my employer’s balanced scorecard development team in early 1997 – this was when the balanced scorecard was still a new concept so, with no real models to follow,  we had a huge BSC learning curve! After our BSC was launched, I took over its management and expansion – I did this for 5 years. I am proud to say that over that time, I successfully facilitated the institutionalization of the BSC as a critical strategy management tool.

As a consultant, I have had the opportunity to help organizations in a wide variety of sectors create and implement their strategy-focused balanced scorecard while avoiding the typical BSC pitfalls.

It is known that Balanced Scorecard is used by more than 50% of Fortune companies. Do you think this concept is for big companies only?

The balanced scorecard is an important tool that can be used by organizations, business units, and teams of any size to manage for the successful achievement of business goals and objectives. The most important factor for BSC success is the executive leader’s support of the balanced scorecard as a critical tool for strategy management and as a way of life. This can be achieved in organizations of all sizes.

While BSC concept is popular now, what other business performance measurement concepts can you recommend for companies to consider?

While I believe that the balanced scorecard is the best approach to business performance measurement and management, I have seen quality criteria such as the Baldrige Criteria (USA), the Framework for Business Excellence (Canada), etc. used successfully to measure and manage business performance. These are good approaches because, like the BSC, they take a wholistic approach to organizational management and are focused on producing a clear strategic outcome (a quality organization).

Please, share your opinion about key ideas that should be kept in mind for successful implementation of BSC?
In my opinion, there are several critical factors that contribute to successful BSC implementation and utilization:

1. Visionary leadership and active senior management commitment and leadership;
2. Defining your organization’s BSC philosophy (what the BSC is, how it will be used, and who will use it) BEFORE beginning the BSC development process,
3. Ensuring broad cross-functional participation in the identification and detailing of BSC indicators:
4. Clearly linking BSC indicators with strategic objectives;
5. Using the BSC to measure and manage the health of the business strategy;
6. Changing BSC measures as required – keeping the BSC relevant at all times;
7. Not using the BSC to “punish” for underperformance;
8. Supporting your BSC utilization with accountability and governance frameworks; and
9. Communicating the BSC/BSC results widely and integrating the BSC into regular organizational management processes.

The BSC is a business performance measurement concept, but should only top managers and CEO use it? Or should it be used company-wide? Should BSC be implemented in all departments or for instance only in HR?

The balanced scorecard is for everyone in the organization. This means that the balanced scorecard should be cascaded to all departments/business units and teams – both operating and support units. This is the only way to ensure successful strategy execution.

In addition, every member of the organization should have access to the BSC and BSC results. Having this access serves to engage the entire population with the business strategy, unleashing the untapped potential in the organization to identify creative opportunities to achieve strategic goals and objectives.

While there are certain benefits of BSC, do you see there any limitations or possible problems? Some areas where BSC does not work properly or is inefficient.

I do not see any serious limitations to the BSC as a tool, however,  in my opinion, limitations appear through creative or inappropriate BSC use. While the BSC is a wonderfully flexible tool, it is my experience that it is important to stick to the traditional four perspectives and classic indicator development approaches as much as possible – these approaches have been proven in a wide variety of organizations in all business sectors.  Trouble can arise when organizations customize their balanced scorecard in an unbalanced way – for example, opting for a stakeholder-based scorecard (one that allots BSC perspectives by the various stakeholder groups). This was tried in the past – I haven’t seen this done for a while. The best advice is to start with the traditional BSC framework and customize with caution.

Problems can also arise when steps aren’t taken to integrate the BSC with existing business processes – the BSC must become the way you work in your organization. For example, leveraging existing measures for initial BSC indicators, leveraging natural organizational accountabilities for BSC accountabilities, and re-purposing existing meetings for BSC discussion sessions ensures that any extra work that could be associated with BSC implementation is minimized. Taking these steps helps reduce the inefficiencies organizations frequently experience when implementing the balanced scorecard.

The BSC concept is discussed widely. What do you think, if most companies understand the importance of BSC development? Are they willing to invest in BSC? Is it hard to get decisions makers to conclusion that it is necessary to use BSC?

While the balanced scorecard is well known as a concept, I believe that most organizations still misunderstand how it should be used and the true value of appropriate use. That is, they sub-optimize its power by using it as a measurement system ONLY. Taking this approach to BSC use effectively creates a metrics-focused organization – not much of a change for many organizations. In these situations, organizations become disillusioned with the BSC because it does not produce significant change or improvement in their business results. A few research studies have been done that have shown mixed benefits to BSC utilization – this has led some decision makers to question the value of an investment in BSC development.

The key to maximizing the value of an investment in the BSC is to use it to create a strategy-focused organization – one that uses balanced scorecard results to manage strategy execution, to facilitate strategic learning, and to effect culture change.  It is one of my goals to help people/decision makers understand the real way to use the BSC and the business value this approach produces.

The practical implementation is always as important as theory itself. There are a lot of ways to implement BSC from simple Excel files to software, web-based services and full integration with company business system. What do you think is the best implementation strategy in terms of quality/price? What type of tools would you use to do implementation?

Many organizations opt to begin their BSC effort using Excel – they do this to save money by using a standard program already available to the organization. However, in my experience, Excel is an inadequate tool for BSC results presentment – it does not lend itself to integrating results data and commentary in a way that helps organizations use the BSC for strategy management.  If an organization is truly committed to BSC use then it is best to take the automated approach using a BSC friendly application.

While some organizations will choose to build their BSC application in house, this is not an effective use of resources/dollars. This is because there are now many different BSC applications available to organizations. Options range from SAAS (software as a service) solutions to web-based solutions that are run off of a dedicated server. This range of options allows organizations to have access to a BSC application at the price point that works for them.
The key to finding a BSC application that suits your organization is to first define “have to have” and “nice to have” specifications. This list or criteria can then be used to formally evaluate BSC application options. Regardless of your criteria, the best advice is to choose an application that is scalable and flexible – this means that the application will grow with you as your organization’s BSC use matures.

Bottom line is that you want a BSC application that integrates results data with commentary and facilitates line of sight with strategic objectives. Next generation BSC applications will include functionality that includes two way communication and collaboration on the strategic issues and learnings that come out of BSC use (think social networking tools/capabilities) – this will only serve to enhance the power and value of the balanced scorecard for strategy management to organizations.

There are companies that already use BSC, we read about them in business magazines, we read their case-studies and success stories.  What advice would you give companies that just start considering the implementation of Balanced Scorecard concept?

Organizations should begin by educating themselves/their leaders fully about the BSC. This includes understanding the true way of using the BSC, the process and resources required to develop, implement and manage the BSC, and the impact BSC use will have on the organization itself. Only once organizational leaders understand the value of the BSC on organizational performance and feel that they can commit to active BSC leadership and the ongoing BSC use in the face of resistance to change (including influential stakeholders),  should organizations begin their BSC journey.

Once BSC development begins, it is important to just focus on getting it done – don’t wait until your indicator set is perfect. The key is to just get a representative/strategy-focused indicator set together quickly and then start using the BSC. Ideally, the timeframe from the first BSC indicator development workshop to BSC implementation should be a matter of weeks (e.g. 12 weeks), not months.

Thank you very much for your answers. I think our readers would like to know more about your company and service you provide. If possible share also your detailed experience with Balanced Scorecard here.

At Strategy Focused Business Solutions Our MISSION is to transform organizations and people by enabling an integrated and dynamic focus on strategy execution and mission achievement.  Leveraging our unique blend of knowledge of best practice methodologies and hands on expertise, we partner with you to create the customized solutions required to develop your strategy and implement the strategy-focused business performance management system your organization needs.

Our innovative approaches enable the effective execution of your organization’s unique strategic objectives, sets the stage for the creation of a strategy-focused organization, and positions your organization to achieve the performance results you expect and your stakeholders demand.

Our services include:

• Strategy-Focused Organizational Performance Management Facilitation, Consultation, and Assessments (including strategic planning facilitation, strategy map development, balanced scorecard development, strategy communication plan development, and strategy cascading facilitation)
• Strategy-Focused Organization Development and Management Training and Education Programs
• Hands On Organizational Performance Management Services (including strategy cascading, balanced scorecard management and results reporting, and Office of Strategy Management services)
• Change Readiness Assessments
• Sector-Specific Solutions

Strategy Focused Business Solutions Inc. is located in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada and provides services to organizations around the world.

For more information, please contact Sandy Richardson, President and Managing Consultant at sandyrichardson_bsc@yahoo.ca or (416) 722-1367.

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