Press Release

Modern methods of management assist ONE in achieving objectives

• Balanced Scorecard gives clear view of strategy and company objectives
• ONE and WPU Consulting provide insight to comprehensive experience

Only people who have a holistic view can also recognise the whole picture. One way to ensure this in a company, is the use of the Balanced Scorecard (BSC). Strategy implementation may be operationalised with the assistance of the BSC and thus integrated into daily business. The main concern consists in illustrating the cause and effect chain of various measurable business unit objectives and thus proceed from financial performance indicators to holistic thinking in a company. ONE has established itself as successful communications company on the Austrian market. Among other things modern methods of management such as the BSC, which plays a significant role at ONE both in strategy development and implementation, contribute. Primarily Customer Care has intensively dealt with the BSC together with WPU Consulting and continuously improved the defined key performance indicators since its introduction in January 2001.

How do employees become active supporters of the company strategy? How can complex strategies become easily comprehensible in daily business? And what are the key success factors in the use of the Balanced Scorecard? This and similar questions were discussed by Dr. Christian G. Majer, Head of ONE Corporate Development, Dr. Christian Boldrino, Head of ONE Customer Care and Dr. Andreas Kumpf, Managing Director of WPU Consulting, at an event focusing on the management approach of the Balanced Scorecard on 9 September in Vienna. Christian Czech, CCO of ONE and Andreas Kumpf hosted the evening.

Employees need a clear view of strategy and company objectives

In small businesses or in start-up companies objectives are easy to grasp for all employees. Majer reminds of the objective-oriented start-up stage at ONE: “Until the launch in all of Austria in October 1998 all ONE employees were fully aware what it was all about. The objective consisted in network rollout and developing an attractive offer to win customer.“ However, a little later the view of the whole picture got lost and departments started considering their objectives more and more important. For this reason, a BSC evaluation project was launched at the beginning of 2000. The objective was to find out whether the BSC fulfils the focussing function just like the market launch once was the irrefutable objective for everybody.

Significance of the BSC for the ONE strategy

Having evaluated the ONE strategy and after several workshops, discussions and review loops, the first top BSC for ONE including key performance indicators, so-called KPIs was still established in 2000. In 2001, the BSC was tested as a pilot at the management level and after a revision process was fully integrated into the ONE meeting and reporting structure in 2002. In addition, BSCs were established at business unit and departmental level. The first business unit-BSC was introduced in Customer Care, the reason for assuming a pioneering role within the company. “The BSC plays both a central and integrating role in continuous strategy development. It constitutes the link between the long-term business plan and the annual budget“, Majer explains its significance for ONE. Moreover, it provides orientation for project and portfolio planning as well as process & quality optimisation activities and serves as a benchmark for the annual business unit and departmental planning.

Only what is measured may be managed

According to Majer, the essence of the BSC consists in establishing a balanced objective and key performance indicator system which both measures and evaluates strategy implementation. For this purpose all relevant stakeholder interests such as those of customers, employees, shareholders, suppliers and partners are taken into consideration and measured in four dimensions (finance, customers, internal processes and learning & growth). “Translate strategy into actions and you will see the whole picture. In a nutshell, this is the secret of the BSC because if employees know which contribution they make to the achievement of company objectives this also implies that they know them“, says Majer.

The 4:5 concept of ONE Customer Care

Strategy implementation in a department as big as Customer Care with about 300 operationally active employees requires a special approach. Successful leadership of this company area is possible only if managers and employees know the objectives and consequently the meaning of their work. Boldrino: “The underlying basis is formed by 4:5 concept: Each employee knows the four strategic business unit objectives and contributes to strategy implementation with five concrete measures. Filling this simple rule with contents requires a lot of preliminary work.“ Kumpf, whose company provided consultancy services during the BSC implementation process in ONE Customer Care, adds: “It is not enough to clearly and simply translate business unit objectives and find suitable measuring tools. The almost more important step consists in transferring the responsibility for them to managers and employees.“

The BSC in daily business

ONE has found innovative possibilities to successfully implement the BSC in Customer Care in cooperation with WPU Consulting. The measures start with a central information board on which the monthly key performance indicators are publicly displayed and a traffic light system which shows at one glance which areas are in the green zone and where there is potential for improvement. They continue with monthly held “strategic cycles“, where measures for improving the achievement of objectives are deliberated and range from an employee data base enabling each Customer Care employee to compare their performance with their target values. The intensive use and all measures regarding the BSC have been successful. The majority of target values to be reached have been continuously increased. For Boldrino it is of particular importance however: It has become evident that the use of such management tools in a company requires to place the focus on people rather than figures.“

BSC key success factors

The essential learnings and experience from four years of implementation and application of the at ONE are summarised by the speakers as follows:

Seriousness

Integration into existing management approaches and not only implement “yet another fashionable tool“


No or only loose link with the objective agreement system is not enough

The people factor

Integration of all functional areas in creating and implementing the BSC

Transfer responsibility of BSC implementation to all employees

Maximum transparency

BSC is no controlling in the sense of checking: It must not be degraded to a checking device, but has to be viewed as a control and learning tool for the respective management.

++ Ensuring that each employee may check out the current status
Simplicity++

Instead of elaborate tool selection, first “manual try-outs”

++ Few objectives, centrally depicted in a simple manner

Continuity

BSC must form an integral part of the meeting & reporting structure to constantly follow the degree of strategy implementation and promote the strategic dialogue

Constant communication of the BSC to all employees by means of different media

Expertise

BSC may only be successfully implemented in a company with the necessary implementation know-how