Business 499 SLP 2: BSC Flexibility & the Customer Perspective

BSC Flexibility and the Customer Perspective
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Any organization requires being prepared for the future to create long-term profitability and survival. The balanced scorecard offers an approach to determine where a company is heading (its strategies), what is required to reach there (objectives), and what must be controlled and measured now to make certain that the organization remains on course to achieve the intended results in the future (Kasin, Sharda, and Hardgrave, 2012). In this paper, Wal-Mart is the organization of choice that is examined based on the balanced scorecard customer perspective. Within the balanced scorecard customer perspective, Wal-Mart assesses how effective the company is serving its targeted consumers to achieve its objectives. Wal-Mart mission is to become the best retail store with a big variety of products at low prices and high quality across its international branches. Its vision is to become the best and biggest retail company in the world through providing the best products, not just on time, but also to offer effective services. The strategy that Wal-Mart applies to achieve its mission and vision is to focus on developing knowledge and skills of all employees who are responsible for roles which are the key to the integrity and credibility of the company’s quality products and services (Acito and Khatri, 2014). Wal-Mart strives to ensure that individual employees are motivated to commit themselves and work harder to create quality products and efficient services that satisfy the needs of the customers. Wal-Mart lives by its mission through selling quality products at low prices to enable consumers save money and lead better lives. The company uses cost leadership strategy to focus on maintaining low prices of products and services, which has made the firm a great giant and world leader.
Customers have their own experiences with Wal-Mart’s products and services despite whether or not the company is consciously managing them. An efficient customer experience delights consumers by increasing adoption, loyalty, retention, and eventually revenue generation (Kasin, Sharda, and Hardgrave, 2012). Wal-Mart is a smart company that is aware that offering an efficient user experience (customer perspective) for services and products is an important competitive advantage. The company knows that it is a products’ user (consumer) experience that delights and attracts consumers and differentiates its products from other competitors.
Since user experience has become vital to Wal-Mart’s success in the market, and, therefore, its profitability, it is now part of its overall business strategy. Wal-Mart not only uses the balanced scorecard to measure and manage user experience but also manages its strategy and measures its progress towards achieving the company’s goals (Acito and Khatri, 2014). Wal-Mart uses the balanced scorecard to align its business objectives to the company’s mission, vision, and strategy and to balance its strategic objectives based on the four perspectives.
In customer perspective, to achieve its vision, Wal-Mart looks at its customers and, therefore, reflects on the customer expectations, whi...