“A business that makes nothing but money is a poor business.”

– Henry Ford

Achieving Strategy through Balancing Competing Values

The primary goal of any business is to increase stakeholder value. It is achieved through a dynamic balancing of competing values. In order for a business to maximize economic value, it must balance customer satisfaction and competitive market forces with internal cost and growth consideration.

What is Business Systems Approach?

A business is more than finance. Organizations prosper by achieving strategy that is implemented as a result of continuous decision-making at all levels of the business. Performance measures need to be aligned with the organization's strategy. The Business Systems approach considers business as system of interrelated factors of strategy, owners, investors, management, workers, finance, processes, products, suppliers, customers, and competitors.

Balancing the Four Perspectives

Firms implement strategy through balancing the four major factors or perspectives:

1. Financial perspective: To succeed financially, how should we look to our shareholders?

2. Customer perspective: To achieve our vision, how should we appear to our customers?

3. Internal business process perspective: To satisfy our shareholders and customers, what business processes must we excel at?

4. Learning, innovation, and growth perspective: To achieve our vision, how will we sustain our ability to create value and improve?

The four perspectives permit a balance between short-term and long-term objectives, between outcomes desired and the performance drivers of those outcomes, and between hard objective measures and soft subjective measures.

For each of the above four questions, provide answers in terms of:

• Objectives

• Measures

• Targets, and

• Initiatives