Executive Strategy Manager - On-Demand Balanced Scorecard Software

Defense Logistics Agency

The Defense Logistics Agency, headquartered at Fort Belvoir, Va., is responsible for providing the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps and other federal agencies with a variety of logistics, acquisition and technical services in peace and war.

DLA has more than $20 Billion in sales, and more than 28,000 employees in 50 states and 27 countries. DLA manages more than 44,000 suppliers and 4.4 million items, including fuels, food, clothing, medical and industrial supplies, land weapon systems support, and aviation supplies.

Former Vice Director, Admiral Raymond A. Archer introduced the BSC at DLA to transform the organization to a customer centric "business". According to Archer, "We didn't really have a focused management plan. We couldn't explain our costs or relate them to an agreed-to expectation. We were inflexible. And we had hundreds of initiatives but no way to prioritize them."*

How We Helped

Palladium Group, Inc. (dba Balanced Scorecard Collaborative, Inc. at the time) worked closely with the leadership team at DLA to develop a scorecard and train the leadership to manage with strategy at the center of the process. This work started in 2000 and 2001 with coaching and training sessions.

In 2003, parts of DLA began using the Palladium Design Center to build and cascade the BSC to field command levels. In 2004, DLA continued to use Palladium coaching and training capabilities and also rolled out Palladium's military version of eLearning to their top 100 people involved with the BSC.

It became increasingly important to ensure that new commanders understood the BSC management principles. This was especially well suited for the DLA given that the average rotation of a commander was two years. By 2005, DLA was using the Executive Strategy Manager (then called BSC Online First Report) to report on their Balanced Scorecard Results.

In 2006, the Defense Logistics Agency further deployed the Executive Strategy Manager to the Defense Energy Support Center (formally known as the Defense Fuel Supply Center).

Results

DLA has now been using the BSC for going on 7 years, and framework is built into the 5-year business planning process. Only initiatives that are linked to the BSC get funded. Further, DLA has segmented its customers and is focusing on running the organization as one business, rather than siloed operating units.

DLA uses the Executive Strategy Manager for managing over 35 divisions within the agency, and has over 230 people managing strategic information using the application.