Retail Examples

I have been involved in the deployment of an extensive strategy management system (Balanced Scorecard) development and deployment for two major supermarket chains in the Southeast. While supermarkets tend to be very operationally focused, they can greatly benefit from using strategy maps and scorecards as integral parts of their strategy management tool kit.

The key benefits to retail are:

1. Organizational alignment - between various business units and support functions to support the overall value proposition of the enterprise

2. Organizational engagement / individual alignment - the value of a well executed strategy derives from associates at the front line and throughout the company knowing what to do and how to do it to support the strategy.

3. Improved performance and operating information - management needs to know more than just the financials - they need to understand, monitor, and manage what drives value in the organization.

The Balanced Scorecard has also been used at Store 24, Ann Taylor, The Limited, and other retailers. I think there is a Store 24 case study available at Harvard Business School Publishing. That being said, I don't think the BSC is as pervasive in the retail sector as it is in the oil and gas sector.

Wells Fargo (retail online banking) is well documented through HBS Press at www.harvardbusinessonline.org. Also ELand in South Korea is in the Hall of Fame as a good retail example.

Best Buy is in the Hall of Fame as well, although I'm not sure I would fully categorize their program as a Balanced Scorecard. They have a great integrated management system that focuses on objectives and measures, but no strategy map or cause and effect relationships.