MCR (www.mcr.clix.pt) is a company that owns and operates seven radio stations belonging to the Media Capital communication group (www.mediacapital.com). Each radio station presents different content themes to appeal to a variety of listeners. This audience segmentation strategy has enabled MCR to reach several types of listeners and obtain broadcasting leadership in Portugal.

The company's entire management team established the strategic goal to obtain a substantial increase in the gross number of radio listeners and ultimately, profits, within the next three years. Their approach is the employment of the Balanced Scorecard to achieve strategic alignment and understanding.

How We Helped

Over a six month time period in 2005 the executive MCR team worked together with MBR, a leading BSC consulting firm in Portugal and Value-Added Reseller (VAR) of Palladium's Executive Strategy Manager, to create a corporate Balanced Scorecard and strategy map.

Several workshops were held to define the strategic objectives, construct the strategy map as well as the other BSC components. The entire management team worked many hard hours to arrive at what they believe is the right strategic direction for MCR. The team captured this strategic direction on their BSC and strategy map. At one point, Ant�nio Craveiro, CEO of MCR said: "Having the company strategy on a simple sheet of paper is a moment of rare beauty". Even more importantly, executive team members support the process and agree one established measures and targets.

Following the completion of the corporate level BSC and strategy map in the final workshop, it was essential to maintain the momentum developed throughout the scorecard creation phase. The strategic feedback and reporting process was introduced as soon as possible to keep team members engaged.

In order to begin reporting immediately, an easy to use strategic management software system, called the Executive Strategy Manager (ESM) was implemented. The team found that most strategic management systems required extensive installation and configuration, which could delay getting to the first BSC reporting meeting. Some systems did not support the dynamic reporting needs that MCR required.

Results

The team found the Executive Strategy Manager (ESM) solution to be perfect for their needs. The web based tool enabled the team to begin reporting on data within a few days. Users were able to quickly integrate all the Balanced Scorecard data, without requiring any complex configurations. System administration was intuitive, thereby not stalling the team's reporting process.

Only one technology kick off training session was required to provide the entire executive team with an understanding of how to navigate throughout the ESM. Executives were also able to customize the ESM to support MCR's own lexicon. This ensured that when additional employees were introduced to the BSC the methodology would be rapidly understood. In just one training session on the ESM, executives were able to enter and report on their own performance data; they began making fact based strategic decisions. They were executing on their strategy.

It was immediately possible to perform strategic reporting with the dynamic Meeting View functionality of the ESM. MCR owes part of its success to the ESM. Key factors of the ESM that helped MCR rapidly move into BSC reporting include:

• No technical configuration
• Easy customization of language to fit MCR culture
• Access to the system at any time and place
• Availability of core functions to all types of users
• Conformity of the system with the BSC concepts and methodology
• Ease of use
• Enables a participative strategic feedback environment

ESM Top Ten

Inspired by his consulting experience at MCR, Rui Antunes from MBR (www.mbr.pt) created a list of the 10 best strategic feedback actions, based on the Executive Strategy Manager (see below)

1. Define the milestones of each initiative
   Define initiatives with key milestones to better manage progress towards successfully completing initiatives. Develop the milestones after obtaining a detailed understanding of the initiative. Make sure the responsible initiative owner completes the performance analysis directly in the ESM.
2. Attribute an owner to each strategic theme
   Attribute the performance responsibility of each theme to top management and assign each objective to executive team members. Use the ESM to facilitate an effective review of performance by theme, driven by each respective owner.
3. Begin the strategic feedback process immediately
   After the corporate BSC is created, don't waste time attempting to perfect the framework; perform an editing cycle after the BSC and strategy map have been used for a while. Apply the ESM to immediately begin reporting meetings and consider holding them on a monthly basis when getting started.
4. Appoint a guardian for the strategic reporting system
   Create an internal expert to help facilitate the strategic feedback process, including the availability and maintenance of the reporting system. Give this person administration rights to the ESM, a place in the software where more sophisticated functions can be performed.
5. Use the meeting reviews to discuss solutions
   Use meeting reviews to discuss problems and team solutions, not to inform or to give strategic feedback information. Make sure that each member of the executive team uses the ESM to review the BSC performance information prior to each reporting meeting.
6. Adopt a prospective attitude in the quest for solutions
   Evaluate both the actual and desired level of performance. Use the ESM to capture the analysis so that each member of the executive team can analyze and identify the suggestions that can improve the actual status and future performance.
7. Debate the performance starting with the strategy map in Meeting View
   Begin reporting meetings by evaluating the organizations overall performance on the strategy map. Use the ESM to define each strategic objective on the strategy map with a status indicator of the achieved performance. Then debate the initiatives that will improve performance of off target objectives.
8. Develop second and third level cascaded scorecards
   As soon as the executive team is comfortable with the corporate scorecard, develop the creation of departmental and team scorecards that link to the corporate scorecard. Use the ESM to cascade the scorecards and strategy maps as well as to track the performance gaps through the drill-down of corporate strategic goals to lower level scorecards.
9. Test the strategic hypothesis quarterly
   If the obtained performance does not correspond to the desired one and if the lead objectives are on track, the team should question the assumptions behind the cause-effect relationship of strategic objectives. Use the ESM to promote a quarterly debate on the intensity of the cause-effect relationship within strategic objectives and between the supporting strategic initiatives.
10. Maintain a positive attitude during reporting meetings
    Ask the following questions: "What can we do to reach the desired level of performance?" instead of "Why didn't you manage to obtain the agreed upon performance?". Essentially, don't "shoot the messenger" since it takes an entire organization to successfully execute strategy. Make sure that each member uses the ESM to analyze his/her own performance and capture each suggestion for performance improvement prior to the reporting meeting.