Business Paper for Alex Only

Identify for VALERO ENERGY key trends, assumptions, and risks in the context of your final business model.

Develop the strategic objectives for your new division of the existing business in a balanced scorecard format in the context of key trends, assumptions, and risks.The strategic objectives are measures of attaining your vision and mission. As you develop them, consider the vision, mission, and values for your business and the outcomes of your SWOTT analysis and supply chain analysis.

Consider the following four quadrants of the balanced scorecard when developing your strategic objectives:

• Shareholder Value or Financial Perspective, includes strategic objectives in areas such as:

• Market share

• Revenues and costs

• Profitability

• Competitive position

• Customer Value Perspective, includes strategic objectives in areas such as:

• Customer retention or turnover

• Customer satisfaction

• Customer value

• Process or Internal Operations Perspective, includes strategic objectives in areas such as:

• Measure of process performance

• Productivity or productivity improvement

• Operations metrics

• Impact of change on the organization

• Learning and Growth (Employee) Perspective, includes strategic objectives in areas such as:

• Employee satisfaction

• Employee turnover or retention

• Level of organizational capability

• Nature of organizational culture or climate

• Technological innovation

  Develop at least three strategic objectives for each of the four balanced scorecard areas identified (Financial, Customer, Process, Learning and Growth). Your objectives should be selected, in part, based on an evaluation of a number of potential alternatives to the issues and/or opportunities identified in the SWOTT Analysis paper and table you completed in Week 3.

  Base your solutions on a ranking of alternative solutions that includes an identification of potential risks and mitigation plans, and a stakeholder analysis that includes mitigation and contingency strategies. You should also incorporate the ethical implications of your solutions into your selection.

• For each strategic objective, develop a metric and target using a balanced scorecard format. (For example, a strategic objective in the shareholder or Financial Perspective is to increase market share. A metric to actually measure this strategic objective of market share increase is, "The percentage of increase in market share." The target is the specific number to be achieved in a particular time period. The target for the metric of "Increase market share" could be "Increase market share by 2% for each of the next 3 years" of an increase of 2% per year for 3 years.)

  Outline a brief communication plan discussing how you will communicate the company's strategic objectives that includes the following:

• Define the purpose.

• Define the audience.

• Identify the channel(s) of communication and why you selected that channel.

  Write a 1,050 word strategic objectives summary.  Include your balanced scorecard and its impact on all stakeholders, and the communication plan.
   

  Format paper consistent with APA guidelines.

  The Balanced Scorecard 

  The Balanced Scorecard continues to grow in popularity as a tool for supporting the implementation of strategy. “The Hackett Group found that of the nearly 2000 global companies it surveyed had implemented, or planned to implement, the Balanced Scorecard. The real issue though isn’t how many companies are using this approach but, rather, whether they are using it properly” (Norton and Russell, 2005, p. 3). 

  To design the Balanced Scorecard for your small business you need to have first crafted your vision, mission, values, and strategic objectives. The Balanced Scorecard is the set of measures you created to measure the achievement of the vision and strategic objectives as you serve your mission. 

  The Balanced Scorecard is often seen in two different formats. The first format (which is the one you will use for this week) is a table that includes the measures in the four primary categories of the Scorecard: 

  1.     Financial (representing the increase in shareholder value). 2.     Customer (representing the increase in customer value). 3.     Operations or process (representing the increase in the value of internal processes. 4.     Learning and Growth (representing the increase in employee and organization value).   In this format there is always a measure which is defined (e.g., “profit margin”), and then there is a metric that is identified to assess the measure (e.g., “percentage of profit margin” or “percentage increase in profit margin”). Finally, there is a target set for the metric (e.g., “a 20% profit margin” or “an increase of 5% in profit margin”). The Balanced Scorecard shows the targets for the metrics for each calendar year during the plan. For example, the year one profit margin may be 18%, year two could be 20%, year three at 22%, year 4 at 26%, and year 6 at 30%. A sample Balanced Scorecard is shown below.