Balanced Scorecard Solution

Dear Subscriber,

Today our Balanced Scorecard for Small Business series continues with a chapter on the Mission statement. Hopefully you're finding this series useful, and can apply the information to make an impact on your own business.

Last month the new OLAP reporting tool launched. The response has been overwhelming, and many of our friends have been asking us to provide a trial version in addition to the demo movies. As always, we listen to your requests. Now you can find both the demo movies and the trial version here!

stay focused!

All the best,
Paul Bergquist

	What's your true Mission?

	Last month's topic was the Vision statement. The Vision statement describes the company's destination, what the company should become or what we envision for the company at "the end of the rainbow." Your company’s Mission can well be described as the Road leading to your Vision. Two of the most important features of a road are that the sides of the road limit the options of travel and that it leads to a destination. The challenge is to find the road that will require the least energy and fewest resources to reach your Vision. Stay away from the congested roads traveled by everyone else (unless there is plenty of space remaining), and make sure the road actually leads to your Vision. OK, OK, I won’t play that road card any further, but you get the idea, right? Your Mission should describe your business idea in a few short sentences. My favorite Mission statements all begin, “Create value for customers/members, partners, owners, and … by [your business idea].” Remember that your Mission defines the limits of your business idea. If you are a newspaper publisher and your Mission states, “by delivering a fresh, informative and bold local newspaper to the people of Smallville every morning,” you have defined other media—such as the Internet, radio and television—to be outside the boundaries of your road map. However, if your Mission states, “by delivering fresh, informative and bold local news to the people of Smallville every morning,” you have defined the core of your business to be the local news and not the technology by which it is delivered. Just like your Vision, your Mission should be simple and clear to the extent that it provides inspiration and motivation to your team and makes their choices simple because they fully understand the direction to follow.

	More will follow next month...

	1.1 Strategy Mapper Directions

	Open up last month's project in the Strategy Mapper software and follow these instructions: Right-click on "Model Objects" and select "Mission." Enter the shorter version of your Mission statement in the "Name" field. Enter the complete Mission statement in the "Description" field. Use the "What it's not" field to define the boundaries of your Mission statement. Click “OK.”

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Do you have a story about successfully implementing the Balanced Scorecard in a small business setting that you would like to share with our subscribers? Contact me at bergquist@axsellit.com.

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