Balance Scorecard Essay Example for Free

Balance Scorecard Essay A Balanced Scorecard is a framework that focuses on shareholder, customer, internal and learning requirements of a business in order to create a system of linked objectives, measures, targets and initiatives which collectively describe the strategy of an organization and how that strategy can be achieved. † The Balanced scorecard retains the traditional financial measures and complements them with measures that are drivers of future performance. The objectives and measures of the scorecard are derived from an organizations vision and strategy and these view organizational performance. The balanced scorecard is a management system (not only a measurement system) that enables organizations to clarify their vision and strategy and translate them into action. It provides feedback around both the internal business processes and external outcomes in order to continuously improve strategic performance and results. When fully deployed, the balanced scorecard transforms strategic planning from an academic exercise into the nerve center of an enterprise. The balanced scorecard is a tool developed by Kaplan and Norton to articulate, execute and monitor strategy using a mix of financial and non-financial measures. It is designed to translate vision and strategy into objectives and measures across four balanced perspectives: financial, customers, internal business processes and learning and growth. It focuses on all the activities that generate financial results rather than the financial side alone. The scorecard depicts strategy as a series of cause-and-effect relationships between critical variables and gives a framework for ensuring that strategy is translated into a coherent set of performance measures. The use of a hierarchy of scorecards cascading through the organisation ensures that strategy and performance measurement is closely aligned. The Balanced Scorecard can act as both a control system and a management tool. In other words, it can be used for monitoring performance as well as for strategic planning. Its versatility may be one of the reasons why so many companies have chosen to adopt it.

Sharpios auto Wreck: The Theme Of Death Essay example -- essays rese

Sharpio's "Auto Wreck": The Theme of Death Few subjects can be discussed with more insightfulness and curiosity than death. The unpredictability and grimness of it are conveyed well in Karl Shapiro's poem, "Auto Wreck". The poem starts with a description of an ambulance rushing to the scene of a crash, and hurriedly gathering up the victims and rushing them away. The aftermath of the police investigation that follows leaves the crowd gathered around the scene to explore privately and individually a range of feelings and emotions about the reality of death. Shapiro's usage of imagery together with figurative language is a key element in getting the theme of death across to the reader. By bringing the scene of the accident to life and relaying the emotions of the spectators with language and several metaphors, the poem gains a realistic and sometimes transcendent effect. In some places in the poem, the words can easily be taken literally to convey scenery or an emotion, but they can also be taken so as to make the reader think about possible higher meanings. The thoughtsexpressed in the poem help to suggest these other meanings by clearly stating what is being felt by the speaker and the crowd around the accident. By stating clearly and vividly the emotions of the scene, it is easy for the reader to identify the theme itself, and also to identify with it. In the first stanza, the speaker describes the ambulance arriving on the scene more so than the actual scene itself. The ambulance is described using words such as "wings", "dips", and "floating", giving the impression of the hectic nature of its business at an accident. When the ambulance arrives and breaks through the crowd, "the doors leap open" to further convey the hurried state it's in. In line 5, as the ambulance passes the beacons and illuminated clocks, it gives the reader an obvious clue about setting. To take the words' meaning further, it can be argued that the illumination of the clocks and the emptying light in line 8 symbolize life itself as light in an otherwise dark situation. Also, the allusion to a heart by use of the words "pulsing", "artery" and "beating" personify the ambulance as the new life giving support of the victims of the crash. ... ... our physics with a sneer". Taking the meaning from these parts and the last lines of the poem takes the speaker and reader through the realization that death is unpredictable and thought provoking, knowing that it can happen in the worst way at any given time. "Auto Wreck" deals with the complex subject of death by exposing the reader to the feelings of the speaker after witnessing a crash. The theme that death is unpredictable and grim is presented through these feelings. The stanzas are set up such that the steps from shock to realization of what death contains can be presented in order of occurence. The first stanza describes the ambulance coming to try to save the victims, and the second stanza deals with the immediate aftermath of the crash. These first two stanzas really create a background to the final stanza, which takes the reader through a range of emotions along with the speaker. The last stanza entirely is the perfect example of how the imagery and figurative language get these emotions across to the reader. In doing such, the theme is revealed very clearly and the reader can think to himself for whom the bell really tolls.

Marketing in Contemporary Context

Marketing in Contemporary Contexts| October 15 2012 | From: Hong Minh VuStudent ID 1216011To: Dr. Amandeep TakharUnit leader of Marketing in Contemporary Contexts| | There can be various answers to this question, and it can be varied in depth and example. From my understanding, I feel that marketing does both. It creates and also satisfies needs of customers. For establised firms, it's essential to be able to satisfy the needs of customers. As they say, a satisfied customer is a profitable one.To be able to satisfy the customer's needs, the firm thus tries to understand it's customer's needs and then attempt try to deliver it. On the other hand, new firms or marketing these days also attempt to ‘create' needs. By doing so, the customer have a reason to buy the product. The basic reason customers purchase anything is they need it. However if customers have a perception that they do not need it, they may not purchase the product. Hence marketing these days have evolved to create needs for customers.Marketing these days does not only mean existing customers, which have needs but also non existing customers, which have no needs. Creating needs by marketing can mean the excellent usage of promotion activities, from words on a poster to colours on it. It can also mean effective sales techniques by the door to door salesman which can talk their way to sell you anything. The traditional concept of marketing was only about sales or meeting the â€Å"current needs† of a consumer. But the same cannot be felt, today with the number of firms on the rise in the same industry, state and even the same street.Everyone is in a race either to: * Capture a customer   and satisfy their needs * Create a customer and satisfy their needs. So what If the competitor has already captured the potential customer, there are many more people in the market yet to realize the need which is created but not actually needed. Let’s take an example. Mac Books or laptops are su ch a common commodity among students and even school kids irrespective of the fact that it is not really needed. Can’t they manage with a desktop at home? But now day’s companies do more! They educate people and give them eason to buy their products and this is what people might call it â€Å"creation of needs† people purchase something when they need it, if they think they do not need the product they may not purchase it. How many people today in Pakistan need I-pod? How many people really need Mobile + Internet + Camera + TV all in one set? Can we call it marketers created their needs? References Parsons, E. and Maclaran. P. (2010), Contemporary issues in Marketing & Consumer Behaviour, Butterworth Heinemann Kotler, P. and Keller, K. (2012), Marketing Management, Pearson Education

Definition and Examples of Word Words in English