Task: Gekko-Eco Balanced Scorecard
Objective
The objective of this project is to articulate measurement and management initiatives for a sustainability-focused business.
Gekko-Eco Hotels (GEH) is in the business of owning and running hotels with an ‘eco' theme - meaning they must be environmentally and socially responsible, but capable of making a good profit in the medium to long term; thus balancing the ‘triple bottom line'. There are 3 aspects to the business: eco-sleep; eco-eats; and eco-tours.
i. GEH has sold a large issue of shares, and has raised sufficient capital to go on a major expansion program
ii. A key financial focus is sales - GEH is interested in revenue growth, not short term profit, for the next three years.
iii. GEH is interested in tracking the relationship between operating costs and revenue - although it is acknowledged this may suffer as they go through a growth and learning phase
iv. GEH does not want more than 70 cents debt per dollar of assets - since this is the limit that has been set by its bankers
v. GEH acknowledges that many of the sites for its hotels are in communities where women and people with disabilities have been at particular disadvantage in relation to employment
vi. GEH has concluded that it must continually develop new services/products' and improve processes, and this should be done using the ideas and experiences of its customers and suppliers
vii. GEH notes that it cannot just say that the food and drink served in its eco-eats restaurants provides a ‘healthy' option, these products must be healthy in a discernible way
viii. GEH notes that small businesses have had trouble ‘getting off the ground' in many of its current and potential locations - and those that have started up have been constrained in their ability to grow
ix. In villages surrounding the cities in which GEH operates, there is often a very poor water supply from wells or polluted streams
x. GEH's business model relies on outsourcing of all laundry and cleaning services
xi. GEH purchases and runs the fleet of vehicles for its eco-tours
xii. GEH is determined to effectively use internet technologies (e.g. social media) to drive its growth and cut its costs (it has seen how Citizen M hotel in Paris CDG operates with electronic 1 minute check-in and check-out
Required
- As a ‘up and coming' manager in GEH, your ability to take a broad view of the organisation has been noted - and you have appointed to lead a project that develops measurement and management initiatives for the sustainability-focused business.
- For only ONE of the 3 aspects to the business (eco-sleep or eco-eats or eco-tours), GEH wants you to develop: a draft Balanced Scorecard.
- This is very much a draft report for discussion by senior management. It should be concise - something like: short introduction and executive summary (about ½ page); a BSC (about 2 to 2.5 pages); elaboration of initiatives in the form of an ‘initiative' / ‘objectives, enablers & disablers' table (about 1 to 1.5 pages). Bonus marks will be given for a sample reporting dashboard using Tableau or another dash-boarding package.
- Your BSC should be structured as: objective > measure > target > initiative
- BSC perspectives can be a 6 perspective model like: financial, customers, innovation, employees, internal processes & supply chain, innovation, environmental and social sustainability - or another model of your choice
- As it is a daft scorecard for discussion, each perspective could have between 4 and 10 objectives and related measures and initiatives