Category: Business Strategy

What is balanced scorecard? The balanced scorecard is a form of strategic planning and management system which is used extensively around the world in business, industry, NPO, government organizations alike. The major reason for the use of this strategic planning system is to align the activities of the business along with the strategy and vision of the organization and improving the internal as well as external communication allowing effective monitoring of the organizational strategic goals.

The balanced scorecard strategy was originated by Dr. Robert Kaplan of the Harvard Business School and David Norton as a form of performance measurement that would add strategic non-financial performance measures together with the long-established financial metrics for giving managers and executives a balanced view of where the organization stands and which area is its strong point and what are its weaknesses.

If you talk about Balanced scorecard success stories, the list is almost endless. Since this strategy was first introduced as an effective system of performance measurement, organizations, whether big or small, have used it to great effect for the purpose of measuring their performance and improve the organization as a whole.

The Balanced scorecard success stories have evolved from using it simply as a measurement of performance to a full strategic planning and measurement system analyzing and influence every part of the business. What make the Balanced scorecard success stories set apart is the fact they have actually used this strategy not just in its traditional form, but have moved a step ahead in using balanced scorecard as one of the major instruments that drive the success and failure of the organization and determining how the business need to change keeping in view the balancing act. All this make up Balanced scorecard success stories.

The new form of balanced scorecard today transforms the strategic plan of an organization from an active on to daily marching orders. If gives the basis for not only performance measurement, but also helps in identifying what should be done by the company and how the success would be measured and therefore enabling the executives to take complete control of their strategies.

The balanced scorecard involves the learning and growth perspective, the business process perspective, the customer perspective and the financial perspective. When an organization is able to balance all the above perspectives in line with the goals and objectives it has set for itself, then it truly becomes yet another of so many Balanced scorecard success stories to be found all around the world.

Defense Financial Accounting Service (DFAS), Federal Aviation Administration Logistics Center, Department of Energy Federal Procurement System, Department of Energy Federal Personal Property Management are some of the Balanced scorecard success stories within the government. These organizations have successfully implemented the balanced scorecard strategic and planning system to take their respective organizations to new height making them effective, efficient and move toward their organizational objectives.

In commercial concerns, the biggest Balanced scorecard success stories have been the airline industry and the credit card companies.

Balanced scorecard allows businesses to keep in check all the aspects that are necessary for the effective functioning of a business.

For the Internet Marketer in search of targeted free and low cost advertising, ezines are still an excellent resource for delivering targeted traffic web site traffic. Not to mention, ezine advertising is one of the oldest and widely used methods of Internet advertising still utilized today. Why? Because it works.

For those unfamiliar with ezines, they are basically free magazine subscriptions but composed online and delivered electronically to the readers inbox.

By implementing the following strategies, you can successfully obtain hundreds of dollars worth of ezine advertising on a continuous basis, and it’s absolutely free.

Before you begin any ezine advertising campaign, ensure you create a separate email address designated soley for the purpose of holding your ezine subscriptions – this will be a very important step to help you stay organized while tracking your ezine ads.

Be careful when using free email accounts. In the event your are not able to check your email for several days, there may be a chance your email inbox will become too full. Should your emails begin to bounce, your classified ads will not be published.

If you do not have access to a separate email account from your current internet service provider, and need to set one or more free email accounts, its best to select ones with large amounts of storage space, such as: Gmail.

To get started with your free ezine advertising campaign, visit Ezines-R-Us.
This is a free service you can use which will automatically subscribe you to several high quality ezines. Once you start receiving your welcome emails, instructions are typically provided to assist you in submitting your ad to each
individual ezine.

Several of these ezines offer free weekly classifieds to subscribers, so your next step is to browse through the ezines, while keeping an eye out for the directions provided as to how and where to submit your next free classified.

This is now an excellent time to start making reference to the ezines which offered quality content and perhaps valuable resources.

Each ezine will have slightly different specifications for the format of your classified ad, however, most use a standard 5 lines long @ 65 characters per line rule.

There are several good resources you can use to make sure each line is formatted correctly. Simply search for text editor and you’ll find a few good resources.

Now that you are submitting free classified ads, you can now use the information received via the ezines to obtain even more valuable free advertising such as banner ads, sponsor ads, solo advertising, and more. Watch for those ezines that offer contests for you to win more advertising.

In addition to using this opportunity to submit your ads, another great benefit is that you will sometimes find the publishers sending specials and discounted advertising rates straight to your inbox.

If you’re smart from the start, you will be tracking your campaigns to determine the effectiveness of your ad, and which ezines are performing the best. This will give you a real jump start when you want to order some paid ezine ads.

Subscribing to various ezines is an excellent business strategy for gaining ongoing free advertising, opportunities to win advertising, tweaking your ad copy, discovering which ezine subscribers are most responsive, and access to valuable discounted advertising offers.

For the new and experienced marketer alike, spending the time each day to browse the ezines will inevitably result in saving a lot of money in the long run.

While the initial process can be time consuming, the time you spend will be a worthy investment.

Competitor analysis is a mandatory step that should be completed before you decide to apply a certain marketing strategy. This sort of analysis is essential for the business owners that want to obtain a clear picture of what their competitors are doing. Competitor analysis will enable you to improve the products or services that you offer. It will give you an edge over the competition by preparing you to respond appropriately to market risks. Furthermore, an effective analysis of your competition will permit you to develop a good defense mechanism against any market fluctuations.

But what are the steps that a business should follow for the implementation of a reliable analysis of its direct competitors? Keep reading this article for a comprehensive answer to this question.

Define your own work industry

This is the starting point when you have decided to initiate a competition analysis. A thorough online search should permit you to identify your direct industry opponents. Another source could be the industry news sites and blogs. You should study them closely because they offer valuable insight into existing or emerging brands which you should be aware of. Another alternative to knowing better your industry competitors would be the direct approach of existing customers. You can perform a survey and ask them where they shop and how they find the products from your direct competitors in terms of quality.

Discover your customers tastes

When it comes to selling a product or commercializing a service, customers are the ones that matter most. That is why they should be the core of any marketing strategy. Look at your existing customers and try to understand who they are and what their expectations might be. If you cannot obtain this sort of information through other sources, then you should conduct a survey. Include in your survey questions that will help you understand who your typical customer is and how they shop.

Establish the key success factors in your industry

This is one of the most important steps in the whole competitor analysis process. In every industry specific challenges can be encountered. Your business success is directly influenced by the singularities of each industry. So, make sure you detect them fast and you learn how to maximize their potential in order to attract more and more customers.

In view of all the above, the benefits of conducting competitor analysis are clear. Not only will you identify who you are competing against but you will also be able to identify the strengths and weaknesses of businesses from the same segment. In consequence, you will be able to take the decisions needed to improve your competitive position within the market.

June, 10, 2014 : Company Profiles and Conferences presents a Company Report on “Moxa Inc. – Strategic SWOT Analysis Review”, whoprovides a comprehensive insight into the companys history, corporate strategy, business structure and operations.

Moxa Inc. – Strategic SWOT Analysis Review provides a comprehensive insight into the companys history, corporate strategy, business structure and operations. The report contains a detailed SWOT analysis, information on the companys key employees, key competitors and major products and services.

This up-to-the-minute company report will help you to formulate strategies to drive your business by enabling you to understand your partners, customers and competitors better.

Scope

– Business description A detailed description of the companys operations and business divisions.
– Corporate strategy GlobalDatas summarization of the companys business strategy.
– SWOT analysis A detailed analysis of the companys strengths, weakness, opportunities and threats.
– Company history Progression of key events associated with the company.
– Major products and services A list of major products, services and brands of the company.
– Key competitors A list of key competitors to the company.
– Key employees A list of the key executives of the company.
– Executive biographies A brief summary of the executives employment history.
– Key operational heads A list of personnel heading key departments/functions.
– Important locations and subsidiaries A list of key locations and subsidiaries of the company, including contact details.

Highlights

Moxa Inc. (Moxa) is a provider of industrial networking products. The company designs, manufactures, and provides device networking products to system integrators and value-added resellers worldwide. Products and solution offered by the company include industrial ethernet solutions, industrial computing, serial connectivity, IP surveillance, and remote automation. The company’s products find application in railway, intelligent transportation system, smart grid, oil and gas, maritime, utilities, medical and healthcare, process automation, monitoring and control systems and others. It is an ISO 9001:2000 and ISO 14001 certified company.

Reasons to Buy

– Gain key insights into the company for academic or business research purposes. Key elements such as SWOT analysis and corporate strategy are incorporated in the profile to assist your academic or business research needs.
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– Understand and respond to your competitors business structure and strategies with GlobalDatas detailed SWOT analysis. In this, the companys core strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats are analyzed, providing you with an up to date objective view of the company.

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Menu engineering is an interdisciplinary approach in the deliberate and strategic construction of menus.

Sometimes called -Menu Psychology’, the term menu engineering is generally adopted as a standard Best Practice within the Hospitality and Restaurant Industries. The objective with menu engineering is to maximize a concept’s profitability by leading the customer to certain purchases, and avoiding others, in addition to -engineering’ recipes to maximize profits at the product and category level.

Menu Engineering is comprises of five key areas

Psychology (perception, attention, emotion/effect)

Recipe construction and the best balance between quality and cost

Managerial Accounting (contribution margin and unit cost analysis)

Marketing & Strategy (pricing, promotion)

Graphic Design (layout, typography)

Psychology of menu engineering

Visual perception is inextricably linked to how customers read a menu. By strategically arranging menu items and categories within the pages of the menu, operators can promote high profit dishes while allowing less profitable dishes to be understated. This strategy enhances the sales mix, profitability, and thus represents a key element in the business strategy.

Managerial accounting

The primary goal of menu engineering is to encourage purchase of targeted items, generally the most profitable items, and to discourage purchase of the least profitable items. With this in mind, restaurants should first calculate the true cost of each menu item, (including condiments and non menu foods such as salt, pepper, oil, etc.) therefore extending to all items listed on the menu, and reflecting all costs incurred to produce and serve [each item]. Optimally item costs should include: food cost (including wasted product and product loss), incremental labor (e.g., cost in on site production, dessert production, or additional preparation), condiments and packaging. Only incremental costs and efforts should be included in the item cost, as there will be a static labor requirement in all cases.

After an item’s cost and price have been determined (see pricing in the Marketing section), evaluation of an item’s profitability is based on the item’s Contribution Margin. The contribution margin is calculated as the menu price minus the cost. Menu engineering then focuses on maximizing the contribution margin of each guest’s order. Recipe costing should be updated (at least the ingredient cost portion) whenever the menu is reprinted or whenever items are re-engineered. Some simplified calculations of contribution margin include only food costs.

Marketing (price & promotion)

By using guest demand (also called the menu mix) and gross profit margins, the relative performance of each menu item is determined, and assigned one of the following terms (based on the BCG Matrix):

Stars

Stars are extremely popular and have a high contribution margin. Ideally Stars should be your flagship or signature menu item.

Plow Horse

Plow Horses are high in popularity, but low in contribution margin. Plow horse menu items sell well, but don’t significantly increase revenue.

Puzzles

Puzzles are generally low in popularity and higher contributions. Puzzle dishes are very difficult to sell, but have a high profit margin.

Dogs

Dogs are low in popularity and low in contribution margin. Basically, they are difficult to sell and when sold they are not particularly profitable.

In general, items within a relevant comparable set (for example, entrees, or chicken entrees) should be priced to have similar contribution margins – this way, the restaurant would make the same amount of money, no matter what item the guest chooses to order.

Additional considerations

While the practice of menu engineering has been around now for about 30 years, and focuses on the combined menu sales mix and item profit, additional factors can come into play in an effort to enhance profitability through careful menu analysis. A primary area to evaluate is purchasing, as poorly executed purchasing can often lead to substantial over payments – for example; buying from a large distributor, while providing ease of purchase and convenience, can add up to 50% more on certain ingredient costs thus making a substantial increase in overall food cost, (not to mention the elevated carbon footprint). By using local and specialist purveyors, restaurants can often reduce their ingredient cost and enhance quality.

The Next Idea demonstrated this exact point when engaged to review the menu of a themed restaurant brand. Through its discovery stage, it became apparent that, in an age where the consumer was becoming increasingly aware of product quality and value, this client was failing on both accounts, as the menu was essentially provided by a national US Distributor, and ingredients were purchased frozen and simply re-heated on site, resulting in a lack of differentiation, high menu prices and mediocre customer satisfaction. TNI challenged the food production and supply chain process (which was typical for the industry). Our proposal was to produce food from scratch, within the kitchens, which we had concluded, would enhance quality and substantially reduce costs. After considerable analysis and trials, we were given the approval to implement this new operational approach across the portfolio. The result was a 12% higher customer satisfaction rating, 2% reduction in labor cost, and massive 4% reduction in food cost.

In summary: Menu engineering has been employed by food service professional industry for many years now, and operators generally possess a sophistication level where work in this area is both very helpful and critical to support a profitable business. It is important to note that, like all other management strategies, menu engineering is not something that can simply be purchased. Success depends on the right mix of products and services, and of course the necessary expertise. In the end, a well-implemented menu engineering program will represent a significant tactic to elevate food and beverage profitability.

About The Author

The author is associated with The Next Idea. The Next Idea provides all cafe interior design, cafe logo, photography, restaurant Interior design, menu engineering, etc. Our restaurant design capabilities include: exterior restaurant marketing display design and manufacturing, restaurant marketing display design, and restaurant decor theme creation.