| “Dr. Pistrui's assistance has been invaluable on our Auto Marketplace
project. He provided a professional evaluation of the feasibility of
our original plan, suggesting ways to give it a larger impact. The
funding expertise he brings to the table has proven to be the critical
difference, helping to make our entrepreneurial idea a reality.”
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John Voit, CEO & President, Seguin Services, Inc., and Lori Opiela, Vice President, SeguinWorks, Cicero, Illinois, USA |
| Opportunities in a Time of Change |
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| Both for profit businesses and not-for-profit
organizations face a series of demanding challenges in today's marketplace.
Change is everywhere and constant. The increasing complexities of running a
business or organization create many challenges for owners and managers. In
most mid-sized organizations the owners or managers are involved in almost
every aspect of running an enterprise. Although this approach may have worked
in the past, in today's environment, it limits growth potential and stymies
competitive advantage. Today there is a need to create an entrepreneurial
management framework. |
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| An Opportunity to Improve the Strategic Planning and
Execution Process |
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In 1992, Robert Kaplan of Harvard Business School
and David Norton of Renaissance Solutions released a research report that
indicated that most strategic planning processes are flawed.
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75% of executive teams do not have a clear consensus on the value proposition
being offered customers
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Only 5% of the work force understand the organization's strategy
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60% of organizations do not link budgets to strategy
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Only 25% of managers have incentives linked to strategy
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85% of senior management teams spend less than one hour a month discussing
strategy
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In response Kaplan and Norton created the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) framework
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The Balanced Scorecard (BSC)
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| The BSC is a performance management and
measurement system that integrates both financial and non-financial measures.
The BSC helps translate and align strategic vision into operational terms
through the balancing of performance metrics across four different
perspectives: Financial, Customer, Internal Process, and Growth & Learning.
Today over half of the Fortune 500 and an ever growing number of midsize
enterprises and not-for-profit organizations are using the BSC performance
management system to foster growth and profitability. |
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| The Acumen Scorecard |
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| In today's complex business environment
strategies for creating value are shifting from just managing tangible assets
to more knowledge based strategies related to deploying intangible assets
including customer relationships, workforce motivation, product/service
innovation, knowledge, and skills development. Building on the success of the
BSC the Acumen Dynamics Framework has developed an enhanced package of
practical tools and techniques to foster growth and profitability.
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| Creating an Entrepreneurial Management Framework
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| The Acumen Strategic Management System
establishes a measurement and entrepreneurial management system that will
channel the energies, abilities, and specific knowledge of the people and
company towards achieving a series of focused strategic objectives. The Acumen
Strategic Management System also helps the ownership and leadership create a
management structure that clarifies and communicates the organization's
strategic direction. The system aligns employees to work towards goals that
encourage efficiency and competitive advantage. |
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| Distinct Advantages of the Acumen Scorecard Approach
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| The Acumen Scorecard recognizes the need to blend
financial and operational measures. The approach provides leadership a set of
comprehensive measures that are practical. The Acumen Scorecard focuses the
business on activities critical to success and growth. It provides a snapshot
of overall performance of the business which helps the leadership to organize,
communicate, and measure the impact of management and strategy. |
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| Create Value around Five Different Strategic Perspectives |
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The Acumen Strategic Management System builds a
framework to manage strategies across five perspectives:
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Vision, Governance, and Continuity-Aligning vision, creating and modifying the
course and operational direction of the enterprise for the benefit of the
stakeholders and community.
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The Customer Perspective-Building strategy around improving customer value and
competitive positioning.
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Internal Business Processes-Establishes priorities for business and operational
processes that are critical to creating customer satisfaction and growth.
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Financial Perspective-Focuses on measures that support profitable strategic
growth and business development while considering ownership risk.
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Growth & Learning-Creates an entrepreneurial climate that fosters
innovation and growth through learning and change.
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| The Steps to Developing an Acumen Scorecard |
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The process of developing an Acumen Scorecard will
direct leasdership to build a management system that has balance between
financial and operational measures, leading and lagging measures, and vision
and mission based measures that reflect the personality and needs of the
company.
Employing the AcumenSMS framework will help focus tactical and strategic
thinking around the following eight core competencies.
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Building Unity, Consensus & Focus
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Value Concept & Competitive Positioning
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Understanding Markets & Customers
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Operations & Customer Relationship Management
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Aligning Core Competencies around Customer Needs
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Communication & Empowered Decision Making
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Managing Entrepreneurial Growth & Learning
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Becoming a Strategy Focused Organization
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| Managing to Win - Improving Performance with Systems
Thinking |
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Constructing & Simulating Mental
Models...assumptions that must be overcome!
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Factors operate independently. each factor impacts the outcome, but it does so
independently
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Causality is assumed to run one way. from factor to outcome, but not back again
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Impacts are felt instantaneously. there are no delays or lag times between
factor changes and outcomes
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Impacts and changes are linear and constant. X% change in input always results
in Y% change in output
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Effective organizations must be collections of functional, divisional, and/or
geographic fiefdoms. and can not be modified to better reflect how reality
actually works
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