Analyzing an Article on Implementing a Balanced Scorecard - Futura Industries

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Introduction: Why did Susan Johnson, Futura's President, emphasize the learning and growth perspective over the other balanced scorecard perspectives?

Susan Johnson, Futura's President has emphasized the learning and growth perspective over the components of the balanced scorecard perspectives. The reason is her corporate strategy. Her firm is facing a saturated market-place. She has to compete in aluminum extruding, finishing, fabrication, machining and design. In this market competing in the high-end niche is really difficult. Differentiation is easily copied by competitors and profits are difficult to earn. In case of Futura, Susan has hit upon the strategy of differentiating her company through recruitment, training, and retaining of exceptional personnel. When we examine the dimensions of the balanced scorecard we realize that the dimension that is directly related to employee recruitment, development, and retention is the dimension of learning and growth. This is the reason why Futura has stressed on this balanced scorecard perspective.

Analysis: What specifically does Futura measure, and what types of measurements do they use to evaluate the company's learning and growth?

Futura has metrics in place to measure each dimension of the balanced scorecard. First, she has in place metrics to measure the quality, timeliness of delivery and value of product to the customer in the customer service dimension. Second, in relation to the financial dimension she measures cost per item per customer, and net gross margin levels. Third, Susan measures the percent of sales from new product, cost of quality, total production cost per standard hour, pounds packed per person and dollars packed per person in the internal operations dimension. Fourth, in the learning and growth dimension she measures the importance of specific benefits to employees, the happiness of employees, the leadership and management skills of managers, the skill levels of employees, the performance levels of employees, the ...