A balanced score card is a system used in strategic planning and management of organizations. The system facilitates in development of a common vision especially in organizations which have more than one agency (Hubbard, 2007, pp. 64).
They help the organization stakeholders to work towards a common vision a factor which improves their performance in their duties and the growth of the organization. When well developed and implemented, scorecard gives the organization's shared vision, the expected employees behavior, it's strategy, and it's routine operations.Using the system, the performance strategy measures are developed to facilitate in decision making , give progress and focus on satisfying customers needs (Halpern ; Richman, 2003). (Ho ; McKay, 2003, 26). Saatchi ; Saatchi is integrated communication agency recognized worldwide for it's creativity and wide range of services such as marketing and communication strategies, consumer research, production and advertising for media services. The company has about seven thousand employees working in a hundred and thirty eight offices within eighty two countries.
The company work for many advertisers and for valuable global brands. In the mid nineteen nineties the company faced brutal choices. After a steady growth of the company in seventy and eighties,the company encountered bankruptcy. New leadership financial goals After the bankruptcy the new leadership established a global strategy, new vision and a financial goal which was expected to cover three years. The company underwent through strategies reformulation and structural changes which involved leaving of the Saatchi brothers and joining of new chairman and CEO, who enhanced reformulation of new visions and strategies.They made public announcement concerning the comeback of Saatchi Saatchi company.
According to Melter, the new leadership aimed at having a revenue base that would be better than the market, attaining a thirty percent operating profit from incremental revenue, getting double earning from shares. Categorization of business agencies and their strategies After establishing new visions and goals on financial growth, the company was engaged in internal changes, where investment plans were prioritized for business agencies.The agencies were checked to determine their financial capability and potential. The leaders categorized the agencies as: prosper, where most agencies lied, and was characterized by limited potential and fewer than fifty employees. Drive agency included those which had more than fifty and less than a hundred and fifty employees, their goal was slightly grow their margins and revenue. The lead agencies were the largest and their goal was rapid growth, and investment target.
The company also ensured a good relationship with their customers through PIC. They were to attend to clients' needs.When a mesh of customer perspective strategies and financial strategies, is formed, the perspective reinforces financial strategies. The financial strategies can not be effective without a relationship with the clients (Creelman, 1999). Customers are central part of any business so every company or organization should ensure they meet the customers needs. When the customers are satisfied, the company improves in performance and grow.
The customers perspective strategies helps the company to get and understand the customers needs, so that they can work or establish strategies which effectively meets their need(Gates, 1999).The customer perspective strategies opens the company to assess their performance with regard to customers satisfaction. With the assessment, the progress can be determined, and points of weaknesses can be detected and appropriate measures taken to correct the situation (Kaplan ; Norton,1999, pp. 31).
In such cases the measures involve financial strategies. This explains the benefits of a mesh of customer perspective strategies and financial strategies. The company implemented the score card in a poor way. The implementation process should start by giving out the information.This information should be given at the right time and to the right people. This means that the company should effective mans of informing people about their performance.
After all unless they are informed they can not know about the performance of the company (Schneiderman, 1999, pp. 6 ). The company skipped this step. After they set the vision, financial strategy and the customer perspective strategy they rushed to implementing the strategy without informing people about their performance It is advisable to use automation such as performance measurement software.This software facilitates giving the performance information to the right people ands at the right time, as it adds structure in balanced scorecard implementation (Lipe, 2003, pp. 75).
Automation is recommended in the process as it facilitates in development of knowledge and information from disparate data. The actual performance data can be retrieved easily, so people can make appropriate decisions. Conclusion The financial strategies had impact to the agencies.This is evidenced by the fact that they achieved a common vision and the company achieved the wall street goals six months before the deadline. The vision was common to all agencies unlike before the strategies when each agency was working to its own goal.
The recent acquisition of Saatchi ; Saatchi company by Publicis Groupe SA made changes to BSC. The company was bought at a multiple of about five times of the company value in the the market. This has a positive change in BSC. The Publicis Groupe SA also increased their investment after purchasing the company, changing the BSC
