Creating a Balanced Scorecard
Ariel Tax Services prepares tax returns for individual and corporate clients. As the company has gradually expanded to 10 offices, the founder Max Jacobs has begun to feel as though he is losing control of operations. In response to this concern, he has decided to implement a performance measurement system that will help control current operations and facilitate his plans of expanding to 20 offices. Jacobs describes the keys to the success of his business as follows:
"Our only real asset is our people. We must keep our employees highly motivated and we must hire the 'cream of the crop/ Interestingly, employee morale and recruiting success are both driven by the same two factors—compensation and career advancement. In other words, providing superior compensation relative to the industry average coupled with fast-track career advancement opportunities keeps morale high and makes us a very attractive place to wort. It drives a high rate of job offer acceptances relative to job offers tendered."
"'Hiring highly qualified people and keeping them energized ensures operational success, which in our business is a function of productivity, efficiency. and effectiveness. Productivity" boils down to employees being billable rather than idle. Efficiency relates to the time required to complete a tax return. Finally, effectiveness is critical to our business in the sense that we cannot tolerate errors. Completing a tax return quickly is meaningless if the return contains errors."
"Our growth depends on acquiring new customers through word-of-mouth from satisfied repeat customers. We believe that our customers come back year after year because they value error-free: timely, and courteous tax return preparation. Common courtesy is an important aspect of our business We call it service quality, and it all ties back to employee morale in the sense that happy employees treat their clients with care and concern."
"While sales growth is obviously important to our future plans, growth without a corresponding increase in profitability is useless. Therefore, we understand that increasing our profit margin is a function of cost-efficiency as well as sales growth. Given that payroll is our biggest expense, we must maintain an optimal balance between staffing levels and the revenue being generated. As I alluded to earlier, the key to maintaining this balance is employee productivity". If we can achieve cost-efficient sales growth, we should eventually have 20 profitable offices!"
Required:
1. Create a balanced scorecard for Ariel Tax Services. Lint your scorecard measures using the framework from Exhibit 10—5. Indicate whether each measure is expected to increase or decrease. Feel free to create measures that may not be specifically mentioned in the chapter, but make sense given the strategic goals of the company.
2. What hypotheses are built into the balanced scorecard for Ariel Tax Services? Which of these hypotheses do you believe are most questionable and why?
3. Discuss the potential advantages and disadvantages of implementing an internal business process measure called total dollar amount of tax refunds generated. Would you recommend using this measure in Ariel's balanced scorecard?
4. Would it be beneficial to attempt to measure each office's individual performance with respect to the scorecard measures that you created? Why or why not?
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Introduction To Managerial Accounting
- Young Manufacturing Company is a startup manufacturing firm looking to build and develop its balanced scorecard. Gunner Young, the company owner, has told you the following: Our company was built on the shoulders of our hard-working, diligent employees. I believe that the heart and soul of any company is its employees. If our company is going to succeed, we need to continue to hire and train hard-working, passionate, and ethical employees. I also believe in being efficient. Ive noticed that the companies that always find ways to cut production costs and produce their goods faster are the ones that win in this industry. Gunner has also told you that he is mainly focused on maintaining the customers he has rather than seeking out a lot of new ones. At the end of the day, he admits that his companys ultimate objective is increasing the bottom line. a. Working together in a team, list one strategic objective for each performance perspective of the balanced scorecard based on the information Gunner provided. b. For each strategic objective you came up with in part (a), list at least one performance metric. c. Describe the relationships that would be illustrated by a strategy map of Youngs balanced scorecard. d. Describe the relationships that would be illustrated by a measure map of Youngs balanced scorecard.arrow_forwardEye Swear Inc. has a balanced scorecard that includes the following relationships: Actual results for this year and last year are as follows: Instructions 1.Analyze these statistics to verify whether they support the expected relationships between the strategic objectives and performance metrics. 2.Identify three possible reasons for any unsupported relationship you identified in part (1). 3.Which of the three possibilities you identified in part (2) is the most likely reason for the unsupported relationship you identified in part (1)?arrow_forwardHyperflash Inc. has a balanced scorecard that includes the following relationships: Actual results for this month and last month are as follows: Instructions 1.Analyze these data to verify whether they support the expected relationship between the strategic objectives and performance metrics. 2.Identify three possible reasons for any unsupported relationship you identified in part (1). 3.Which of the three possibilities you identified in part (2) is the most likely reason for the unsupported relationship you identified in part (1)?arrow_forward
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- Balanced Scorecard, Strategic Alignment Bannister Company, an electronics firm, buys circuit boards and manually inserts various electronic devices into the printed circuit board. Bannister sells its products to original equipment manufacturers. Profits for the last two years have been less than expected. Mandy Confer, owner of Bannister, was convinced that her firm needed to adopt a revenue growth and cost reduction strategy to increase overall profits. After a careful review of her firm's condition, Mandy realized that the main obstacle for increasing revenues and reducing costs was the high defect rate of her products (a 6 percent reject rate). She was certain that revenues would grow if the defect rate was reduced dramatically. Costs would also decline as there would be fewer rejects and less rework. By decreasing the defect rate, customer satisfaction would increase, causing, in turn, an increase in market share. Mandy also felt that the following actions were needed to help…arrow_forwardTaylor Construction builds custom homes in Dallas, Texas. Brandon Taylor knows that his future depends on the quality of the homes he builds and the service he provides to customers. Most new-customer sales arise from word-of-mouth advertising by former customers.Identify the balanced scorecard perspective for each measure in the exercise. Perspective a. Number of customer complaints Internal business processesCustomerLearning & growthFinancial b. Employee turnover Learning & growthFinancialInternal business processesCustomer c. Net profit per house constructed Learning & growthFinancialInternal business processesCustomer d. Turnaround time on customer design changes Learning & growthInternal business processesCustomerFinancial e. Hours of training per employee Learning & growthFinancialInternal business processesCustomer f. Average labor cost per house CustomerLearning &…arrow_forwardThe Midwest Consulting Group (MCG) helps companies build balanced scorecards. As part of itsmarketing efforts, MCG conducts an annual balanced scorecard workshop for prospective clients. AsMCG’s newest employee, your boss has asked you to participate in this year’s workshop by explainingto attendees how a company’s strategy determines the measures that are appropriate for its balancedscorecard. Your boss has provided you with the excerpts below from the annual reports of two currentMCG clients. She has asked you to use these excerpts in your portion of the workshop.Excerpt from Applied Pharmaceuticals’ annual report:The keys to our business are consistent and timely new product introductions and manufacturingprocess integrity. The new product introduction side of the equation is a function of research andd evelopment (R&D) yield (e.g., the number of marketable drug compounds created relative to thetotal number of potential compounds pursued). We seek to optimize our R&D yield…arrow_forward
- Quick Stop operates 1,000 convenience stores throughout the United States. The company’s slogan is “Best Stop of the Day,” and its mission is to make every customer a return customer. Quick Stop’s corporate strategy supports this mission by stressing the importance of sparkling clean surroundings, well-stocked shelves, and, above all, cheerful employees. Of course, improved shareholder value drives this strategy. Q. Assume that Quick Stop uses a balanced scorecard approach to formulating its management control system. List three measures that Quick Stop might use to evaluate each of the four balanced scorecard perspectives: financial perspective, customer perspective, internal-business- process perspective, and learning-and-growth perspective.arrow_forwardEthics and the Manager Richmond. Inc., operates a chain of 44 department stores. Two years ago, the board of directors of Richmond approved a large-scale remodeling of its stores to attract a more upscale clientele. Before finalizing these plans, two stores were remodeled as a test. Linda Perlman, assistant controller, was asked to oversee the financial reporting for these test stores, and she and other management personnel were offered bonuses based on the sales growth and profitability of these stores. While completing the financial reports. Perlman discovered a sizable inventory of outdated goods that should have been discounted for sale or returned to the manufacturer. She discussed the situation with her management colleagues; the consensus was to ignore reporting this inventory as obsolete because reporting it would diminish the financial results and their bonuses. Required: 1. According to the IMA’s Statement of Ethical Professional Practice, would it be ethical for Perlman not…arrow_forwardCreating a Balanced Scorecard Mason Paper Company (MPC) manufactures commodity grade papers for use in computer printers and photocopiers. MPC has reported net operating losses for the last two years due to intense price pressure from much larger competitors. The MPC management team-including Kristen Townsend (CEO), Mike Martinez (VP of Manufacturing), Tom Andrews (VP of Marketing), and Wendy Chen (CFO)—is contemplating a change in strategy to save the company from impending bankruptcy. Excerpts from a recent management team meeting are shown below: Townsend: As we all know, the commodity paper manufacturing business is all about economies of scale. The largest competitors with the lowest cost per unit win. The limited capacity of our older machines prohibits us from competing in the high-volume commodity paper grades. Furthermore, expanding our capacity by acquiring a new paper-making machine is out of the question given the extraordinarily high price tag. Therefore, I propose that we…arrow_forward
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