Management | Technology: tháng 9 2009

Thứ Bảy, 12 tháng 9, 2009

What is the Balanced Scorecard?

The Balanced Scorecard Institutes

The Balanced Scorecard Basics

The balanced scorecard is a strategic planning and management system that is used extensively in business and industry, government, and nonprofit organizations worldwide to align business activities to the vision and strategy of the organization, improve internal and external communications, and monitor organization performance against strategic goals. It was originated by Drs. Robert Kaplan (Harvard Business School) and David Norton as a performance measurement framework that added strategic non-financial performance measures to traditional financial metrics to give managers and executives a more 'balanced' view of organizational performance. While the phrase balanced scorecard was coined in the early 1990s, the roots of the this type of approach are deep, and include the pioneering work of General Electric on performance measurement reporting in the 1950’s and the work of French process engineers (who created the Tableau de Bord – literally, a "dashboard" of performance measures) in the early part of the 20th century.

The Balancing Act

By Howard Rohm

Developing and Using Balanced Scorecard Performance Systems

Private and public organizations find themselves continually trying to do more with less. As I visit business and government managers around the world, I am reminded of Stephen Covey’s quote: “People and their managers are working so hard to be sure things are done right, that they hardly have time to decide if they are doing the right things.”

Doing the right things and doing things right is a balancing act, and requires the development of good business strategies and efficient operations to deliver the products and services required to implement the strategies. Competitive pressures on private businesses, and performance improvement and reform pressures on public sector organizations, mandate that organizations continually worry about executing good strategy well, at the same time that they worry about running business operations efficiently. Today’s organizations need to be both strategically and operationally excellent to survive and meet tomorrow’s challenges. One framework that helps achieve the required balance between strategy and operations is the Balanced Scorecard.

Thứ Sáu, 11 tháng 9, 2009

CMS as an eConsulting tool

We at our company, OCD, just started using a CMS to develop our online training course since May 2009.

However, very quickly we acknowledge that we can us this tool to support our consulting clients, especially who are far away from our head office. We also devided our consulting project into phrase and the discussion and uploading of consulting materials from both sides, consultants and clients are conducted via the CMS by consulting stages.

As the result, most of our clients in consulting projects are able to use our CMS system as a space for discussion and communicate with the consultants, even those who are at a very limited IT level that they before using Internet for nothing but reading news (for some of them, just 1 month before). Our consultants now can keep track with the works done by client between two fieldtrips, comments to their work from head office.

Tang Khanh

Thứ Năm, 10 tháng 9, 2009

Phát triển BSC cho bộ phận – TCTY CP Dệt may Hòa Thọ

Download pdf version at: http://www.kh-sdh.udn.vn/zipfiles/sv2008-tb13/05R%20Nguyen%20Quoc%20Viet.pdf

BSC - Động lực thúc đẩy việc thực thi chiến lược

Nguồn: Mind Tool
Dịch bởi: Nguyễn Thị Diệu Linh
QTVN’s Translation team

Bạn có thể sẽ nghe được những lời phát biểu đại loại như “bạn chỉ đo lường được những gì bạn đạt được”. Đây là một thực tế trong nhiều lĩnh vực quản lý, nếu bạn đưa ra chỉ tiêu cho nhân viên, và đề ra những phần thưởng khi họ đạt được, thì họ sẽ cố gắng hết khả năng để đạt được chỉ tiêu đó.

Đây là điều rất có giá trị về mặt nguyên tắc, nhưng khi vận dụng vào thực tế lại rất phức tạp: ví dụ, khi nhìn vào bản báo cáo kết quả kinh doanh bạn có thể dễ dàng nhận xét và đo lường kết quả hoạt động thông qua những con số. Nhưng còn các vấn đế khác như sự thỏa mãn của nhân viên… thì bạn đo lường như thế nào? Và do đó phương pháp đo lường kết quả hoạt động thông qua tài chính thường rất được tín nhiệm. Và nhân viên của bạn sẽ giảm những công việc khác để tập trung mục tiêu tài chính đã đặt ra. (Ví dụ như bạn thiết lập mục tiêu doanh thu của các phòng ban trong công ty của bạn và đương nhiên mọi người phải chạy theo mục tiêu đó vì đó là phương pháp đo lường dễ thấy và thường sử dụng nhất để đánh giá năng lực hoạt động của nhân viên). Đây là một phần lý do giải thích tại sao mục tiêu cần được thiết lập liên tục.

Thực hiện một cách đồng bộ, điều này có nghĩa là doanh nghiệp thường tập trung nỗ lực để đạt được kết quả tài chính trong ngắn hạn, và chắc chắn là các vấn đề về xây dựng nền tảng của doanh nghiệp có thể không được quan tâm đúng mức.

Chính trong hoàn cảnh này khái niệm Balance Business Scorecard có một ý nghĩa rất quan trọng, nó như một công cụ cải tiến hoạt động trong toàn doanh nghiệp, một bộ phận hay một đội dự án. Balanced Scorecard hỗ trợ việc đo lường và cải tiến hoạt động theo phương pháp tích hợp....

BSC - Công cụ đánh giá năng lực nhân viên

Hiện thực hóa các mục tiêu bao quát như tầm nhìn, sứ mệnh, chiến lược của công ty thành công việc hàng ngày của nhân viên luôn là nỗi trăn trở của các chủ doanh nghiệp. Bởi đây không chỉ là việc phân quyền quản trị, mà còn là sự hòa hợp, gắn kết từng hoạt động ở phạm vi nhỏ với chiến lược chung của công ty.

Phương pháp “Balanced Scorecard” (Bảng đánh giá cân bằng) có thể giúp thực hiện điều này.Năm 1992, Robert Kaplan và David Norton, thuộc trường Kinh doanh Harvard (Harvard Business School), lần đầu tiên giới thiệu bảng đánh giá cân bằng (Balanced Scorecard - BSC).

BSC là một phương pháp lập kế hoạch và đo lường hiệu quả công việc, với cùng nguyên tắc như các phương pháp quản lý theo mục tiêu (Management by Objectives - MBO), định chi phí dựa vào hoạt động (Activity Based Costing - ABC) và quản lý chất lượng toàn diện (Total Quality Management - TQM).

Read more at: http://www.sotaydieuhanh.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=514:bsc-cong-c-anh-gia-nng-lc-nhan-vien&catid=114:h-thng-kpi&Itemid=209

The One-Firm Firm Revisited

by David Maister & Jack Walker 2006

In 1985, one of us (David Maister) wrote an article for the Sloan Management Review called “The One-Firm Firm.” It identified a strategy common to leading firms across a broad array of professions — creating institutional loyalty and team focus.

The firms named in that article were McKinsey, Goldman Sachs, Arthur Andersen, Hewitt Associates, and Latham & Watkins, where Jack Walker became managing partner three years later.

If one is prepared to accept the argument that Accenture (formerly Andersen Consulting) is the legacy firm of Arthur Andersen, and not the defunct audit-based business, then that 1985 list of one-firm firms stacks up remarkably well as a predictor of subsequent success. These are still preeminent and immensely successful firms.

The marketplace for professional services has changed in ways that were unimaginable in 1985. Clients and client relationships have become dynamic at best and fickle at worst. Shortages and mobility of talent have affected every profession. As a result, the five named firms — and their main competitors — have adapted by making dramatic and often risky changes.

For example, of those five firms, Goldman, Accenture, and Hewitt have become publicly held companies — most have acquired other firms with varying degrees of success, and all have grown, become global, and (except perhaps in the case of McKinsey) have profoundly diversified their service offerings. Yet each has maintained or improved its competitive position as one of the most admired and profitable firms in its industry or profession.

In this article, we will address the issue of whether the one-firm firm principles identified in 1985 are still relevant to the continued, sustained success of these five firms. We will focus on what has been maintained, adapted, and abandoned in their management since 1985.

As we shall see, one-firm firm principles do indeed continue to drive success for these firms, even as their specific practices have been adapted and modified for changing market conditions.

Results and Rewards in the Multi-Group Firm

by David Maister 1994
This article first appeared in the September 1994 Supplement to International Law Firm Management. A revised version appeared in First Among Equals (2002) by McKenna and Maister.

Among professional firms there exists a wide array of systems for measuring and rewarding partners who operate in different locations or different practice groups.
At one extreme, some firms operate their separate locations or practice groups as distinct profit centers with minimal sharing of profits.
At the other extreme are firms who try to avoid creating intergroup competition by treating office or group results as irrelevant. Some avoid even calculating office and group results for this reason.
The vast majority of firms operate between these two extremes. The results of the group to which the partner belongs are usually treated as an influence (or a contributing factor) in assessing performance and awarding compensation, but they are rarely determinative.
It is a difficult juggling act to examine group results without giving off the dysfunctional signal that only local group results are important, thereby destroying intergroup cooperation.
However, I believe that it can be done and that it is important to examine group results, whether groups are defined by location, discipline or industry. (It is wise to examine the results of all three types of groups.)
Without such analysis intergroup cooperation is hard to encourage, and a firm must understand its economics at levels below that of the whole firm.

Read more at: http://davidmaister.com/articles/1/79/

Thứ Tư, 9 tháng 9, 2009

Doanh nghiệp VN và bước đầu áp dụng BSC

Về cha đẻ mô hình Bảng điểm cân bằng:
	GS.Kaplan: "Quốc gia là một con thuyền, DN là những tay chèo"
	Robert S.Kaplan - "cha đẻ" của Balanced Scorecard và bài học thành công

Doanh nghiệp Việt Nam ngày càng nhận thức rõ mối quan hệ giữa xây dựng chiến lược với điều hành và phát triển doanh nghiệp, ngày càng quan tâm đến gắn kết tầm nhìn chiến lược với thực tiễn hoạt động sản xuất - kinh doanh. Đây chắc chắn là một tiền đề tốt để các doanh nghiệp tiến những bước vững chắc trong xây dựng kế hoạch chiến lược phù hợp với lợi thế cạnh tranh của mình và phản ứng nhanh chóng với những thay đổi của thị trường.

Trong nghiên cứu này, chúng tôi đưa ra một số gợi ý thực tiễn cho các doanh nghiệp để xác định tầm nhìn chiến lược trong môi trường kinh doanh biến động bằng cách sử dụng mô hình Thẻ điểm cân bằng (Balanced Scorecard - BSC) - công cụ quản lý và lập kế hoạch chiến lược tiên tiến do GS. Robert Kaplan, Trường Kinh doanh Harvard cùng đồng sự David Norton đưa ra. BSC được đánh giá là 1 trong 75 phát minh có hiệu quả nhất về quản trị công ty.

Robert S.Kaplan - "cha đẻ" của BSC và bài học thành công

TuanVietnam.net

Robert S. Kaplan - cha đẻ mô hình Balanced Scorecard - hiện là Giáo sư chuyên ngành kế toán và quản trị tại Trường kinh doanh Harvard, là đồng Chủ tịch cấp cao của tập đoàn Palladium Group. Giáo sư Kaplan tham gia giảng dạy tại Trường kinh doanh Havard từ năm 1984, sau 16 năm cống hiến tại Trường kinh doanh thuộc Đại học Carnegie – Mellon, nơi ông giữ chức Chủ nhiệm khoa từ năm 1977 tới năm 1983...

Công trình nghiên cứu xuất sắc nhất và có tầm ảnh hưởng sâu rộng nhất trong sự nghiệp của ông cho tới nay là mô hình Balanced Scorecard – Bảng điểm cân bằng – công cụ chuẩn hóa giữa chiến lược và hoạt động của doanh nghiệp – do ông cùng đồng nghiệp David Norton sáng tạo ra. Cuốn sách “Bảng điểm cân bằng: Biến chiến lược thành hành động” của hai ông đã được dịch ra 22 thứ tiếng và dành Huy chương vàng giải thưởng Wildman năm 2001 do Hiệp hội Kế toán Hoa Kỳ (AAA) trao tặng vì tính thiết thực của nó.

Bảng điểm cân bằng là một hệ thống quản lý và lập kế hoạch chiến lược được sử dụng rộng rãi trong các tổ chức phi lợi nhuận, chính phủ, ngành công nghiệp và kinh doanh trên toàn thế giới nhằm sắp xếp các hoạt động kinh doanh hướng vào tầm nhìn và chiến lược của tổ chức, cải thiện thông tin liên lạc trong và ngoài doanh nghiệp, giám sát hoạt động của tổ chức dựa trên các mục tiêu chiến lược. Nó mang đến cho các nhà quản lý và các quan chức cấp cao trong các tổ chức một cái nhìn cân bằng hơn về toàn bộ hoạt động của tổ chức. Hiện tại có khoảng một nửa trong số 1000 công ty trong danh sách Fortune 1000 sử dụng phương pháp này.

20 điều ám ảnh khi sử dụng công nghệ

"Chỉ trong vòng một tháng đồng ý 'làm bạn' (friend) với sếp trên mạng xã hội Facebook, bạn sẽ hối hận". Đó là một trong số những quy luật khó tránh khi dùng máy tính, Internet...

Đây là các luật cơ bản mà tạp chí PC Worldvà người dùng Facebook đã "đúc kết":
Read more at: http://www.vnexpress.net/GL/Vi-tinh/Giai-tri/2009/08/3BA11FFC/

Thứ Ba, 8 tháng 9, 2009

The Laws of Service Businesses

by D. Daryl Wyckoff and David H. Maister 1984

Professor Daryl Wyckoff was one of my mentors at the Harvard Business School, and we coauthored three books together. Before his untimely passing in 1985, he and I planned to write a book called “The Laws of Service.” Together, we compiled the following epigrams. Not all of them were original to us, since many were derived from case studies in the School’s Service Management course, which we taught along with (at various times) Professors W. Earl Sasser (who originated the course), James L. Heskett and Robert H. Hayes. I recently rediscovered our preliminary listing, and wanted to post it here in memory of Daryl, a wonderful teacher and a profoundly good person.

The Positioning Era Cometh

By Al Ries and Jack Trout

Hard to believe I was born just a year before these groundbreaking articles my father wrote appeared in Advertising Age magazine. It has been 31 years since their publication, but the principles of positioning have stood the test of time. It is amazing to look back and see the origins of how it all started.

Many things have changed since 1972. For starters, advertising budgets have increased greatly; $200,000 will certainly not buy you a Super Bowl ad anymore. Furthermore, the text uses mostly "he" when companies today are just as likely to hire women as men. But except for the dollar figures and pronouns, not much else has changed in marketing. Many companies still make the same mistakes and don't understand the basic principles of positioning. They waste their advertising dollars trying to change minds, they give products bad names, they line-extend and they still try to appeal to everybody. Creativity still rules Madison Avenue and advertising clutter which seemed fierce in 1972 is almost unbearable today.

These are the three original articles which describe the thinking and philosophies that I would learn about from my father in the years to come. It is a joy to now be partnered with the man who started it all. Today we are working together as a team and writing about the new marketing realities that will hopefully stand the test of time for the next 31 years.

Meeting Goals

By David Maister

Done well, retreats and other partner meetings can be powerful tools to influence the success of a professional practice. Certainly, given the cost and time involved, they need to have a noticeable impact if they are to be justified. Alas, this is not always so.

One of the problems is that while management committees spend a great deal of time discussingagendas for the meeting, they rarely are precise about the meeting’s goals. In too many cases, firms have not articulated what they want to have happen as a result of the retreat.

Firms should not even consider the agenda until they can give a clear and unequivocal answer to the questions, “What changes do we want to occur as a result of the meeting?” and “How will we know if it is a success or not?”

It is remarkable how often ready answers to these questions are not forthcoming. Firms know they want to have a meeting —they’re just not sure why.

Are Law Firms Manageable?

by David Maister 2006

This article was first published in the April 2006 issue of The American Lawyer.

After spending 25 years saying that all professions are similar and can learn from each other, I’m now ready to make a concession: Law firms are different.

The ways of thinking and behaving that help lawyers excel in their profession may be the very things that limit what they can achieve as firms. Management challenges occur not in spite of lawyers’ intelligence and training, but because of them.

Among the ways that legal training and practice keep lawyers from effectively functioning in groups are:

problems with trust;
difficulties with ideology, values, and principles;
professional detachment;
and unusual approaches to decision making.
If firms cannot overcome these inherent tendencies, they may not be able to deliver on the goals and strategies they say they pursue.

Integrating for a new tool

Our company, OCD, have been using desktop calendar for a long time since its establishment. While it is visually friendly, it is very difficult to update the work shedule of our consultants who are always far aways from the head office.

The idea of an online scheduling system come up to my mind for a long time, but I cannot find a good free solution for it until Google launch the Google Calendar Sync. With a bit of trial, we have set up a online scheduling system which any one can have one the computer Outlook which tradditionally used for mail only.

A combination of Outlook (for setting the calendar offline), Outlook Desktop (for putting the calendar from Outlook to the desktop with a broader view – more events even with month view), Google Calendar using a company share account (as the central online point for synchronization) and Google Sync for syncing calendar between the Google account and different consultants’ laptops.

As a results, all of our consultants can create their own working shedule on the company shared calendar any where, any time with a Internet connection. Even without Internet connection, they can also make the schedule on their Outlook offline, then it will automatic synchronization whenever the Internet connection is available.

This is one several application of technology that work in our company.

By Tang Khanh

Are you ready for Practice Group Leaders?

by David Maister 1999

A revised version of this article, written in 1999, was included in First Among Equals by Patrick McKenna and David H. Maister, 2003

One of the most common requests I receive is to run a training program to help practice managers (who lead offices, discipline groups or industry practices) become more effective. Although the subject is one I care about passionately, I frequently decline to get involved.

This is because all too often the conditions necessary for effective implementation of practice management are missing. The way many firms are run ensures that effective practice management is close to impossible.

The problem that most practice leaders have is not primarily a lack of training. Rather, they are asked to fulfill a poorly specified role, with unclear objectives and responsibilities and with ambiguous authority. What is more, they are often selected for the role on the basis of skills and accomplishments that have nothing to do with the tasks they face.

A Natural Manager

by David Maister 2006

Dyelry (Jerry) Labbate is the manager of an exercise gym in downtown Boston with four full-time and four part-time personal trainers. What follows is his description, given in March 2006, of his managerial approach, along with my comments on the lessons that managers can take from Jerry's experience.

Creating Value Through People

by David Maister 2002

The financial performance of a business is not something you can or should directly control. It is achieved by providing superior value to the marketplace.

Marketplace value is a consequence of energizing and focusing employees to create and deliver value.

To make money, managers should not spend all their time managing money, but should instead devote their efforts to the things that produce the money: the enthusiasm, commitment, and drive of the labor force. Don’t manage money. Manage people.

Managing the Multidimensional Organization

By David Maister

This article is a modified version of “Organizing the Modern Law Firm,” which appeared in the IBA Daily News, September 21, 2006, distributed at the 2006 International Bar Association conference in Chicago, Ill., USA.

The article also forms the basis for my audio seminar, Competing Through Organizational Functioning, which is available for download or subscription, both at no cost, through myBusiness Masterclass audio seminar series.

The Courage to Manage

by David Maister 2001

A version of this article appeared as the last chapter in Practice What You Preach, Free Press, 2001.

In my experience, the single biggest barrier to implementing strategy is courage. What makes superstar managers so impressive is not what they are doing but the fact that they are doing it all.

Many people (and firms) lack the guts to stick with the plans and goals they have set for themselves. They lack the courage of their own convictions.

I first learned how hard it was to stick to one’s own strategy some time ago, when I set for myself the goal of trying to become a strategic advisor to international professional firms. Shortly thereafter a firm asked me to accept a project conducting sales and marketing training courses for their people.

The Anatomy of a Consulting Firm

By David Maister 2004

This is chapter two of The Advice Business: Essential Tools and Models for Managing Consulting (Pearson Prentice Hall, 2004) edited by Charles J. Fombrun and Mark D. Nevis. It has been adapted (with permission) from material contained in David H. Maister’s Managing the Professional Service Firm (Free Press, 1997) and True Professionalism (The Free Press, 1993).

The structure and management of consulting firms is driven primarily by two key factors: the degree of customization in the firm’s work activities and the extent of face-to-face interaction with the client. Both of these characteristics (customization and client contact) imply that the value of the firm is often embedded less in the properties of the firm and more in the specific talents of highly skilled individuals. The consulting firm must therefore compete actively in two markets simultaneously: the “output” market for its services, and the “input” market for its productive resources, the professional workforce. It is the need to balance the often conflicting demands and constraints imposed by these two markets that creates the special challenge of structuring and managing the consulting firm.