Business

Implementing the balanced scorecard

Published

5 years ago

November 19, 2019

The implementation of the Balanced Scorecard consists of a number of steps. The first step is that senior management sets up the mission, vision and strategy of the organisation.

The strategy is linked to a number of strategic objectives. The mission, vision and the top level strategic objectives are then communicated to middle management.
In consultation with middle management and senior management several objectives are formulated in which different critical success factors are designated per objective. Appropriate performance indicators are selected for each objective to measure them. Specific targets to be achieved are also set and initiatives meant to achieve these objectives are put in place.

When starting to implement the BSC the first aspect is to use it in your strategic planning process. This is the first and most important step in full implementation of a Balanced Scorecard, since it establishes the link between your strategy and the BSC framework.
This stage involves preparing the organisation strategic plan around the Balanced Scorecard.
You set each of the four perspectives, namely, Financial, Customers, Internal Processes and Learning and Growth, as the strategic Focus Areas. You then add strategic objectives, projects, KPIs and initiatives directly underneath each perspective.

This method is simple to understand and will enlist management’s total commitment to the Balanced Scorecard framework. By having each of the perspectives as Focus Areas, it forces the strategy to be geared around the Balanced Scorecard and everyone within the organisation will understand the link between the strategic plan and the BSC.
The second aspect of implementing the BSC is how you can use it to track and report your progress in achieving your strategic objectives.

When using the BSC for strategic reporting you need to come up with a BSC dashboard. The dashboard should show a score for each of your 4 perspectives, which is an average of the scores of key strategic objectives, projects and KPIs that fit within that perspective.

If the scores indicate that you are not meeting your targets then you would need to come up with initiatives that will improve and change the situation.
The process of choosing several strategic objectives for each perspective is very critical. Good strategic objectives should start with a verb, for instance, improve profitability, reduce costs or increase market share.
They should be actionable; something that you can control. They should be quantifiable otherwise it’s not worth including it among your strategic objectives.

After you’ve chosen strategic objectives for each perspective, you then put them in the relevant perspective. This process entails coming up with a strategy map which shows the organisation’s strategy at a glance.
A strategy map shows the relationship between strategic objectives. The strategy map is structured in such a way that it shows the cause and effect relationship between the four perspectives.

You can view the Balanced Scorecard as a series of leading and lagging key performance indicators. The learning and growth, internal processes and customer are the leading steps, as they will facilitate or enable the achievement of the primary lagging KPI, which is the financial perspective.

Each perspective therefore unlocks your ability to deliver effectively against the one above it. So you can view this whole process this way: your ability to learn and grow will directly dictate your ability to better manage your internal processes.
In turn, as your internal processes improve, this will have a positive impact on your customers as well as directly reducing your costs or increasing revenues.
The combined benefit of this lower cost, increased revenues and higher customer engagement will lead to your end goal, increased profit and financial return.

Once you have identified the strategic objectives you need to decide on one or two measures or key performance indicators for every strategic objective to determine how it’s performing.
These measures should be tracked on a regular basis. It’s important to choose a very small number of measures to track so that you’re able to focus on the things that matter most.
The corporate wide balanced scorecard should be cascaded down first to business units, support units or departments and then teams or individuals. The end result should be to focus across all levels of the organization.

The organisation alignment of the scorecard should be clearly visible through strategy, using the strategy map, performance measures and targets, and initiatives.
Scorecards should be used to improve accountability through objective and performance measure ownership, and desired employee behaviours should be incentivized with recognition and rewards.

As the management system is cascaded down through the organization, objectives become more operational and tactical, as do the performance measures.
Accountability follows the objectives and measures, as ownership is defined at each level. An emphasis on results and the strategies needed to produce results is communicated throughout the organization. This alignment step is critical to becoming a strategy-focused organization through the use of the BSC.
The implementation of the balanced scorecard requires a lot of work and therefore there should be certain factors in place to ensure success.

The balanced scorecard needs a great deal of high-quality data from the organisation’s operational systems. It’s therefore critical that the systems are not prone to errors or produce incomplete data.
This would result in a waste of much time when taking corrective action and also in analysing data to ensure accuracy.
The adoption of the balanced scorecard framework represents a major cultural change. The implementation process requires a long time and therefore needs to be accompanied by significant organisational change management so that both management and employees change to the new way of tracking organisational performance.

The process also requires strong executive support, so that the necessary resources to collect and monitor the required information are made available.
The executive team must be seen to use the balanced scorecard data or else the rest of the organisation will ignore any corrective actions suggested by it resulting in the whole program being neglected.
It’s important that appropriate metrics that accurately support organisational goals are selected. A good set of performance metrics should be easy to understand and expressed quantitatively. Management should avoid trying to measure everything.

There should be a balance between trying to provide a complete picture of an organisation’s health and providing too much data which can be very overwhelming and can make it difficult to understand what conclusions to reach and what actions to take.
It takes time to get large organisations to fully embrace the balanced scorecard. Constant updates will be required as lessons are learned during the implementation process, and also competition changes, and new challenges emerge which might necessitate adjustments to the implementation process. This regular feedback is critical for the enterprise to learn, adapt, and improve.

The use of the BSC brings a lot of benefits to an organisation. The balanced scorecard helps executives in tracking the performance of an organisation by monitoring the performance indicators in the four perspectives namely, financial, customers, internal processes and learning and growth.
Management can therefore monitor and measure progress towards meeting strategic objectives.

The use of the strategy map helps to provide a clear and concise way to communicate priorities and goals to employees and other stakeholders. The balanced scorecard also creates a linkage from organisation’s strategy to daily activities thereby ensuring goal congruence within the organisation.
Everyone within the organisation will be able to understand how their projects and activities contribute to the overall success of the organisation.

Stewart Jakarasi is a business and financial strategist and a lecturer in business strategy, advanced performance management and entrepreneurship.
He is the Managing Consultant of Shekina Consulting (Pty) Ltd, a multi-dimensional consulting firm, and he provides advisory and guidance on leadership, strategy and execution, corporate governance, preparation of business plans, tender documents and on how to build and sustain high-performing organisations.
He is also a link with international investors intending to invest in the country. For assistance in implementing some of the concepts discussed in these articles please contact him on the following contacts: sjakarasi@gmail.com, call on +266 58881062 or WhatsApp +266 62110062.

Business

Take a Break from Summer

Published

1 month ago

December 18, 2024

The Post

Press release for KFC Lesotho

Date: Monday, 16 December 2024

Summer, what a wonderful time of year…

When influencing gets too much

When the news cycle gets too much

When the endless queues get too much

When the shopping chaos gets too much

When the unavailable transport gets too much

When the holiday work shifts get too much

When the lawn mowing gets too much

When the loud music gets too much

When the traffic gets too much

When the relentless schedule gets too much

When the heatwaves get too much

When the weather warnings get too much

When the suntan lines get too much

When the ever-growing laundry pile gets too much

When the festivities get too much

When the 2025 university applications get too much

When the guests overstaying their welcome gets too much

When the social media mayhem gets too much

When the out of sync traffic lights get too much

When the New Year resolutions get too much

When the travel expenses get too much

When reapplying sunscreen gets too much

When the packing and unpacking gets too much

When the photo-taking gets too much

When the flies get too much

When the pool maintenance gets too much

When the fully booked airlines get too much

When the mosquito bites get too much

When the fishing trips get too much

When the baking gets too much

When the road trip stops get too much

When the sand in the car gets too much

When the picnic ants get too much

When the papa and morogo get too much

When the braai smoke gets too much

When the television shows get too much

When the homemade cooking gets too much

When the hot car seats get too much

When the outdoor markets get too much

When the air-conditioning bills get too much

When the nature hikes get too much

When the garden-watering gets too much

When the hot sidewalks get too much

When the bike rides get too much

When the late nights get too much

When the impromptu trips get too much

When the 4×4 rides get too much

When the golf games get too much

When the ice cube trays get too much

When the late-night crickets get too much

When the entertaining gets too much

When the bumpy boat rides get too much

When the paddleboarding gets too much

When the public pool crowds get too much

When the lack of parking gets too much

When the summer internships get too much

When all you need is a breather

You have made it to the end. Take a break from summer with KFC Lesotho on Saturday, 21 December, a day to pause, refresh, and savour the start of holiday mode. Swing by KFC for a taste of summer and officially step into the holidays, recharged and ready. See you there!

Discover KFC’s Summer Delights!

KFC Summer Twisters: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVlAX00WROU

KFC Summer Krushers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QpCn-tFYrls

KFC Summer Buckets: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SbiOjRR58UA

End.

About KFC Africa

KFC has been in South Africa for over 53 years and has more than 1,300 stores across the country. The first KFC restaurant in South Africa opened in 1971 in Orange Grove, Johannesburg. KFC is the leading quick-service restaurant brand in South Africa with just under a third of market share, according to Brand Image Tracker. KFC serves more than 20 million customers a month and we work hard to ensure that no matter which of our restaurants they walk into, they will get that distinctive KFC flavour and have a great experience. KFC’s Original Recipe® Chicken was first made by Colonel Harland Sanders in 1940 when he perfected his secret recipe of 11 herbs and spices at his restaurant in Kentucky. Today, KFC is the world’s most popular chicken restaurant, still preparing our chicken with the Colonel’s secret recipe to his exact standards. Every KFC restaurant follows the same global processes and procedures to ensure that our customers get great-tasting food, every time.

KFC Lesotho socials:

Instagram – @kfclesotho – https://www.instagram.com/kfclesotho/

Facebook – KFC Lesotho – https://www.facebook.com/LesothoKFC

X – @KFC_Lesotho – https://x.com/KFC_Lesotho

Business

Demystifying death benefit nomination

Published

1 month ago

December 16, 2024

The Post

I recently attended a trustee training session, and it sparked a thousand of opinions and emotions to fellow trustees and principal officers.

It is remarkable how people approach their pension funds with a blend of care and chaos — carefully watching contributions grow but leaving the aftermath of their departure to luck and a roomful of trustees.

With the Pension Fund Act (PFA) 2024 in place, requiring members to fill out and update death benefit nomination forms annually, one would think the process is foolproof.

Yet, we find ourselves navigating the maze of member reluctance and the emotional minefield that comes with deciding who gets what.

The PFA 2024 makes an elegant appeal to order, asking pension fund members to take charge of their legacy by nominating beneficiaries.

But, instead of pens gliding over forms, there is hesitation, resistance, and in some cases, outright abstinence.

What should be a simple administrative act seems to invoke existential dread or, worse, familial politics.

When Nomination Feels Like Negotiation

One of the most notable trends is the discomfort married members feel at the mere suggestion of allocating 50% of their death benefit to a spouse.

For clarity, the PFA does not say they must — but logic and love might.

However, these conversations often spiral into arguments over “what ifs.”

What if the marriage does not last?

What if the spouse uses the money “irresponsibly”?

What if leaving an equal share to children or a secret favourite nephew makes more sense?

These “what ifs” often lead to another troubling “what if”: what if no nomination is made at all?

Emotions run high.

Sometimes, the process of completing the form turns into a reflection of unresolved family tensions, where the form itself becomes a battlefield for hypothetical posthumous power plays.

Trustees, meanwhile, are left to pick up the pieces, making discretionary decisions that almost always leave someone unhappy.

What the Law Actually Says

Let us address the elephant in the room.

The PFA does not dictate that anyone’s spouse, child, or distant cousin must receive a cent.

The law requires you to nominate beneficiaries but leaves the who and how much entirely up to you.

And yet, myths persist, leaving members to believe they are bound to make obligatory allocations.

This misunderstanding is not just inconvenient; it is entirely unnecessary.

The beauty of the PFA lies in its simplicity: nominate someone — anyone — so your trustees don’t have to piece together your
wishes based on tea leaves, distant

relatives, or that one time you mentioned something in passing to a colleague.

The Real Cost of Silence

If leaving decisions to trustees sounds romantic — think noble strangers making wise decisions — let me assure you, it’s not.

Trustees do their best with the tools they have, but without a completed nomination form, their decisions are guided by discretion rather than your explicit intentions.

And discretion, noble as it sounds, often breeds disputes.

Disgruntled beneficiaries are not just an unfortunate byproduct of silence; they are its loudest consequence.

Without clear instructions, your death benefits might fund lawsuits instead of legacies.

Is that truly the financial wisdom you have cultivated over a lifetime of disciplined contributions?

Completing the Form: The Act of Taking Control

Filling out the nomination form isn’t just compliance; it is an act of empowerment.

It’s the financial equivalent of saying, “I trust myself to make the best decisions for my loved ones.”

It’s an opportunity to assert control over your life’s earnings and ensure they benefit those you deem most deserving.

Let us put it plainly: by completing this form, you eliminate guesswork, prevent disputes, and protect your loved ones from unnecessary turmoil.

You also spare trustees from playing Solomon with your assets — a responsibility they never asked for but inherit when you opt for avoidance.

It is not that deep!

For all the effort we pour into overthinking, let’s consider the alternative — actually completing the form.

You’ve already made harder decisions, like choosing between investment portfolios or deciding on your retirement age.

Writing down a name or two, alongside their allocations, is, comparatively, a walk in the park.

And for those of you abstaining because “it’s complicated,” let us reflect: is it more complicated than the potential legal battles, heartache, and chaos that might follow your departure?

Or are we simply procrastinating because planning for death feels uncomfortably final?

Your Legacy, Your Way

At the heart of it all, filling out the nomination form isn’t about complying with a law or appeasing trustees.

It is about ensuring your legacy aligns with your wishes.

It is about giving your loved ones clarity and peace of mind when they need it most.

So, grab that pen.

Fill in that form.

It might not be the most exciting thing you do today, but it could very well be the most meaningful.

After all, if you’ve spent years building a financial future, why let your final act of planning be defined by inaction?

Teboho Makoetlane

Business

More US funding for development projects

Published

2 months ago

December 2, 2024

The Post

MASERU-THOMAS Hines, the US Embassy’s interim head, has applauded Lesotho for passing the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC)’s scorecard, paving way for continued development funding.

The MCC is providing assistance to Lesotho to strengthen good governance, economic freedom and investments in the country, managed by the Millennium Challenge Account (MCA-Lesotho Compact II).

The MCC donated US$300 million (approximately M5.4 billion) for health and horticulture development.

For the country to qualify, it had to pass the MCC’s scorecards.

Hines told Prime Minister Sam Matekane on Tuesday at the State House that the good news is that Lesotho passed, although there are some other things the country has to improve.

For this year, the passing indicators are girls’ primary education completion rate, natural resource protection, land rights and access and fiscal policy.

Indicators that slipped below the pass rate are government effectiveness and freedom of information.

“Of MCC’s 76 scorecards, only 26 countries passed while 50 did not and the good news is that Lesotho once again passed the scorecard,” Hines said.

He said not only did Lesotho pass but it has also improved from passing 15 indicators last year to 17 of 20 indicators this year.

Hines said the accomplishment reflects Matekane and his government’s commitment to strengthening democratic governance and fostering prosperity.

“Noting the decline in control of corruption indicator, we seek avenues to do more together with Lesotho to combat corruption,” he said.

“Not only does regression in this area put Lesotho at risk of failing the scorecard we also know the corrosive impact of corruption on the economy and society.”

He said they seek to maximise the compact’s ability to ensure greater access to quality healthcare.

Matekane said the scorecards assess the government’s performance in key areas throughout the year to determine the continuing eligibility regarding MCC compact funding.

He said last year he urged the cabinet to build on the momentum from 15 out of 20 indicators.

“Let me take this opportunity to celebrate our sustained achievement of passing 17 out of 20 indicators which is a 10 percent increase from last year,” Matekane said.

“Specifically, I committed last year to ensure that Lesotho will submit data to support the assessment of girl’s primary education completion rate,” he said.

He said he was pleased with the progress overall and on gender parity in education and they aim to achieve better results next year.

In addition to this, he said, there is still a lot of work to be done, especially around trade policy, government effectiveness and particularly the freedom of information with a notable decline from 83 percent down to 43 percent.

“Our commitment to control and eliminate corruption remains steadfast. We are working tirelessly to expose corrupt activities, keeping the public sector honest and accountable,” he said.

“The commitment we have made of investing in our people has never wavered over the years and the government is also focused on improving access to quality health services to every Mosotho regardless of their background and location,” he said.

Moipone Makhoalinyane