Cambridge Business Association
Business Process Management and the Balanced Scorecard
Book

Business Process Management and the Balanced Scorecard

Focusing Processes on Strategic Drivers

Ralph Smith
Wiley, 2006
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Editorial Rating

6

Qualities

  • Applicable

Recommendation

The emphasis on process performance as an element of organizational success is growing. Strategy consultant Ralph Smith explains the evolution of strategic processes as tactical weapons in business leaders’ competitive arsenals. He provides a brief analysis of the current state of global competition and demonstrates how what he calls “process-based competition” evolved from Total Quality Management. However, his book is not just historical; it is practical. Smith explains how to create a “strategy map” and how to use it as a foundation for your balanced scorecard. He organizes the final chapters of his book around a six-step flowchart that will help you become an effective strategic-process competitor. The book is concise but dry. Like many authors with systems of their own, Smith advocates using facilitators and consultants – especially himself – to guide you through your strategic process. However, underneath his sales pitch lies a good deal of substance. getAbstract recommends this book to executives who are looking for practical implementation strategies.

Summary

Why Processes Matter

The 1970s was the great era of giant command-and-control companies. Back then, vertical structures were fashionable, and people viewed corporations as vast, intricate mechanisms in which the operation as a whole would run properly if each person in the hierarchy did his or her assigned task. Interdepartmental communication was minimal, and workers and managers did not think about the relationship of their activities to the goals of the organization. For example, one aluminum company paid employees according to how many pounds of material they produced. This discouraged them from paying any attention to “customer needs, job due dates or special requests.” Customers, in fact, had little choice. Their option was not “take it or leave it,” but rather, “take it or take it.” Companies knew customers had no viable alternatives.

However, by the mid-1980s, the business environment had changed. In reaction to globalization and foreign competition, many organizations started to re-evaluate their processes. Technology, entrepreneurship and initiatives such as Total Quality Management (TQM) replaced the top-down 1970s ethos. Companies realized that they could...

About the Author

Ralph Smith has helped hundreds of firms improve their performance and has been a featured speaker at several universities in the United States.

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