preview

Saatchi & Saatchi: The Balanced Scorecard

Satisfactory Essays

Saatchi & Saatchi: The Balanced Scorecard in action The advertising firm Saatchi & Saatchi was facing a crisis in the 1990s. The value of its brand had become diluted, and it was saddled with a number of poor-performing agencies. To improve its standing, the advertising agency deployed a Balanced Scorecard approach. "Companies with complex operations may want to use Key Performance Indicators (KPI) or systems like Balanced Scorecard to continuously track and monitor results, systematically comparing what was planned through goal-setting to the unfolding reality of actual results" (Robin 2010). Saatchi & Saatchi decided to deploy a 'de-merger' strategy of becoming leaner to achieve its central goals and missions. It set clear, definable benchmarks for itself, including growing its revenue base "better than the market," converting "30 percent of incremental revenue to operating profit," and "doubling its earnings per share" (Greenhalgh 2004). A specific, measurable time period was set to achieve these specific goals: three years. Saatchi asked itself: what is unique about our organization, what is our purpose? Saatchi was a creative ad agency, and focusing too much on over-expansion through acquisitions, it lost touch with what had made it great. Vision, mission, and goal statements must "speak to the organization's present condition," which at the time was Saatchi's overexpansion and falling revenue, be "written clearly in plain English" (versus vague generalities about

Get Access