Summary:
The notable growth of clients in the hotel sector and the growing competitive market in which the company GET VARADERO is currently immersed, makes it necessary, with increasing urgency, to have useful, relevant and reliable information for taking sound, timely and proactive decisions. Consequently, this work shows the design of a Balanced Scorecard with the necessary indicators for the deployment of its four dimensions: financial, clients, processes and workers; as well as for its hypermedia treatment with the use of the MIS DecisionWare and its integration with the accounting system of the company, so that the information contained in it, while contributing to the fulfillment of the strategic objectives of the company,allow the management of the company to have useful information for decision-making and improve the services they offer to customers.
Key words: Management Control, Balanced Scorecard, Indicators.
1. The strategic orientation model.
The changes that have taken place in the environment and in the organizations in recent years have supported higher levels of competition and uncertainty, which has made it difficult to maintain or improve sustainable competitive advantages over time, achieving their strategic objectives, and evaluating and improving business performance.
Companies are no longer managed through management control systems built around financial targets and indicators that have little relationship to progress in achieving medium and long-term strategic objectives; which has motivated the development of a holistic view of business, the need to establish non-financial measures, such as quality and speed of response, external measures, such as customer satisfaction and brand image, and future-oriented measures, such as satisfying the organization's own human resources and innovating new products and processes.
By improving information systems, the growing need for information for decision-making has been responded to; This has made possible the appearance and evolution of new planning and management tools, identifying these tools with a sequential process in which three dimensions are distinguished: strategic planning, strategy implementation and control activities. In this context, as Aparisi (2004) points out, the Balanced Scorecard (CMI) has become one of the planning and management models that has aroused the most interest among managers in both the public and private sectors; because it is a model of strategic focus or orientation that provides a clear and practical solution to the deployment,implantation and management of the strategy in organizations oriented towards value creation, and whose aim has been focused on providing a set of tools that facilitate the achievement of competitive success in the long term.
The CMI appeared, as such in the early 1990s, as a result of studies carried out in a group of companies in the 1980s, looking for new ways of evaluating business performance.
In fact, the originality of this tool does not lie, precisely, in the combination of financial and non-financial indicators, because during the Scientific Direction revolution in the early 20th century, engineers in innovative companies had developed dashboards with the combination of these indicators; French doctrine had already used the Scorecard since the mid-1950s. The idea of combining them to monitor strategic processes is almost the same age as the concept of strategy; that is to say, about 40 years. So, the novelty of the Balanced Scorecard is, exactly, the way in which the mentioned indicators are selected, determined and interrelated.
While in Cuban business practice this topic is novel, at an international level its application and dissemination is perceived for different sectors and branches of the economy, such as: port system in Spain (González Barrios, 2001) and Aparisi et al, 2003); educational sector in Argentina (Jaramillo Martínez, 2001); a forest SME (Díaz Candia, 2001); in the communal scope applied to the tourist activity (Xodo & Nigro, 2001); in Logistics areas (Martínez Rivadeneira, 2001); in the Federal Electricity Commission, Operations Directorate, Transmission, Transformation and Control Branch (Guzman Maldonado, 2002); in an industrial company (Aguilá Batllori, 1998); among others. Its success is attributed to three important events that took place in its main applications: change,growth and making strategy everyone's job (Kaplan & Norton, 2002) and, lately, it has been adopted as the management measures model, accepted by many companies that follow the EFQM Total Quality Model.
Consequently, in this work a procedure for the deployment of the Balanced Scorecard is exposed, developed and applied, based on the study of the art carried out and taking into account the approaches of Amat Salas & Dowds (1998), Kaplan & Norton (1999), Fernández Caballero (2000), Biasca (2002) and López (2002).
2. Considerations on the Balanced Scorecard.
The Balanced Scorecard does not replace the existing management methods, nor does it eliminate the current measures and indicators, but rather gives them greater coherence and orders them hierarchically, according to the cause-effect relationship model, from the elaboration of the strategic map that crystallize in a set of indicators (financial and non-financial, monetary and non-monetary, internal and external, among others) and allow evaluating business performance in compliance with the strategic course set, which, in turn, contributes Much to the motivation of internal customers, to improve all stages of the value chain, to meet customer needs and achieve loyalty, as well as to offer higher economic returns to the organization.
While some critics advocate the complete elimination of financial measures, on the contrary, Kaplan & Norton (1999) affirm that: “Periodic balance sheets and financial indicators must continue to play an essential role in reminding executives that improving quality, response times, productivity and new products are means to an end, not the end itself. Such improvements only benefit a company when they can be translated into an improvement in sales, lower operating expenses or a greater use of assets ”.
The implementation of a Balanced Scorecard can be a very difficult task. In this sense, several works have been carried out in which an analysis is made of the possibilities of its use at all management levels and its hypermedia treatment. It must be applied through the pyramid of dashboards (managers) in the form of a "cascade", until reaching the local centers of responsibility within the strategic business units, so that everyone works coherently towards achieving the objectives of the company. Likewise, it must be flexible, contain, exclusively, that essential information, in a simple, synoptic and summarized way, follow a process of continuous improvement, through which its possible defects will be refined to adapt them to the specific needs of each user.Also, see its application in an integrated way with the management tools used in the company.
3. Methodological proposal of the Balanced Scorecard.
The exactly repeated or "pure" applications do not really exist or are not possible (Cuesta Santos, 2000). Each organization must build its own Balanced Scorecard, without copying recipes from other models used. From the bibliographic analysis carried out, it was detected that there is no single methodology to develop the Balanced Scorecard. Figure 1 offers the procedure exposed by Nogueira Rivera (2002), based on the propositions of Amat Salas & Dowds (1998), Kaplan & Norton (1999), Fernández Caballero (2000), Biasca (2002) and López (2002). This procedure is based on the assumption that the company has carried out its strategic exercise.
In fact, the main objective of the Balanced Scorecard is to help make effective and timely decisions through the establishment and proper use of a set of indicators, which integrate all the areas of the company, control the evolution of the key factors of success derived from the strategy and, moreover, in a balanced way, taking into account the different perspectives that comprise it.
Likewise, the cause-effect relationships that exist between the indicators used are based on the hypothesis that if action is taken from the perspective of internal customers, these will be the engine of process improvement, which will result in more customers. satisfied, that they will buy more, and therefore, the financial results for the organization will be better.
According to Kaplan & Norton (1999, p.45), a good Balanced Scorecard must have an adequate mix of results measures and inducers of the business unit's strategy performance. Outcome measures, without inducers of action, do not communicate how final results are to be achieved, nor do they provide an indication of whether the strategy is successful. Conversely, drivers of performance, without performance measures, will fail to highlight whether operational improvements have been transformed into an improved business with new and existing customers and better financial performance. Actual current information, accompanied by documentary data from the past, is the most complete information to estimate future trends.
Consequently, the integration of the possibilities offered by the corporate Intranet, the Balanced Scorecard, the Datawarehouse and the Datamining, are very useful for monitoring the strategic direction of the company and Management Control as a system "to the measure ”, adapted to the needs of each organization.
Likewise, there is consensus in considering leadership as the key factor for the success of the Balanced Scorecard, since the leader of the company is the one who is responsible for this powerful tool to provide the required effect, through its preparation, knowledge of the business, global vision of the environment, moral integration, internal reliability, as well as with the support and enthusiasm that it provides to the project. However, in addition to the commitment of the company's management, it is necessary to involve all the people in the organization, so that everyone can contribute to the new strategy and implement it on their "day to day" basis, in a way that contributes to the business success and maintenance and operation of the management system.
4. Analysis of the dimensions of the Balanced Scorecard: “GET Varadero” case.
The company Electronic Group for Tourism in Varadero (GET Varadero) is located in Varadero, the main tourist pole of sun and beach in Cuba. This company, with national subordination, has 69 workers out of the 350 of the parent company and provides specialized computer services that integrate hardware, software, network, and connectivity solutions, among others; with a profile towards the tourism sector in more than 95 companies in the tourism sector related to: a) technical assistance contracts (includes hotels of all chains and non-hotel units of different organizations); b) various contracts (includes 182 entities belonging to the tourism sector and other sectors of the economy). Its main markets are the territory of Varadero and the tourist center of the Ciénaga de Zapata,both located in the province of Matanzas. In this sense, it should be noted that its market has expanded to the municipality of Matanzas and Jagüey Grande to other non-tourist organizations, where there is an office in both municipalities that provides all the services that the GET offers to its loyal customers.
Together with consultants from the University of Matanzas, he has traveled a path of introducing essential business management techniques for achieving competitiveness and proactive and effective decision-making, including: development of management and strategic planning, implementation of the ISO 9000/2000 quality standards, process management, ABC costing and, currently, the experiences related to the Balanced Scorecard.
It is used with a comprehensive perspective that includes the relationships and dependencies among its four perspectives: the financial one, which includes the economic consequences of the inducers of action; that of the client, which shows the added value indicators that the company provides to clients of specific segments; that of the internal process, recognized as the identification of internal processes, new or already established, in which the organization must be excellent for the organization's strategy to be successful and, that of training and growth, related to infrastructure (HR, systems and procedures) that the company must build to create long-term improvement and growth, interconnected with each other to promote the correct measurement of the organization's performance.
The study was carried out through a training-action process and the development of a teamwork culture. Some of the results obtained are detailed below.
4.1. Training and growth perspective.
It represents the pillar where the Balanced Scorecard is sustained and refers to the human component as a key element for the vitality of the company. The presence of entrepreneurial leaders and highly qualified and motivated personnel are the essential requirements for achieving the competitiveness that is demanded today and in the future.
For the analysis of this perspective within the company, three surveys used in Suárez Mella et al. (2001). The first, on leadership; the second, about the innovative culture and the third, to assess the level of employee satisfaction.
The surveys were applied mainly to specialists and workers. The results on leadership show a young management team capable of leading at all levels of the organization, with a recognition level of 71.14% among workers. In relation to the innovative culture, the efforts made by the company to achieve the category of supreme innovator with the recruitment of a more prepared and specialized staff in an integral way are appreciated, the study showed an increase from 64.5% to 73.69% of the culture innovative. Surveys related to the level of employee satisfaction (86%) yielded a positive result in relation to previous periods. This last result is supported by better working conditions, more sophisticated technology and training and improvement facilities.
Additionally, a diagnosis was carried out to identify the learning needs in the organization, from which the current education and training plan was projected with the following actions: a) development of seminars for specialists; b) creation of a library with specialized computer magazines and books on different subjects, and c) hiring courses and postgraduate courses for workers.
Subsequently, the level of satisfaction of external customers was evaluated, which will be discussed below.
4.2. Customer perspective.
After guaranteeing the conditions that allow an adequate control of the service, both by the employees and by the management and the necessary activities are carried out to know the expectations of customer satisfaction, we are in a position to provide the same with a quality service. Even so, work must be done to increase, increasingly, the level of customer satisfaction, for which the results obtained from the control, the behavior of the service and the applied surveys are taken as a basis, with a view to detecting the susceptible aspects for improvement.
With the purpose of evaluating the satisfaction level of the GET Varadero clients, as well as knowing the most significant aspects (positive and negative) of the service provided by the company, taking Hayes (1995, p.28-34) as a reference, A survey was designed with the objective of measuring the level of satisfaction of the GET clients, referred to in Nogueira Rivera et al. (2003, p.93-95).
The surveys made it possible to have extensive information regarding: a) type of contract signed with the organization; b) time that clients have been receiving GET services; c) reasons that lead customers to establish contracts with the company; d) value for money with respect to the services offered; e) rivalries between the market and its competitors, and f) attributes or values expected from the GET.
From the analysis carried out, it was found that the majority of clients evaluate the service offered by the GET Varadero as good (with a weighted score greater than four, on a scale of five) and also, equal to or greater than that provided by similar companies from the competition, such as: TECUN, COPEXTEL, ESI and DITA. The assimilation of the clients of an improved service has contributed that today the GET extends its services to other provinces of the territory with better successes and greater credibility as an organization. Table 1 shows some of these results.
Table 1 Processing of the survey.
| Aspects to assess | Average score |
| 1- Quality of service |
4.00 |
| 2- I try that the technician gives him the equipment |
4.40 |
| 3- Treatment you receive from the service provider (technical) |
4.57 |
| 4- Treatment you receive from the GET when requesting the service |
4.27 |
| 5- Confidence in solving the problem |
4.03 |
| 6- Technical preparation |
4.47 |
| 7- Speed in the attention of the problem |
3.30 |
| 8- Solution of the problem |
3.93 |
| Total |
4.12 |
As can be seen in the table above, there are aspects on which the organization must improve to continue increasing customers. The above results are mostly taken from clients belonging to hotel entities and to a lesser extent from some non-hotel units.
4.3. Internal processes perspective.
A study was carried out to improve company processes, referred to in Nogueira Rivera (2002) and Nogueira Rivera et al. (2003), where “Quality Management” and “Technical Services Management” were defined as key processes, after applying the matrix of strategic objectives - impact on the customer - impact on the process - short-term success. Based on these results, those activities that added value to the company, the customer and the process itself were strengthened, and those that did not generate value were reduced. In this sense, added value services were increased for loyal and distinguished customers.
Those customers who bought equipment and required the assembly service, installed the programs they needed without charging them anything additional.
4.4. Financial perspective: Application of the economic-financial efficiency index.
The objective of determining the integral financial efficiency index is to propose a method to study and evaluate the financial health of the company, with a view to strengthening the economic control of the organization as the fundamental basis of Management Control, which gives the possibility of having certain techniques and working methods to validate it, in addition to allowing a more profitable analysis of the key factors to be successful in the implementation and instrumentation of a model that contributes to the improvement of the control system and to enhance its greatest advantages for the future. The results of its application are shown in Table 2.
Table 2 Calculation of the economic-financial efficiency index.
| Ief indicators | Vj | GET Varadero
1997 |
GET Varadero
2002 |
||
| Pj | Vj * Pj | Pj | Vj * Pj | ||
| Economic profitability | 0.2143 | 4 | 0.8542 | 5 | 1.0715 |
| Average inventory lead time | 0.1071 | 3 | 0.303 | 3 | 0.3213 |
| Use of working capital | 0.1071 | 3 | 0.303 | 4 | 0.4284 |
| Vulnerability to stocks | 0.0357 | 4 | 0.1428 | 4 | 0.1428 |
| Collection period | 0.0714 | one | 0.0714 | one | 0.0714 |
| Solvency | 0.1786 | 4 | 0.7144 | 4 | 0.7144 |
| Liquidity | 0.25 | 4 | one | 4 | one |
| Indebtedness | 0.0357 | one | 0.0357 | one | 0.0357 |
| Ief evaluation | 0.6849 | 0.7571 |
For the determination of the efficiency index, the expression was developed, which shows a comparison between the maximum level that can be reached (in the event that all the indicators obtain the highest score) and the one that the organization currently has.
k
∑ VjxPj
Ief = j = 1
Where:
Ief: Index of economic-financial efficiency.
K: Number of indicators.
Vj: Relative weight of each indicator (determined by the Füller method).
Pj: Behavior of each indicator in the analyzed company (actual score awarded).
The score for each indicator is obtained through static and dynamic analysis. Comparing it with the values set by the sector, the leading companies and their evolution over time.
The methodology for evaluating the indicators that appear in Table 2 can be found in Nogueiras Rivera's (2002) doctoral thesis.
The values obtained show that the company tends towards "good" economic and financial health with prospects for improvement. Additionally, it can be inferred that the main drivers of action that have a negative impact on the behavior of the economic-financial efficiency index are the period of collection and indebtedness.
The previous elements allow to elaborate, adapt and reorient the work of the organization using strategies and carrying out actions that improve the results obtained up to the moment it is analyzed.
In turn, the company is in a position to: a) evaluate its economic-financial capacity and efficiency to face the economic and technological changes in the environment; b) project themselves towards the solution of their internal problems; c) promote new investments within the organization to offer new services, and d) closely monitor the progress of economic control in the company; e) determine the factors that affect unfavorable performance and; f) assimilate other management tools that allow evaluating cost management in search of greater economic efficiency.
On the other hand, management evaluation must be analyzed in the four perspectives offered by the WCC.
5. Design of the Balanced Scorecard
To this end, the strategic map was built with the cause-effect relationships between the key factors, and the indicators shown in Table 3 were defined for each perspective. The project was carried out using the Excel spreadsheet, in order to the company has information on the trend and dynamic behavior of the indicators, which, with a high level of updating, allows for the information needed for decision-making to be timely, supported by the possibilities offered by the datawarehouse, datamining and the Intranet.
Table 3 Detail of the key factors and their indicators for the Balanced Scorecard.
| Key Economic Factors | Economic indicators |
| Cost effectiveness | Economic return, Trade margin, Return on assets |
| Sales increase | Historical series of sales, both services and merchandise |
| Market share increase | Current market share |
| Solvency | Current assets / Current liabilities |
| Liquidity | (Current assets - Inventories) / Current liabilities |
| Collection period | Accounts receivable / Average daily sales |
| Key Customer Factors | Customer indicators |
| Client retention | Income statistics by customer groups: Greater Caribbean, Cubanacán, Gaviota, Horizontes, Islazul, Cubalse, Rumbos, Caracol, TRD, MINTUR and others. |
| Cross sales | Revenue statistics by type of services Statistics of teams contracted by customer groups |
| New customers | Hired clients / potential clients (for each group of clients and total) |
| Customer satisfaction | Hired clients / potential clients, Surveys |
| Key Factors of Internal Processes | Internal Process Indicators |
| After sales service | Responsiveness to the restoration of the guarantee for each area of attention of the computer services and for non-contracted clients |
| Quality service | Attention to claims (for each type of service), Statistics of income by type of services: automatic, telematic, computer services, sale of merchandise and total. |
| On-time delivery | Response time of computer services for each service area and total Average time to satisfy a purchase request for the following sales: IT equipment, IT supplies and office supplies |
| Adequate logistics | Average inventory lead time, Average time to fulfill a purchase request for the following sales: IT equipment, IT supplies and office supplies, Vulnerability to stocks, Technical status of transportation by UEN according to periodic reviews |
| Accounts receivable by age | Analysis of the status of accounts receivable for the following categories: up to 30 days, up to 60 days, up to 90 days, more than 90 days and total |
| Key Factors of Workers | Indicators of Learning and Growth |
| Training | Knowledge diagnoses,% of Workers receiving some type of training |
| Productivity | Sales / Average of workers |
| Retention | 1 - (Period withdrawals / Average number of workers) |
| Satisfaction | Polls |
In fact, the transfer of these technologies to the Cuban business world, as well as the deployment of the Balanced Scorecard and its automation, allow each user to access useful and relevant information for decision-making and carry out a multidirectional analysis of the inductors of action, thus offering the possibility of defining business models appropriate to each particular case.
The automation is carried out with the use of the MIS DecisionWare, in alliance with the company Desoft SA and, specifically, in the GET Varadero, as a pilot company, for its later extension to the rest of the companies in the group, so that a Internal and external benchmarking. Precisely, the MIS DecisionWare systems can be linked to the accounting system of the company, at the same time that they are fed with large volumes of information from different sources and offer it to various users according to the role they play in the company, for a decision-making process. effective, proactive and timely decisions.
The economic, practical and social impact obtained in the GET Varadero with this work is evident, reflected in its economic-financial results during the last six years, the assimilation of a culture of teamwork and towards continuous improvement, where the company achieved a substantial competitive advantage, a solid market position and sustained and stable growth.
In general, the Balanced Scorecard allows the company to know where it is and to where or in which direction it has to walk. Likewise, it is convenient that the Balanced Scorecard has the most professional presentation possible, is pleasant to read and communicates a clear message, so that it captures the attention of all those involved and the hours of work invested in its preparation are fruitful.
Other economic and financial results achieved are related to: a) market share, b) profit, and c) profitability.
The increase in market share in the period analyzed is based on: 1) an increase in the diversity of services to customers; 2) increase in contracted clients; 3) greater offers with added values in services, and 4) improvement in the image and prestige of the organization.
The profit improved with respect to previous periods, the reasons that benefited this indicator are summarized in: 1) better collection management; 2) improvement in the price offer of the various services, and 3) increase in loyal and distinguished customers.
Profitability was another indicator that performed well in the organization, based mainly on the increase in profits in a greater proportion than the increase in assets.
The behavior of other indicators can be found in Nogueira Rivera (2002), where an exhaustive analysis of the main selected indicators is made to measure the efficiency in the economic-financial management of the company under investigation.
6. Conclusions:
- The design and implementation of the Balanced Scorecard in the GET Varadero, together with the application of other complementary tools, allowed the management team to globally observe the progress of the key aspects of the company's management, which helped to correct in a timely manner deviations with a tendency to alter the planned goals or objectives, by means of an exception control to certain carefully selected key areas, which by means of rapid warning signs allow the deviations to be identified, with their causes and responsible parties, linked to the immediately lower level of its own managerial role. Information must be obtained quickly in order to act in a timely manner. In turn, it contributed to the review of the company's strategic exercise in search of better economic and financial results. Likewise,project and focus more coherently towards those clients who can take on as many services as possible, such as: Hotels and, Non-hotel units with good economic solvency. Finally, it allowed establishing the classification of loyal customers and distinguished customers who are those who contribute to better collection management of the company.
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