Balanced scorecard: Connect processes to results

A. The focus of your business strategy is to connect internal processes to improve results with customers. The core question for this: What strategic targets should be set to satisfy the desires of your customers to achieve financial objectives? There are three basic customer-focused value propositions.

Product leadership

Your value propositions must be written from the customer's perspective with a focus on the key benefits in functionality, features and performance. You have good products and market them as desirable to the consumer. Existing and potential customers have different requirements, needs, values and lifestyles. It is imperative to analyze several customer market segments.

Customer intimacy

This requires a stress on the quality of relationships with customers for completeness and timeliness of the solutions you offer to your customers. Learn to listen carefully to the cutomer voice to identify opportunities for innovation and systematically measure customer satisfaction, engagement and dissatisfaction. Learning to listen to the customer provides you with useful insight and information on the customers' views and marketplace behaviors. Knowing these behaviors may contribute to your long-term organizational sustainability.

Operational excellence

Does your company perform to customers' standards and do you provide timely and adequate services with consistency? Excellence is delivering a combination of quality, price and ease of purchasing that no one else can match. By focusing on these three perspectives, your customer will see you as different and better than your competitors. HME

Tom Cesar is president/CEO of Tom Cesar Management Solutions, LLC. He can be reached at 919.539.5713 or tcesar@tcmanagementsolutions.com.