Strategic Control

Chapter 13

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Learning Objectives

1. Describe and illustrate four types of strategic control.

2. Summarize the balanced scorecard approach and how it integrates strategic and operational control.

3. Illustrate the use of controls to guide and monitor strategy implementation.

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Strategic Control

• Management efforts to track a strategy as it is being implemented, detect problems or changes in its underlying premises, and make necessary adjustments.

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Questions That Drive Strategic Control

1. Are we moving in the proper direction?2. How are we performing?

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Types of Strategic Control• Premise control• Strategic surveillance• Special alert control• Implementation control

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Ex. 13.1 Four Types of Strategic Control

Chapter 13 exhibit 1.CLP

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Ex. 13.1 (contd.) Characteristics of the Four Types of Strategic Control

Chapter 13 exhibit 2.CLP

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Premise Control• Premise control is designed to check

systematically and continuously whether the premises on which the strategy is based are still valid

• Primarily concerned with– Environmental factors– Industry factors

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Strategic Surveillance

• Strategic surveillance is designed to monitor a broad range of events inside and outside the firm that are likely to affect the course of its strategy

• Strategic surveillance must be kept as unfocused as possible

• Despite its looseness, strategic surveillance provides an ongoing, broad-based vigilance in all daily operations

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Special Alert Control

• A special alert control is the thorough, and often rapid, reconsideration of the firm’s strategy because of a sudden, unexpected event

• A drastic event should trigger an immediate and intense reassessment of the firm’s strategy and its current strategic situation

• Crisis teams• Contingency plans

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Implementation Control• Implementation control is designed to assess

whether the overall strategy should be changed in light of the results associated with the incremental actions that implement the overall strategy

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Implementation Control (contd.)

• The two basic types of implementation control are:• Monitoring strategic thrusts• Milestone reviews

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Strategic Thrusts or Projects

• Special efforts that are early steps in executing a broader strategy, usually involving significant resource commitments yet where predetermined feedback will help management determine whether continuing to pursue the strategy is appropriate or whether it needs adjustment or major change.

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Milestone Reviews

• Points in time, or at the completion of major parts of a bigger strategy, where managers have predetermined they will undertake a go-no go type of review regarding the underlying strategy associated with the bigger strategy.

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Operational Control Systems

• To be effective, operational control systems must take four steps common to all postaction controls:– Set standards of performance–Measure actual performance– Identify deviations from standards set– Initiate corrective action

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The Balanced Scorecard Methodology

• An alternative approach linking operational and strategic control, developed by Harvard Business School professors Robert Kaplan and David Norton, is a system they named the balanced scorecard

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Balanced Scorecard

• A management control system that enables companies to clarify their strategies, translate them into action, and provide quantitative feedback as to whether the strategy is creating value, leveraging core competencies, satisfying the company’s customers, and generating a financial reward to its shareholders.

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Kaplan and Norton on the Balanced Scorecard

• “The balanced scorecard retains traditional financial measures. But financial measures tell the story of past events, an adequate story for industrial age companies for which investments in long-term capabilities and customer relationships were not critical for success. These financial measures are inadequate, however, for guiding and evaluating the journey that information age companies must make to create future value through investment in customers, suppliers, employees, processes, technology, and innovation.”

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Ex. 13.5 Integrating Shareholder Value and Organizational Activities across Organizational Levels

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Balanced ScorecardFour perspectives:1. The learning and growth perspective: How well

are we continuously improving and creating value?

2. The business process perspective: What are our core competencies and areas of operational excellence?

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Balanced Scorecard Perspectives (contd.)

1. The customer perspective: How satisfied are our customers?

2. The financial perspective: How are we doing for our shareholders?

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Ex. 13.6 Exxon’s NAM&R Division’s Balanced Scorecard

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Ex. 13.6 (contd.)

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Strategic Objectives Strategic Measures

Ex. 13.6 (contd.)

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Strategic Objectives Strategic Measures

Ex. 13.6 (contd.)

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Strategic Objectives Strategic Measures

Dashboard• A user interface that organizes and presents

information from multiple digital sources simultaneously in a user-designed format on the computer screen

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Dashboard Uses

• Key management tool for timely strategic and operational control

• Users can decide the key indicators that tell them about the unfolding success of their strategies

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Summing Up Strategic Control

• Strategic control and comprehensive control programs like the balanced scorecard bring the entire management task into focus.

• Organizational leaders can adjust or radically change their firm’s strategy based on feedback from a balanced scorecard approach as well as other strategic controls.

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Key Terms

• Balanced scorecard• Dashboard• Implementation control• Milestone reviews• Premise control

• Special alert control• Strategic control• Strategic surveillance• Strategic thrusts or

projects

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