An example of strategy implementation for a company with multiple business units and various stakeholders.
XYZ Eco Group, dedicated to creating and managing eco-friendly urban green spaces, had to manage multiple business units. They initially started their strategy and performance measurement in Excel, but as their operations grew, managing various spreadsheets became unsustainable.
Below, we discuss how Eco Group implemented their complex strategy using the steps of the Strategy Implementation System.
Recording of Hands-on Strategy Implementation Session
Watch the recording of our hands-on strategy implementation session, where we discussed the challenges faced by XYZ Eco Group and demonstrated how they were addressed using BSC Designer.
Step 1. Formulating a Strategy Core (Mission and Stakeholder Analysis)
The strategy team of XYZ Eco Group created their account in BSC Designer. Here are a few things they did to set up their strategy workspace:
- Navigated to Settings > Strategy to enter their current Mission, Vision, and Values statements.
- On the Organization tab, they uploaded their company logo to include in the interface and reports.
The strategy core of XYZ Eco Group is defined under Settings > Strategy tab.
The strategy team of XYZ Eco Group conducted a stakeholder analysis to map relevant stakeholders and their needs.
The results of the stakeholder analysis for XYZ Eco Group, with stakeholder interests and their value metrics defined.To ensure accountability, transparency, and strategy awareness, the management team defined the roles of employees in the strategy process according to the strategy involvement model. In the Users section, the following teams were defined:
- Management Team
- IT Team
- Urban Greening
- Strategy Team
- Investors
User Teams within XYZ Eco Group
Step 2. Cascading Mission into Strategy Scorecards
XYZ Eco Group’s business is structured around three core areas:
- Green Zone Creation, which focuses on transforming urban spaces into eco-friendly areas;
- Smart Management, utilizing IoT-powered sensors for efficient, self-sustaining green space maintenance; and
- Water from Air, leveraging atmospheric water generation and rainwater repurposing to ensure sustainable irrigation.
The strategy team cascaded the high-level Master Plan into more specific “Urban Greening Strategy Scorecard” and “Smart Technology Integration Scorecard,” with plans to develop a dedicated strategy scorecard for the “Water from Air” area.
To achieve this, in the My Scorecards section, the strategy team created several scorecards and organized them in a hierarchy.
The strategy workspace of XYZ Eco Group, where the strategy is cascaded into strategic and functional scorecards.The administrator user of the strategy team assigned required access rights to the teams. For example:
- For the ‘Master Plan’ scorecard, the management team got modify rights, while the team of Investor users got view-only rights.
- The Urban Greening team got access to the ‘Urban Greening Strategy Scorecard’ as well as to the ‘Continuous Performance Evaluation’ scorecard.
- The Management team was also given rights to oversight all scorecards in the account.
Step 3. Creating Functional Scorecards (Performance Evaluation, PESTEL)
Among the success factors, the strategists of XYZ Eco Group defined:
- The effective management of their green zones and
- The establishment of strong relationships with external stakeholders, such as local municipalities, media partners, and investors.
At the level of strategy implementation, various functional scorecards were created. The “Continuous Performance Evaluation” scorecard focused on monitoring the performance of green zones. Within this scorecard, an index indicator was created that continuously monitored each location by a set of weighted parameters:
- “Running costs per m²,”
- “Community rating,” and
- “Ambient temperature reduction.”
One of the functional scorecards is dedicated to the continuous performance evaluation of green areas maintained by XYZ Eco Group.
- XYZ Eco Group had historical performance data for certain indicators. To consolidate all relevant performance information in one place, the strategy team imported historical data from Excel spreadsheets into the KPIs within BSC Designer.
Another scorecard, “Eco Group – PESTEL Analysis,” was created to formally map the results of the external factors analysis. This scorecard helped better visualize the operational landscape and facilitated communication with investors and local governments by showing the alignment of the Eco Group strategy with overall climate change trends.
To describe the company’s business model, a Business Model Canvas scorecard was created, linking value creation steps with performance metrics through a visual canvas. This scorecard
helped explain the company’s business model to investors and municipalities.
Having municipal governments as clients required XYZ Eco Group to meet certain compliance requirements, including maintaining a formal risk register and a business continuity program. These challenges were addressed by creating a Risk Register scorecard, which mapped relevant risks and outlined action plans in the event of a risk occurrence.
To create the functional scorecards, some pre-defined templates were used.
Within the strategy road map, XYZ Eco Group expects to develop more functional scorecards focused on quality, logistics, and risk management.
Step 4. Decomposing High-Level Objectives into Goals, KPIs, Risks, Initiatives
The mission of XYZ Eco Group of creating urban green spaces is complex, involves multiple stakeholders, and requires decomposition.
On the cascading step, XYZ Eco Group presented the overall strategy as the ‘Master Plan,’ supported by sub-strategies ‘Urban Greening’ and ‘Smart Technology Integration.’ These sub-strategies further decomposed the high-level objectives into specific goals, KPIs, risks, and initiatives.
An example of decomposing objectives into initiatives, KPIs, and risks.For example, in the ‘Urban Greening Strategy Scorecard,’ the drivers of the strategy are presented as:
- Developing an effective green space system
- Optimizing paperwork
All these sub-goals are aligned with the respective stakeholders identified in the previous step. The high-level objectives are decomposed into specific initiatives, KPIs, and risks.
For example, the ‘Optimize paperwork’ goal is broken down into:
- Initiative: partnership programs with municipal governments
- Leading factor: expanding public awareness
- Lagging indicator: effectiveness of approval timeline
- Risk identified as ‘Changes in sustainability regulations’
The Urban Greening team will detail this strategy further by adding more specific action plans.
In terms of data input, the strategy team of XYZ Eco Group combined various approaches:
- Some indicators, such as the ‘Number of join events annually,’ were updated manually. For this purpose, data input users were added to the account.
- The ‘Turnover Rate, %’ indicator was imported via an Excel spreadsheet from the HR system, with plans to automate data input via RESTful API, Zapier, or a similar connector.
- The ‘Air Quality Index (AQI)’ indicator was already accessible in the database. In this case, an SQL indicator was created to update the indicator automatically.
To visually represent the state of strategy execution, the strategy team of XYZ Eco Group created a performance dashboard that features the status of key metrics, key risks, and the execution plan via a Gantt chart.
Performance dashboard for the Master Plan Strategy Scorecard.
Step 5. Aligning Scorecards (by data and by context)
Strategic alignment was achieved by XYZ Eco Group on various levels by connecting scorecards through data and context.
To align scorecards in BSC Designer:
- Open the scorecards you want to align in different tabs.
- Copy an item from one scorecard.
- Paste the item to another scorecard.
- Select the connection by context or by data.
Master Plan scorecard was connected by data with Urban Greening and Smart Technology scorecards via various connection points. For example, the overall goal of ‘Trackable Value for Governmental Stakeholders’ is contributed by metrics from lower-level scorecards:
- ‘Validated Improvement in Air Quality’ from the Urban Greening scorecard, and
- ‘Transparency in reporting’ from the Smart Technology scorecard
An example of ‘Master Plan’ alignment with the ‘Urban Greening’ and ‘Smart Technology’ scorecards.The connection by data was established between the ‘Eco Group – Stakeholder Analysis’ and other strategic and functional scorecards:
- To measure the value created for local communities and residents, the ‘% of population with 10-minute access to green space’ metric from the Urban Greening scorecard was used.
- Two indicators were used to measure the value created for investors: ‘Cost per unit of area developed’ from the Urban Greening scorecard and the overall performance of green areas according to the ‘Continuous Performance Evaluation’ scorecard.
Ongoing Performance Management
Once the initial strategy was successfully deployed, the strategy team of XYZ Eco Group started integrating BSC Designer into their strategy workflow.
- Strategy owners from different teams used their scorecards to align their actions with the strategy and update the strategy with new inputs.
- Regular performance monitoring was facilitated by inputting data from Excel, databases, connectors, or by data input users.
- During strategy meetings and performance review, insights were mapped as comments and new initiatives.
- Having all performance data accessible in one platform enabled advanced analytics for the metrics, including AI-powered correlation analysis.
- The management team requested regular performance reports with underperforming indicators. This was automated with the Reporting function and filters by performance.
- Once the strategy was implemented, senior managers used the strategy audit to validate the effectiveness of implementation and find improvement points.
- Hands-on training for application of the platform in specific business domains was arranged with the BSC Designer team.
Results Achieved by XYZ Eco Group
By following the Strategy Implementation System, XYZ Eco Group created a single source of truth about strategy. Among the outcomes of following the system, XYZ Eco Group mentioned:
- Better understanding the needs of stakeholders and their relevance to the strategy
- Addressing the planning-execution gap by converting high-level strategy into specific sub-strategies, goals, KPIs, and initiatives
- Clearly defining accountability for the goals by assigning owners
- Improving conceptual understanding and explainability of strategy by implementing alignment through data and context
- Establishing a framework for continuous performance monitoring that complements the strategy
- Facilitating discussions with governmental and sponsor stakeholders, as well as supporting strategic sales
- Better understanding of associated risks
- Automating performance reporting to the stakeholders
Alexis is a Senior Strategy Consultant and CEO at BSC Designer, with over 20 years of experience in strategic planning. Alexis developed the “5 Step Strategy Implementation System” that helps companies with the practical implementation of their strategies. He is a regular speaker at industry conferences and has published over 100 articles on strategy and performance management, including the book “10 Step KPI System”. His work is frequently cited in academic research.