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Case Studies

Client Case studies from our Strategic Balanced Scorecard work

With strategy being such an element of our work, many clients do not want their case studies made public and we respect that.  These are just a few case studies from a much wider collection of client projects.  (Here is a much longer list of the sectors and clients we have helped).   These case studies illustrate a range of projects, solving different clients’ needs, using various applications of Strategic Balanced Scorecards and varying degrees of balanced scorecard sophistication.  They all tell a part of the story of how we help our clients solve their problems.

Browse our case studies from the list on the left or the summaries below and select ones to download and study – but if you really want to find out how we make a difference, you need to speak to us.

Engaging staff, implementing a regional strategy and demonstrating performance to the Board.

Application: Social Services, Third sector, Regional Strategy, Comparing regional performance, Board reporting. Techniques: Fourth Generation balanced scorecards, Strategy maps, Ownership and adoption, Judgement & Evidence.

Engaging staff, implementing a regional strategy and demonstrating performance to the Board. The design and implementation of a Fourth Generation Balanced Scorecard for Social Care provider, Dimensions.

Dimensions is the UK’s second largest provider of outsourced social care services for people with Learning Disabilities. The Board wanted to understand and compare performance across 14 regions so they could assess progress and reward. The management wanted a regional strategy map and balanced scorecard that reflected their strategy, helped Regional Directors to manage their regions better and works through to the services, ultimately improving the lives of the people they support. Importantly it had to reflect their culture of care with loose-tight management. (Oh, and also support forthcoming acquisitions).

The approach was so popular, we had spontaneous balanced scorecards breaking out: Regional Directors found the approach so useful that, even before the pilot was finished, other regions started using the approach for their business planning and team development and the pilot regions started cascading the approach to their teams. It was also described as instrumental in bringing the new acquisitions into the Dimensions culture.

This is an extensive case study of a fourth generation balanced scorecard that can be applied to commercial, public sector and Social Service organisations.(Includes written case study and detailed video case study.)

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Creating growth through synergy across an International Group of Technology Companies, using strategic balanced scorecards

Application: Group of International Companies, Engineering Technology and Innovation, Aligning strategy, Growth through acquisition and synergy, Building a new team.

Techniques: Strategy mapping, Cascading balanced scorecards, The story through measures, Synergy from balanced scorecards.

Align new management team around new strategy for group and find synergy amongst companies that can be exploited.

Having recently acquired five companies across Europe, the newly formed Anglian Water Technology Group wanted to bring the management teams together, align the company strategies, identify potential synergies, and make sure those synergies were captured across the group. They wanted strategy facilitation resulting in a set of Strategic Balanced Scorecards to help them. This detailed case study describes how we helped them.

The approach we choose helped them form as a management team and identify where synergy was available amongst the companies. It helped group grow from £80m to £120m over the next five years. A testament to their ownership and adoption, this client was still using the same basic structure of strategy map and balanced scorecard five years later.

This case study highlights some of the core principles of a modern, strategy map based balanced scorecards. The balanced scorecard was then designed to ensure that the synergy was exploited. Particularly how to find synergy across a group, and using the principles to communicate and manage your strategy. This case study is designed to demonstrate how strategy maps are used to discuss strategy, create ownership and how they evolve during that process.

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Future thinking amidst uncertainty and risk in the external environment

Application: Manufacturing, Market entry, Public Sector change, Management team meetings, Monitoring external environment

Techniques: Future thinking, Strategy formulation, Fourth Generation balanced scorecards, Tangible Future, Developing Management Consensus, Anticipating uncertainty and risks.

Future thinking amidst risk and uncertainty using the Strategic Balanced Scorecard Approach: contrasting 3rd and fourth generation approaches

Given the current climate it is vital that we monitor the external environment for changes, uncertainties in our strategy and the emergence of risks. Yet most balanced scorecard applications miss this vital function. When managing strategy using Fourth Generation Balanced Scorecards we set up mechanisms to monitor the external environment and provide advance warning of change. Then operate strategy so it can be adapted as “Stuff happens”, and assumptions change, as you will see in the case study.

This paper provides two contrasting case studies for the future thinking stage of modern balanced scorecard development. One provides a fifteen year view from the perspective of a city council. The other provides a five year view of a manufacturing company’s market. Both use a detailed picture of the future to build a common understanding amongst the management team before setting the rate of ambition for the strategy, strategy map and balanced scorecard. The first case study is typical of third generation balanced scorecards using what sometimes gets called a future or destination statement. In contrast, the second case study uses the Tangible Future approach, which also identifies the assumptions and uncertainties in the environment and market. This expands the management team’s balanced scorecard so they can monitor the external environment, check whether things have changed and ensure their strategy is still appropriate. This is a key part of Excitant’s Fourth Generation Balanced Scorecard approach.

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Strategy roll-out for a major retailer: Management team alignment, cost savings and strategy alignment

Application: Retail Balanced Scorecard, Executive team, Corporate objectives, Corporate strategy map. Managing growth and cost savings

Techniques: Retail Strategy and Balanced Scorecard, Strategic balanced scorecard, Strategy maps, Corporate Balanced Scorecard, Themes and strategy, project alignment, organisational alignment and cost savings


Corporate strategy, management team alignment and finding costs savings from the alignment of programmes and projects with the strategy.

In response to the actions of competitors and to address the problem of “They don’t get the strategy” the Chief Executive decided they needed a corporate Balanced Scorecard that would eventually cascade down to all their retail outlets.

This video case study describes just a part of the work with the Executive team of a major retailer (Boots the Chemist) which helped then clarify their strategy and identify substantial cost savings from amongst their projects. In this case the alignment of £100m of projects identified £40m that were not strategic and were candidates for being cut. This provided an excellent cost saving opportunity for the retailer at a time when they were looking for cost savings.

If you want to save your organisation money through better alignment, watching this video you will learn about how to design a corporate strategy map and also how to align projects so that you can identify which are strategic and which not.

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Improving strategic (Board) and tactical (Management) reporting in a charity, using the Modern Balanced Scorecard approach at the Diana, Princess of Wales, Memorial Fund.

Application: Charity, Third sector, Managing funds, Beneficiaries, Board reporting, Charity effectiveness and performance. Techniques: Fourth Generation balanced scorecards, Strategy maps, Ownership and adoption, Judgement & Evidence


Improving strategic (Board) and tactical (Management) reporting in a charity, using the Fourth Generation Balanced Scorecard approach at the Diana, Princess of Wales, Memorial Fund.

There is a need to demonstrate effectiveness and performance across the charity sector. But how do we do it? How do we demonstrate the efficacy of our projects and activities? How do we demonstrate value to our beneficiaries? How do we demonstrate to the Trustee Board that the strategy is being executed? The usual answer is to immediately look for ways to measure performance.

At the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fund (the Fund), they took a more subtle approach: an approach that involved maps of their strategy and a modern, strategic, balanced scorecard. The Fund went beyond simply attempting to measure activity and results. They moved to clearly showing what they are doing and how those activities will deliver results. Even in an innovative, lean, charity like the Fund, the techniques used and the process of developing these modern balanced scorecards has had positive effects.

This case study explains the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fund’s approach and the benefits the Fund has identified from their charity balanced scorecard: This case study describes using a modern Balanced Scorecard approach to improve the effectiveness and performance of a charity. A shorter version of this case study was also featured in “Trust and Foundation News”, the journal of the Association of Charitable Foundations (ACF), June 2009.

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Strategy for market entry and joined up working in a manufacturing company, using a 4th Generation Strategic Balanced Scorecard

Application: Manufacturing, Operations, Design & development, Technology implementation, Joined up working. management team dynamics.

Techniques: Market analysis, Fourth Generation balanced scorecards, Strategy maps, Technology road map.


Defining, implementing and managing strategy in a manufacturing company: Managing uncertainty, Joined up working and developing a technology road map

The manufacturing Unite Modular Solutions, A division of the FTSE350 company Unite, wanted to break into new markets, serve existing markets better and create joined up design and manufacturing. They also wanted to improve how the management team met and worked together, to manage more strategically and be better at delegating responsibility.

Being an innovative company they decided they would use a Fourth Generation Balanced Scorecard approach to help them capture, refine and cascade their strategy through the organisation. The Managing Director also recognised the value of team dynamics and improved ways of working that the approach brought.

This case study describes the techniques behind the approach using a Tangible future to map our the environment, assumptions and pressures on the business. Using strategy map and scorecards to capture the strategy, ensuring that the drivers of change and leading indicators where clear. Using a technology road map to set out what new technologies were needed during design and manufacturing to address the new and existing markets.

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Strategy implementation, transformation and changing incentives, Using a Balanced Scorecard

Video Case Study…

Keywords: Strategic balanced scorecards, Strategy maps, Executive Ownership, Changing incentives and rewards.

Application: Water industry, Commercial organisations, Regulation & de-regulation


Strategy implementation, transformation and changing incentives. Using the Strategic Balanced Scorecard approach to support strategy and transformational change in a Water Utility (Anglian Water)

In this series of three video case studies, Phil Jones, of Excitant Ltd interviews Steve Lunn. Phil originally introduced the approach to Steve and his team at Anglian Water. Steve explains how he has used the Balanced Scorecard Management approach to support two strategy and transformation projects while at Anglian Water.

Part 1: Strategy, Balanced Scorecard and engaging a team If you have ever wondered how to get engagement in a team this will interest you. In part one, Steve talks about how he used the balanced scorecard to engage the customer services directorate in the new strategy, where they addressed them focus of the team and joined up working across the organisation.

Part 2: Transformation, Balanced Scorecard, Engagement and change. If you have ever wanted to engage an executive team, this video will help. In part two, Steve explains how he later used the approach as a part of a larger transformation project across the whole company. This provides a good view of how to engage the management team, engaging the wider stakeholders,

Part 3: Transformation, Balanced Scorecard, Incentives & rewards. If you have ever considered revising the incentive and reward structure in your organisation, then this video will give you some sound advice. In part three Steve describes how the ground was prepared during the transformation project so that incentives and rewards could be changed successfully. This included Executive rewards and also the rewards of the rest of the organisation.

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Developing and managing IT Strategy in the Banking Sector using a modern balanced scorecard

Application: IT Strategy: IT Credibility, Positioning IT for the future;

Techniques: Modern IT Balanced Scorecard.


Anticipating business needs, Developing IT Strategy,

The IT department of large Singaporean bank required help bringing their strategy closer to the anticipated needs of the new Chief Executive. However, they also needed to improve their credibility as service providers before they could earn the right to re-position themselves as a constructive partner, rather than servant, to the business units.

Five years, two CEO’s, and an acquisition, later the client still uses the same structure of Balanced Scorecard and finds the IT strategy (and its strategy map and balanced scorecard) remained the driving force of the IT department.

This short case study describes the formulation and use of a Balanced Scorecard for the Strategy of an international Bank’s IT department.

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City Council strategy & change programme: Implement strategy of cost reduction and efficiency improvements by breaking down silos using Strategic Balanced Scorecard

Application: City Council Balanced Scorecard, Strategy execution, Strategic alignment, Joined up working, Cost management, Breaking down silos and improving efficiency

Techniques: Modern Balanced Scorecard, Strategy Maps, Tangible future, Cascade, Management team facilitation, Business planning


Implementing the City Council strategy & change programme: Implement strategy of cost reduction and efficiency improvements by breaking down silos using Strategic Balanced Scorecard

Peterborough City Council, wanted to develop and implement their strategy, simplify their business planning, improve effectiveness with joined up working and improve how strategy and performance were managed across the council. They also wanted their management team to work more closely together and that to ripple through the organisation, breaking down silos and creating efficiencies.

We helped the Executive team develop and cascade their strategy, using a Modern third generation balanced scorecard across all their departments: Education, Environmental services, Community services, Contract services, Adult Services, and the Chief Executive’s office.

Our approach introduced joined up working across the council. Rather than an expensive re-organisation of the management team and their departments, points of collaboraton were identified. Staff were encouraged to work across departmental silos in a joined up manner, with shared balanced scorecard objectives. Strategy maps were used to cascade the overall approach through to each department. Described by the Audit Commission as a model project.

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