Omega 40 (2012) 6578

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Omega
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/omega

An integrated approach to evaluation and planning of best practices

Yan Xu, Chung-Hsing Yeh n
Faculty of Information Technology, Monash University, Clayton, Victoria 3800, Australia

a r t i c l e i n f o
Article history: Received 21 April 2010 Accepted 30 March 2011 Processed by Associate editor Kao Available online 8 April 2011 Keywords: Multicriteria evaluation Best practices Prioritization Balanced scorecard Multiattribute decision making

abstract
This paper develops a new integrated evaluation and planning approach for implementing a given set of best practices in a prioritized and phased manner. The best practices are implemented for achieving lower-level business unit objectives and higher-level strategic goals of an organization. With a multiattribute decision making algorithm under the balanced scorecard (BSC) framework, a new evaluation model is developed to effectively measure the relationship between lower-level objectives and higher-level goals, and to give each best practice a relative priority value. A new adjustment method is also developed to address potential biases in the self-assessment process at the business unit level. The evaluation model enables the prioritization and implementation planning of best practices in terms of their importance and achievability from the viewpoints of the organization, four BSC strategic perspectives, individual business units, and the overall implementation planning zone. An empirical study is conducted to demonstrate the applicability and effectiveness of the integrated evaluation and planning approach. & 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction Best practices have been widely implemented in an organization as a technique, method, process, activity, or mechanism in order to optimize the result of production or management practices and to minimize the possibility of mistakes. As a business buzzword, best practices are commonly used to describe the most efcient and effective way of accomplishing a task or achieving a goal [1]. The importance of adopting best practices has been well recognized in practice. With limited resources available, it is of strategic importance for an organization to evaluate the best practices to be implemented for effective management of their implementation in a prioritized and phased manner. From the organizational perspective, the best practices to be implemented usually have different degrees of importance (or potential contribution) to the global strategic goals of the organization, on which the evaluation of best practices should be based. To implement best practices for achieving its global strategic goals, the organization requires a group of strategic or operational business units to work together. Under the current operational settings and resource availability, the best practices often have different levels of achievability when being implemented at the corresponding business units. Thus, the evaluation

Corresponding author. Tel.: 61 3 99055808; fax: 61 3 99055159. E-mail addresses: ChungHsing.Yeh@monash.edu, ChungHsing.Yeh@infotech.monash.edu.au (C.-H. Yeh). 0305-0483/$ - see front matter & 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.omega.2011.03.007

of best practices should also consider their achievability as it will affect their contribution to the global strategic goals. As such, best practices should be implemented in a prioritized manner according to their relative importance and achievability. However, how to effectively prioritize a given set of best practices and strategically plan their implementation for achieving the global strategic goals of the organization remains an open issue. This issue is complicated by the fact that the best practices are performed at the corresponding business units essentially for achieving their own local operational objectives, while being evaluated in terms of their contribution to the higher-level global strategic goals of the organization. To ensure effective implementation of best practices at individual business units for achieving the organizations global strategic goals, it is desirable to plan their implementation in a phased manner from the perspectives of both the organization and individual business units. To address this issue of strategic importance for an organization, we develop a new integrated evaluation and planning approach. The approach integrates the balanced scorecard (BSC) framework and multiattribute decision making (MADM) technique to evaluate the contribution of best practices. The BSC has been widely implemented by organizations as a performance management and measurement tool [2]. MADM has been widely used to evaluate a nite set of decision alternatives with respect to a set of evaluation criteria [35]. In addition, the approach integrates higher-level organization goals and lower-level business unit objectives as the evaluation criteria to evaluate the contribution of best practices. The approach also integrates the viewpoints of the organization, the BSC strategic perspectives and

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individual business units to plan the phased implementation of best practices. In subsequent sections, we rst present the BSC-based MADM evaluation framework with discussions on best practices, the BSCbased framework and the MADM evaluation. Next, we develop a new evaluation model that integrates the BSC and MADM for solving the general best practice evaluation problem. We then develop a new implementation planning process for facilitating the phased implementation of best practices based on the evaluation result. Finally, we conduct an empirical study to demonstrate the effectiveness of the integrated approach for the prioritization and planning of a large set of best practices.

2. A BSC-based MADM framework for best practice evaluation 2.1. Best practices Best practices are viewed as precious treasures acquired over time from numerous success or failure experiences in a wide variety of industries and academic institutions [611]. Best practices are distinguished from good practices by their repeatability and universality. Only those practices that have been widely recognized over time as excellent approaches for many organizations and recommended by a large number of practitioners or experts to adopt for successful results are regarded as best practices. Best practices can be identied and learnt from many sources, such as industrial experiences (e.g. practitioners, company handbooks), consulting experiences (e.g. experts), advanced information systems (e.g. enterprise resource planning systems, technology providers) and knowledge base (e.g. literature, eld studies, conferences and workshops). As there is no universal denition of best practices, we describe best practices from two perspectives: process-oriented and outcome-oriented. From a process-oriented perspective, best practices are processes or activities that can improve the status quo or optimize existing business processes. From an outcome-oriented perspective, best practices are activities or approaches that can deliver value to customers and bring continuous competitive advantage to an organization. The former emphasizes the process optimization and business improvement, whereas the latter focuses on customer satisfaction and organization sustainability. Based on their process-oriented or outcome-oriented functionality, a diverse set of best practices are implemented at specic strategic or operational business units of an organization for covering its functional areas as much as possible in order to achieve its strategic goals and to meet its operational objectives. To address this issue, we use the BSC framework to organize the best practices in alignment with the strategic goals of the organization and the operational objectives of its business units. This is because the BSC has been prevalently used by organizations to set up their goals, overall strategies and functional tactics. 2.2. The BSC-based framework As a performance management and measurement tool, the BSC has been used to articulate and communicate the strategy of the business, and to help align organizational, cross-department, and individual initiatives to achieve common goals [12]. With the BSC framework, an organization can manage its performance through four strategic perspectives: (a) learning and growth, which focuses on an organizations ability to change and improve for achieving its vision, (b) internal process, which focuses on the business processes that an organization must excel at in order to satisfy its shareholders and customers, (c) customer, which

focuses on the strategy for creating value of the customers, and (d) nancial, which focuses on the strategy for satisfying the shareholders [13,14]. The BSC can be used to facilitate the development of the organizations strategic goals and their associated performance measures for each BSC strategic perspective. The most mentionable merit of the BSC is that it maintains the balance (a) between long-term strategies and short-term activities, (b) between longterm goals and short-term objectives, (c) between nancial and non-nancial measures, and (d) among all the four strategic perspectives. With this merit, the BSC has been suggested as a framework for grouping the criteria and measures for evaluating a set of alternatives in various decision settings such as IT investments [15], R&D projects [16], ERP systems [17], and banks [18]. In this paper, we use the BSC to group (a) global strategic goals of an organization and their associated performance measures, (b) local objectives of its business units, and (c) best practices to be implemented. The global strategic goals and their associated performance measures can be identied and grouped into four BSC perspectives of the organization BSC. In cascading the BSC down to the business units, it serves as a foundation of development for all other BSCs at the business unit level. A cascaded BSC will ensure the goal alignment across the organizational hierarchy and establish the linkage of long-term strategies and short-term activities (e.g. best practices implementation). Cascading a BSC is thus a strategic mechanism for (a) increasing the visibility of the organization mission and strategic goals, (b) creating a strategic alignment of the entire organization, and (c) providing better insight and control of the overall performance. In order to help achieve the global strategic goals of an organization efciently and effectively, a set of best practices is to be implemented at a group of business units. Depending on their functionality and applicability, these best practices can be implemented either in one specic business unit or across a number of business units in order to help achieve their own local objectives. Thus, implementing best practices will achieve both the local objectives at the business unit level and the global strategic goals at the organization level. The local objectives to be achieved and the best practices to be implemented at individual business units can be identied and grouped into four BSC perspectives of business unit BSCs, which are aligned with the organization BSC. Under the cascaded BSC framework, the higher-level global strategic goals of the organization, the lower-level local objectives of the business units and the to-be-implemented best practices are all grouped and aligned into four BSC strategic perspectives. However, no formal methodology has been proposed for linking lower-level local objectives with higher-level global strategic goals in a measurable manner. In this paper, we develop a new evaluation model with an MADM algorithm to measure the relationship between the global strategic goals of an organization and the local objectives of its business units. Equipped with the MADM algorithm under the BSC framework, the evaluation model can prioritize a given set of best practices by their relative importance and achievability from the aspects of the whole organization, four BSC perspectives, individual business units, and overall implementation planning zone, respectively. In addition, implementation planning of best practices can be conducted from the viewpoints of the whole organization, four BSC perspectives and individual business units in an integrated and balanced manner. 2.3. MADM evaluation Research in MADM has suggested the use of simple, understandable, and usable approaches for solving practical MADM

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problems [19]. Multiattribute value theory (MAVT) developed by Keeney and Raiffa [20] has been widely used in solving MADM problems [19,21]. MAVT has a thorough axiomatic basis for dealing with problems of measurement of weights [22]. MAVTbased MADM methods will generate a cardinal preference or ranking of the decision alternatives, for each of which a relative score is obtained. This is the fundamental methodology on which the evaluation model developed in this paper for prioritizing best practices is based. Based on the merits of MAVT in dealing with weights, the simple weighted-sum method used in MADM is used to determine the relative importance (weight) of each local business unit objective with respect to the organizations global strategic goals, thus quantitatively measuring the relationship between the lower-level local objectives and the higher-level global strategic goals. The aggregation method is also used to give each best practice a relative importance value in terms of its contribution to the organizations global strategic goals.

contribute to the global strategic goals Gj of the organization as a whole, two sets of subjective assessments are to be made at the business unit and organization levels, respectively. In making subjective assessments using absolute judgment, a point estimate measurement such as a ve-point Likert type scale has been conveniently and effectively used [2325]. The rating value in a ve-point scale is given by using a set of ve linguistic terms {Very Low, Low, Medium, High, Very High}, which is associated with a corresponding set of numerical values {1, 2, 3, 4, 5} [24]. When associated with a numerical scale, these linguistic terms have a strong qualitative connotation which can successfully be used in MADM [26]. This set of linguistic terms is thus well suited to assess (a) the performance rating of best practices at the business unit level and (b) the contribution rating of business units local objectives at the organization level. For assessing the achievability level of best practices at the business unit level, a scale of 1100% is used.

3. The evaluation model for prioritizing best practices 3.1. Problem formulation A set of best practices are to be implemented at a group of business units Ui (i1, 2, y, I) to help achieve the global strategic goals Gj of a business organization across four BSC perspectives Pj (j 1, 2, 3, 4). The achievement of each global strategic goal Gj is measured by a set of performance measures Cjh (h1, 2, y, Hj). These performance measures are independent and compensatory of each other in terms of their contribution to the corresponding global strategic goal, thus being regarded as the evaluation criteria in the context of MADM. Each business unit Ui implements a set of best practices Aijk (k1, 2, y, Kij) which are grouped into four BSC perspectives Pj. As the decision alternatives in MADM, Aijk represents the kth best practice at business units Ui under BSC perspective Pj. These best practices can be identied as unit-specic best practices which are unique for a specic business unit, or as cross-unit best practices which are shared by two or more business units. Implementing best practices Aijk at a business unit Ui will achieve a set of its local objectives Oijl (l 1, 2, y, Lij), which are grouped into four BSC perspectives Pj. Achieving local objectives Oijl of business unit Ui will achieve the corresponding global strategic goals Gj. The purpose of the evaluation problem is to rank all the best practices by giving each of them a relative priority value in terms of its overall contribution to the global strategic goals of the organization. The priority value of a best practice is obtained by multiplying its relative importance value by its achievability level. The relative importance value Vijk of a best practice Aijk indicates the degree to which it contributes to the corresponding global strategic goal of the organization as a whole. The achievability level Zijk of a best practice Aijk represents the degree to which it can be effectively achieved under the current operational settings. The relative importance value is obtained by an MADM algorithm based on the assessments made at the business unit and organization levels, whereas the achievability level is assessed at the business unit level. The evaluation procedure begins with a subjective assessment process. It is assumed that there is no measurement error in the assessment process. 3.2. The assessment process To evaluate the relative importance value of best practices Aijk implemented at each business unit Ui with regard to how they

3.2.1. Assessment at the business unit level For a business unit Ui, the performance rating of each best practice Aijk with respect to each business unit objective Oijl under a given BSC perspective Pj is assessed. This assessment process results in a decision matrix X(kl) consisting of performance ratings xij(kl). These performance ratings indicate the degree to which best practice Aijk satises business unit objectives Oijl. With I business units and four BSC perspectives, there are (I 4) decision matrices to be assessed. As the best practices are to be implemented at business units for enhancing their operations, individual business units will have sufcient knowledge and experience to self-assess the degree to which the best practices would contribute to each of their own local objectives. As such, the performance ratings xij(kl) are often determined by a self-assessment process conducted at individual business units. In some decision settings, this self-assessment process is required to ensure the effectiveness of the assessment [27]. However, biases may exist in the self-assessment process due to varying individualities of the assessors. Strict assessors tend to give lower values than generous assessors for the same performance of a best practice. In addition, individual business units may intentionally overvalue or undervalue the contribution of the best practices to their local objectives. Although many studies have observed the impact of biases in self-assessment, little has been done to address this issue [2831]. To deal with potential biases in the self-assessment process at the business unit level, we develop an adjustment method. The method introduces an adjustment factor for making all performance ratings self-assessed by individual business units have the same mean value. This adjustment is to ensure that the average performance of the best practices assessed at individual business units is the same. That is, it makes each business unit use the same mean value to assess the performance of the best practices. The assessments made at each business unit are thus used to reect the relative value of the performance ratings of the best practices within the business unit. For each business unit Ui under each BSC perspective Pj, the adjustment factor aij is obtained by aij Nij Mj =Tij ; i 1,2,. . .,I; j 1,2,3,4 1

where Nij is the number of the best practices; Tij is the sum of all performance ratings of best practices; Mj is the mean of all performance ratings of best practices under Pj. Nij, Tij and Mj are given as Nij Kij Lij 2

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Kij Lij XX l1k1 I X i1

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Tij

xij kl !

Mj

Tij =Nij =I

The adjusted performance ratings of best practices at each business unit Ui under each BSC perspective Pj can be obtained by multiplying the self-assessed performance ratings by the adjustment factor aij as x0ij kl xij kl aij ; i 1,2,. . .,I; j 1,2,3,4 5

It is noteworthy that the adjustment method will not affect the relative value of the performance ratings of the best practices selfassessed at each business unit. It will only make the performance ratings of best practices across individual business units unbiasedly comparable, as they share a common assessment value base by having the same mean value. However, this adjustment may not be needed if an organization believes that biased self-assessments do not exist at its business units. The achievability level Zijk of a best practice Aijk at each business unit Ui within each BSC perspective Pj is assessed subjectively based on the current operational settings using the scale of 1100%. Each best practice is assessed individually and independently of other best practices. 3.2.2. Assessment at the organization level For each global strategic goal Gj, the contribution rating of each local objective Oijl at each business unit Ui with respect to each performance measure Cjh is assessed. This assessment process produces a goal-alignment matrix Y(lh) consisting of contribution ratings yij(lh). These contribution ratings indicate the degree to which the local objective Oijl of business unit Ui satises each of the associated performance measures Cjh of the corresponding global strategic goal Gj. With I business units and four global strategic goals, there are (I 4) goal-alignment matrices to be assessed. The assessment is also needed to determine the relative importance (weight) of each performance measure Cjh with respect to the global strategic goal Gj, resulting in the weight vector Wj represented as (wj1, wj2, y, wjHj). In this study, we assume that the four global strategic goals Gj of the organization across the four BSC perspectives are of equal importance. Given (a) the (I 4) decision matrices X(kl) assessed at the business unit level, and (b) the (I 4) goal-alignment matrices Y(lh) and the four weight vectors Wj assessed at the organization level, the relative importance value of each best practice with respect to the corresponding global strategic goal can be obtained by an MADM algorithm. The priority value of a best practice is thus obtained by multiplying its relative importance value by its achievability level. 3.3. The MADM algorithm To solve the general best practice evaluation problem formulated above, we use an MAVT-based MADM method with a linear additive weighted value function for aggregating the decision matrix (or the goal-alignment matrix) and its associated weight vector. The linear form of the additive value function or the weighted-sum method is the most used form in practice, due to its intuitive interpretation and easy computation. It has been applied in widely used MADM methods such as simple additive weighting (SAW) and the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) [3,32,33]. With the use of equal attribute weights, it is in essence the same as a popularly used traditional scoring method called the total sum method [34]. Thus, the use of the linear additive

weighted value function for value aggregation is intuitively appealing to the decision makers in practical applications. Research results have shown that the linear form of trade-offs between attributes used in the additive value function produces extremely close approximations to complicated nonlinear forms, while maintaining far easier to use and understand [3]. In addition to its comprehensibility, this additive method is well justied theoretically and empirically, thus being considered a valid approach [3540]. In the algorithm, the weighted-sum method is rst used to aggregate the contribution ratings yij(lh) in the goal-alignment matrices and the weight wjh of performance measures in the weight vector Wj for business unit Ui within each global strategic goal Gj, as follows: sijl
Hj X h1

wjh yij lh;

Hj X h1

wjh 1;

l 1,2,. . .,Li:j :

The vector Sij (sij1, sij2, y, sijLij) given in Eq. (6) represents the relative importance (weight) of local objectives Oijl of business unit Ui with respect to the global strategic goal Gj. With I business units and four global strategic goals, there are (I 4) weight vectors Sij to be generated. This procedure of generating the weight vectors Sij represents a new and effective way of measuring the relationship between the local objectives of the business units and the global strategic goals of the organization. The weights of business unit objectives obtained by Eq. (6) are to be aggregated with the performance ratings of the best practices in the corresponding decision matrices in order to obtain an importance value for each best practice, relative to other best practices. As such, the weights of business unit objectives obtained across all business units and BSC perspectives have to be compatible (i.e. on a common scale) for enabling the inter-unit and inter-perspective aggregations and comparisons. For a given BSC perspective, the weights of business unit objectives obtained within a business unit are comparable with that of other business units, as the assessments are based on the same set of performance measures for the BSC perspective. However, the weights of business unit objectives obtained within a BSC perspective may not be compatible with that obtained within other BSC perspectives. This is because the global strategic goals under four BSC perspectives have different sets of performance measures. To make the weights of business unit objectives across all the four BSC perspectives comparable, the following normalization process is used: , Lij I XX s0ijl sijl sijl ; j 1,2,3,4: 7
i1l1

This process makes the normalized weights of business unit objectives within a BSC perspective sum to 1, i.e.
Lij I XX i1l1

s0ijl 1;

j 1,2,3,4:

Given the performance ratings xij(kl) of best practices Aijk at business unit Ui across four BSC perspectives Pj and the normalized weights s0 ijl of business unit objectives Oijl, the relative importance value Vijk of best practices Aijk with respect to the global strategic goals is obtained by using the weighted-sum method again as Vijk
Lij X l1

s0ijl xij kl;

i 1,2,. . .,I;

k 1,2,. . .,Ki:j :

The relative importance value of a best practice indicates the degree to which the best practice implemented at the

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Business unit Ui

Business unit U1, BSC perspective P1 (i = 1, j = 1) P1

BSC perspective Pj

Organization goal Gj

G1 Weight vector Wj of performance measures (w11, w12, ...., w1H1) C11, C12, ...., C1H1 Contribution Goal-alignment ratings matrix Y(lh) yij(lh) x11 (11) ... x11 (K11 1) O111, O112, ...., O11L11
y11 (1H1) ... y11 (L11 1)
Hj

Performance measure Cjh (h=1, 2, ...., Hj)

h =1

w jh yij (lh)

Weight vector Sij of local objectives (s111, s112, ...., s11L11)

Local objective Oijl (l=1, 2, ...., Lij)

Normalization
Lij

Best practice Aijk (k=1, 2, ...., Kij)

Performance ratings xij(kl) A111, A112, ...., A11K11

Decision matrix X(kl)

l =1

s 'ijl xij ( kl )

Relative importance value of best practices Vijk (V111, V112, ...., V11K11)

x11 (11) ... x11 (K11 1) x11 (1L11) ... x11 (K11 L11)

Fig. 1. The assessment and evaluation processes of best practices.

corresponding business unit contributes to the achievement of the organizations global strategic goals, relative to other best practices. Fig. 1 shows how the decision matrix and the goal alignment matrix are constructed and related using the performance ratings and the contribution ratings assessed at the business unit and organization levels respectively, using business unit U1 (i1) and BSC perspective P1 (j 1) as an example. It also shows how Eqs. (6)(8) are related with the elements in the matrices for obtaining the relative importance value V11k of best practices A11k (k1, 2, y K11). The achievability level Zijk of a best practice Aijk is assessed by the corresponding business unit Ui. Given the importance value Vijk and the achievability level Zijk, the priority value PVijk of a best practice Aijk is obtained by PVijk Vijk Zijk ; i 1,2,. . .,I; j 1,2,3,4; k 1,2,. . .,Kij 9

Contingency zone

Priority zone

Achievability

II

III

IV

Non-priority zone

Long-term zone

Relative importance
Fig. 2. Four implementation planning zones of best practices.

The solution procedure for the general best practice evaluation problem presented above is summarized as follows: Step 1: Assess the performance ratings xij(kl) of best practices Aijk to obtain (I 4) decision matrices for each business unit Ui (i1, 2, y, I) under each BSC perspective Pj (j 1, 2, 3, 4). Step 2: Adjust the performance ratings xij(kl) by Eq. (5) if a selfassessment process is conducted and the bias issue is to be addressed. Step 3: Assess the achievability level Zijk of best practices Aijk at each business unit Ui under each BSC perspective Pj. Step 4: Assess the contribution ratings yij(lh) of business unit objectives to obtain (I 4) goal-alignment matrices for each business unit Ui and performance measures Cjh of the global strategic goal Gj under the corresponding BSC perspective Pj. Step 5: Assess the weight vectors Wj of performance measures under each BSC perspectives Pj. Step 6: Obtain (I 4) weight vectors Sij of each business unit Ui under each BSC perspective Pj by Eq. (6). Step 7: Normalize weight vectors Sij within each BSC perspective Pj by Eq. (7). Step 8: Calculate the relative importance value Vijk of best practices Aijk by Eq. (8). Step 9: Calculate the relative priority value PVijk of best practices Aijk by Eq. (9).

Step 10: Prioritize best practices Aijk according to their relative priority value PVijk.

4. Implementation planning of best practices In addition to prioritizing the best practices, it is of strategic signicance to categorize these best practices for facilitating effective planning and management of their implementation at the corresponding business units. With their relative importance value and achievability level obtained by the evaluation model, the best practices can be categorized into a planning matrix, as shown in Fig. 2. The planning matrix divided into four quadrants can be used as strategic maps or action diagrams to classify actions [41]. The mean of the relative importance value V and the mean of achievability level Z divide the matrix into four planning zones: (I) priority zonehigh importance and high achievability, (II) contingency zonelow importance and high achievability, (III) nonpriority zonelow importance and low achievability, and (IV) longterm zonehigh importance and low achievability [42]. In strategy planning and development, arithmetic mean values are often used to divide the planning matrix [43]. By means of the evaluation model, the mean importance value V and the mean achievability level Z can be obtained from three planning dimensions: organization, BSC perspective, and business

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unit. From the organization dimension, the mean importance value Vo and the mean achievability level Zo are calculated from all the best practices in the organization. From the BSC perspective dimension, only the best practices within each BSC perspective Pj (j1, 2, 3, 4) are considered for calculating the mean importance value Vpj and the mean achievability level Zpj . From the business unit dimension, only the best practices within each business unit Ui (i1, 2, y, I) are used to compute the mean importance value Vui and the mean achievability level Zui . With three different sets of mean values, implementation planning of best practices can be conducted from these three dimensions, respectively. Thus, a best practice may fall into different implementation planning zones under different dimensions. To have an integrated and balanced view, implementation planning of best practices should ideally consider all three dimensions for effective implementation. Considering both the organization and the business unit dimensions will facilitate the strategic implementation of best practices, as it aligns the local objectives of individual business units with the global strategic goals of the organization. Considering the BSC perspective dimension will enable the organization to gain a balance of its strategic portfolios from four strategic perspectives. With the BSC, strategic planning is carried out with a balanced view of four strategic perspectives. Using the evaluation model developed in this paper, strategic implementation planning can be conducted by considering the views of the whole organization, four BSC perspectives, and individual business units in an integrated and balanced manner. To achieve this, a best practice will be assigned an overall planning zone by considering its planning zones from three planning dimensions. In order to obtain the overall planning zone for a best practice, a total planning score is calculated for the best practice. A best practice is assigned a planning zone (PZ) (with a value of I, II, III, or IV as shown in Fig. 2) from each of the organization, BSC perspective and business unit dimensions (denoted as PZo, PZp and PZu, respectively). According to its assigned planning zone (PZ) from the three dimensions, a best practice Aijk is given a planning score (PSV) for the importance value Vijk and a planning score (PSZ) for the achievability level Zijk as ( PSV 1, 0, ( PSZ if PZ I or IV if PZ II or III 10

An overall planning zone for best practices with TPSijk 3 or 4 is determined by

( PZijk II, IV, if PSVoijk PSVpijk PSVuijk r PSZoijk PSZpijk PSZuijk if PSVoijk PSVpijk PSVuijk 4 PSZoijk PSZpijk PSZuijk

14 Eq. (14) indicates that a best practice is categorized into an overall planning zone II, if its total planning score for the importance value is equal to or smaller than its total planning score for the achievability level from the three dimensions. This implies that the best practice has a relative low importance, and its implementation will be contingent upon operational settings. On the contrary, a best practice categorized into an overall planning zone IV will have a relative low achievability, and its implementation needs to take a long-term view.

5. Empirical study To demonstrate how the integrated evaluation and planning approach works, we conduct an empirical study on a manufacturing company which has determined to implement a set of best practices to help achieve its global strategic goals. These best practices are to be implemented at ve strategically divided business units (Ui), including nance and accounting (U1), manufacturing, supply chain and logistics (U2), sales, marketing and customer services (U3), human resources (U4), and administration/IT support (U5). The company has adopted the BSC as its strategic management tool for establishing its global strategic goals as well as local business unit objectives within each of four BSC perspectives (Pj), including learning and growth (P1), internal process (P2), customer (P3), and nancial (P4), as given in Table 1. The local objectives of each business unit are identied to achieve the global strategic goal of the company within each BSC perspective. The company has also used the BSC as a performance measurement tool to set up the performance measures for evaluating the performance of business units in achieving its global strategic goals, as given in Row 4 of Table 1. To help achieve the local business unit objectives for contributing to its global strategic goals, the company has identied 18 cross-unit and 36 unit-specic best practices for possible implementation at its ve business units, to which 21, 25, 19, 17, and 14 best practices are designated, respectively. Table 1 shows these best practices Aijk under each business unit Ui within each BSC perspective Pj. The description of each best practice is given in Appendix A. With such a large set of best practices to be considered for implementation under limited resources, it is essential for the company to prioritize these best practices for planning and managing their implementation efciently and effectively. The evaluation model and the implementation planning process developed in this paper provide the company with a structured approach to prioritizing and planning these best practices in a measurable form. When applying the integrated approach, it is assumed that there is no measurement error in the subjective assessment process. 5.1. Prioritization of best practices Each of the ve business units assesses the performance rating of each best practice with respect to their own local objectives, resulting in 20 decision matrices. Each business unit also assesses the achievability level of these best practices by considering the current available resources and operational settings. The decision matrices are to be adjusted due to the self-assessment process. As an example, the decision matrix X(kl) (k1, 2, 3, 4; l 1, 2, 3) for

1, 0,

if PZ I or II if PZ III or IV

11

A total planning score (TPSijk) for the best practice is then calculated by summing up the planning scores for the importance value (PSV) and the achievability level (PSZ) from the three dimensions by TPSijk PSVoijk PSVpijk PSVuijk PSZoijk PSZpijk PSZuijk 12

where PSVoijk and PSZoijk represent the planning scores for the importance value (PSV) and for the achievability level (PSZ) of best practice Aijk from the organization dimension; PSVpijk and PSZpijk from the BSC perspective dimension; PSVuijk and PSZuijk from the business unit dimension. According to the total planning score (TPSijk), each best practice Aijk can be categorized into an overall planning zone (PZijk) by 8 > I, < PZijk II or IV, > : III, if TPSijk 5 or 6 if TPSijk 3 or 4 if TPSijk 1 or 2 13

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Table 1 The two-level cascaded BSC and associated best practices. Pj Perspectives P1 Learning and Growth P2 Internal Process P3 Customer P4 Financial

Organization Level Gj Global strategic G1 Facilitating continuous goal business growth and adaptation Cjh Performance measure C11 Flexibility C12 Adaptability C13 Sustainability C14 Competence for innovation

G2 Integrating, standardizing, extending and facilitating the agility and exibility of business processes C21 Optimization suitability C22 Process standardization C23 Process automaticity

G3 Providing effective service to and establishing effective partnerships with both internal and external business partners C31 Reliability C32 Satisability

G4 Improving market value and competition and ensuring nancial health, strength and sustainable growth C41 Protability C42 Financial controllability

Business Unit Level U1: Finance and Accounting Oijl Local objective O111 Gaining deep visibility O121 Consolidating, streamlining and into the organization automating nancial and accounting processes O112 Understanding the O122 Improving nancial control and role of technology in managing risks nancial service O113 Training employees for better decision making skills Aijk Best practice A111 Cross-training A121 E-fulllment A112 Team empowerment and involvement A113 Incentives and recognition A114 Leverage technology

O131 Rapid generates advanced reporting and analysis O132 Satisfying unique customer information needs O133 Shortening days sales outstanding A131 Communications

O141 Optimizing cash management and tracking O142 Making nance costs more competitive O143 Improving corporate governance and transparency A141 Continuous control and management A142 Flexible allocation

A122 Back and front ofces alignment A132 Standardized utilization A123 Process simplication A124 Process automation A125 Process integration A126 Process redesign A127 Standard operation procedures A128 Streamlined and expedited procedures A129 Centralization A1210 Outsourcing noncore functions A1211 Documentation and reports A1212 Graphics and analysis A1213 Accelerating information circulation

U2: Manufacturing, Supply Chain and Logistics Oijl Local objective O211 Increasing speed to O221 Automating and accelerating the O231 Anticipating and adapt to innovation manufacturing process customer demand O212 Streamlining product design and conguration O213 Easily adaptable to production environment O222 Improving operational efciency and productivity O223 Optimizing resource utilization and production scheduling O224 Improving inventory and capacity management O225 Accelerating the supply chain A221 Process integration A222 Process redesign A223 Process automation A224 Work assignment optimization A225 Standard operation procedures A226 Re-sequencing and parallelism A227 Streamlined and expedited procedures A228 Inventory optimization A229 Outsourcing noncore functions A2210 Optimal supply chain design O321 Improving sales process O322 Faster and more accurate transaction activities O323 Obtaining a complete view of a customers information O331 Improving customer service and support O332 Meeting customer needs efciently and proactively O232 Improving product quality O233 Improving on time delivery and minimizing delays O234 Building long term agreement with partner A231 Customer engagement A232 Fine-tuning and consolidate partnerships A233 Lead time reduction A234 Demand identication A235 Supply demand synchronization A236 Involvement rationalization

O241 Increasing throughput while simultaneously reducing both inventory and operating expense O242 Optimum cost efciency of purchasing operations O243 Reducing inventory-carrying cost O244 Reducing labor cost

Aijk Best practice

A211 Strategy alignment A212 Leverage technology A213 Quick changeover A214 Cross-training A215 Team empowerment and involvement A216 Incentives and recognition A217 Visibility enhancement

A241 Minimizing nonstrategic spending A242 Flexible allocation

U3: Sales, Marketing and Customer Services Oijl Local objective O311 Better customer expectation setting O312 Increasing engagement across the industry

O341 Achieving sales effectiveness O342 Better forecasting O343 Increasing market share

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Table 1 (continued ) Pj Perspectives P1 Learning and Growth P2 Internal Process P3 Customer O333 Developing more protable and long term relationships with customers O334 Building and promote competitive products A331 Demand identication A332 Fine-tuning and consolidate partnerships A333 Information accessible A334 Monitoring and tracking A335 Communication A336 Change management A337 Dual responsibility A338 Customer-centric resolution O431 Creating good relationships between internal and external partners O432 Achieving sustainable, renewable community support P4 Financial

Aijk Best practice

A311 Strategy alignment A312 Cross-training A313 Leverage technology

A321 Process redesign A322 Process integration A323 A324 A325 A326 Process simplication Process automation Work assignment optimization Outsourcing non-core functions

A341 Forecasting and prediction A342 Cost management

U4: Human Resources Oijl Local objective O411 Increasing employee condence O412 Providing sufcient training and career development O413 Facilitating knowledge acquisition and sharing A411 Strategy alignment A412 Incentives and recognition A413 Cross-training A414 Learning to learn A415 Leverage technology A416 Team empowerment and involvement

O421 Automating all fundamental HR processes and supplying a fast and accurate view of HR-related activities O422 Creating a web of relationships among employees that enhance strategic capability

O441 Reducing turnover in core functions O442 Cost-efcient workforce management O443 Efcient HR cost control

AijkBest practice

A421 Process simplication A422 Process automation A423 Process integration A424 Standard operation procedures A425 Streamlined and expedited procedures A426 Outsourcing noncore functions

A431 Highlighting performers A432 Communication A433 Fine-tuning and consolidate partnerships

A441 Payment management A442 Forecasting and prediction

U5: Administration/IT Support Oijl Local objective O511 Increasing the ability O521 Providing responsive, effective to deploy new information and centralized administrative system functionality activities to support quality strategic and tactical decision-making O522 Increasing IT infrastructure O512 Improving the enterprise information capability innovation level O523 Guaranteeing the smooth operation of facilities Aijk Best practice A511 Learning to learn A521 Buffer tuning A512 Environment A522 Strategy-tactics decision monitoring A513 Leverage A523 Audit before edit organizational kno/wledge A524 Process automation A525 Continuous system improvement A526 Documentation and reports A527 Alternative solution preparation

O531 Improving communication and coordination

O541 Optimizing information systems spending

O542 Administrative savings O543 IT cost and maintenance reduction A541 Forecasting and prediction A542 Information technology plan development A543 Potential cost identication

A531 Communications

four best practices Aijk (i1; j 1; k1, 2, 3, 4) at the nancial and accounting unit (U1) under the learning and growth perspective (P1) is assessed as 2 4 65 6 6 45 3 4 5 4 3 5 3 47 7 7: 35 4

matrix at U1 under P1 is calculated as 2 3 3:87 3:87 4:48 6 4:84 4:84 3:87 7 6 7 X 0 kl 6 7 4 4:84 3:87 2:90 5 2:90 2:90 3:87 by Eq. (5). That is, the performance ratings assessed at U1 under P1 are scaled down by the adjustment factor of 0.967. This is because the average performance of the best practices assessed at business unit U1 under P1 (being 4.08349/12) is slightly higher than the average performance of the best practices assessed at all business units under P1 (being 3.95). For U2, U3, U4 and U5 under P1, the adjustment factors are 1.077, 0.948, 1.030, and 0.988, respectively. The achievability level of the four best practices is assessed as Zijk (0.3, 0.7, 0.5, 0.5) (i1; j 1; k1, 2, 3, 4).

According to Eqs. (1)(4), the adjustment factor for U1 under P1 is a11 N11 M1 /T11 12 3.95/49 0.967, where 12 is the number of the best practices at U1 under P1; 3.95 is the mean of all performance ratings of 23 ( 47 363) best practices at the ve business units under P1; 49 is the sum of all performance ratings of best practices at U1 under P1. The adjusted decision

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Table 2 Priority value and ranking of the best practices. Business unit BSC perspective Best practice Importance value Achievability level Priority value Ranking Business unit BSC perspective Organization Overall planning zone I U1 P1 A111 A112 A113 A114 A121 A122 A123 A124 A125 A126 A127 A128 A129 A1210 A1211 A1212 A1213 A131 A132 A141 A142 A211 A212 A213 A214 A215 A216 A217 A221 A222 A223 A224 A225 A226 A227 A228 A229 A2210 A231 A232 A233 A234 A235 A236 A241 A242 A311 A312 A313 A321 A322 A323 A324 A325 A326 A331 A332 A333 A334 A335 A336 A337 A338 A341 A342 A411 A412 A413 A414 0.982 1.075 0.927 0.754 0.585 0.634 0.585 0.634 0.634 0.634 0.634 0.585 0.556 0.537 0.399 0.321 0.477 0.738 0.923 1.094 0.841 1.012 1.042 0.776 0.748 0.937 1.031 1.012 1.343 1.298 1.405 1.285 1.104 1.057 1.141 1.070 0.580 1.279 1.252 1.099 1.107 1.164 1.324 0.802 1.126 0.911 0.602 0.603 0.469 1.093 1.156 0.968 0.825 0.968 0.656 1.385 1.226 1.385 1.143 1.310 0.959 0.893 1.318 0.808 0.627 0.669 0.735 1.122 1.122 0.3 0.7 0.5 0.5 0.6 0.6 0.5 0.7 0.6 0.5 0.9 0.6 0.7 0.7 0.8 0.9 0.7 0.7 0.5 0.8 0.6 0.6 0.7 0.4 0.3 0.5 0.6 0.4 0.7 0.8 0.9 0.8 0.9 0.6 0.5 0.6 0.6 0.7 0.7 0.7 0.4 0.9 0.8 0.4 0.7 0.6 0.7 0.5 0.6 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.8 0.8 0.5 0.9 0.8 0.7 0.9 0.7 0.4 0.6 0.9 0.9 0.6 0.8 0.5 0.4 0.7 0.295 0.753 0.464 0.377 0.351 0.380 0.293 0.444 0.380 0.317 0.570 0.351 0.389 0.376 0.319 0.289 0.334 0.517 0.461 0.875 0.505 0.607 0.729 0.310 0.225 0.469 0.619 0.405 0.940 1.038 1.265 0.899 0.883 0.634 0.570 0.642 0.348 0.896 0.876 0.770 0.443 1.047 1.059 0.321 0.788 0.547 0.421 0.301 0.281 0.437 0.578 0.581 0.660 0.775 0.328 1.246 0.981 0.969 1.029 0.917 0.384 0.536 1.186 0.727 0.376 0.535 0.368 0.449 0.785 19 2 6 12 14 10 20 8 10 18 3 14 9 13 17 21 16 4 7 1 5 16 12 24 25 19 15 21 5 4 1 6 8 14 17 13 22 7 9 11 20 3 2 23 10 18 14 18 19 13 11 10 9 7 17 1 4 5 3 6 15 12 2 8 16 3 12 7 1 21 3 9 17 32 29 40 23 29 39 16 32 27 31 38 41 35 12 13 1 5 6 4 19 23 8 5 15 3 2 1 4 6 12 17 10 34 5 9 10 14 4 3 17 2 4 12 20 22 24 14 13 9 7 37 1 6 7 5 8 16 11 2 3 8 7 18 10 1 86 22 48 70 74 68 87 54 68 83 35 74 65 72 82 88 77 42 50 16 43 31 23 84 94 45 30 62 10 6 1 12 14 29 36 27 76 13 15 21 55 5 4 81 17 38 58 85 89 56 33 32 26 19 80 2 8 9 7 11 67 39 3 24 71 40 73 52 18 II IV 12 20 8

P2

12

5 16 18 21 22 19 7 16 7 2 21

P3 P4 U2 P1

1 10 6 1 12 14 24 5

P2

P3

13 15 19 10 5 4 17 1

P4 U3 P1

P2

11 4 3 2

P3

2 8 9 7 11

3 3 6 9

P4 U4 P1

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Table 2 (continued ) Business unit BSC perspective Best practice Importance value Achievability level Priority value Ranking Business unit BSC perspective Organization Overall planning zone I A415 A416 A421 A422 A423 A424 A425 A426 A431 A432 A433 A441 A442 A511 A512 A513 A521 A522 A523 A524 A525 A526 A527 A531 A541 A542 A543 0.525 0.964 0.606 0.552 0.660 0.517 0.660 0.320 0.570 0.428 0.369 0.664 0.439 0.660 0.579 0.744 0.836 0.888 0.636 0.888 0.801 0.610 0.797 0.308 0.472 0.576 0.702 0.8 0.8 0.7 0.7 0.5 0.9 0.7 0.4 0.7 0.6 0.7 0.7 0.6 0.6 0.7 0.6 0.5 0.6 0.9 0.8 0.7 0.8 0.8 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.4 0.420 0.771 0.424 0.386 0.330 0.466 0.462 0.128 0.399 0.257 0.258 0.465 0.263 0.396 0.405 0.447 0.418 0.533 0.573 0.710 0.561 0.488 0.638 0.185 0.330 0.461 0.281 9 2 8 11 13 4 6 17 10 16 15 5 14 11 10 8 9 5 3 1 4 6 2 14 12 7 13 13 2 25 28 36 21 22 42 15 19 18 6 11 16 14 11 26 19 15 8 18 20 11 20 9 7 10 59 20 57 66 79 46 49 96 63 93 92 47 91 64 61 53 60 41 34 25 37 44 28 95 78 51 90 II IV

18 13 17 8 10 15 23 9

P2

P3

P4 U5 P1

14

P2

6 4 22 25 23 20 11

P3 P4

The top management of the company assesses the contribution rating of each local business unit objective with respect to its corresponding performance measures under each BSC perspective, resulting in 20 goal-alignment matrices. The top management also assesses the weight of the performance measures for each global strategic goal under each BSC perspective. Again, take the local objectives of U1 under P1 as an example. The goalalignment matrix Y(lh) (l1, 2, 3; h1, 2, 3, 4) for the three local objectives Oijk (i1; j 1; k1, 2, 3) is assessed as 2 5 4 4 4 5 4 3 63 6 6 45 4 37 7 7: 55 2

implemented. Depending on the specic strategic or operational needs, the company and individual business units can place their management focus on different sets of best practices. For example, from the organizations viewpoint, the top ve best practices are A223, A331, A338, A235, and A234, which are to be implemented at business units U2 and U3. From the viewpoint of individual business units, the top priority best practice at U1, U2, U3, U4, and U5 is A141, A223, A331, A414, and A524, respectively. To implement a set of best practices for achieving the companys strategic goals in a balanced manner, the company would manage the best practices from the four BSC perspectives. For instance, under the BSC perspective P1 (learning and growth), A414, A416, A112, A212, and A216 are the top ve best practices although they are to be implemented only in business units U1, U2, and U4. 5.2. Implementation planning of best practices With the information given in Columns 15 of Table 2, the company can carry out the implementation planning process from the organization, BSC perspective and business unit dimensions individually. Figs. 3 and 4 show the planning outcomes where the best practices are categorized into four implementation planning zones under each of the three dimensions. Table 3 shows the planning zone into which a best practice falls from the organization dimension (PZo), BSC perspective dimension (PZp), and business unit dimension (PZu). By applying Eqs. (10)(14), the overall planning zone (PZijk) of a best practice is obtained from an integrated view of the three dimensions. As shown in Table 3, the overall planning zone (PZijk) of a best practice may not be consistent with its planning zone under each dimension (PZo, PZp, or PZu). By taking an integrated and balanced view, the company should rst consider implementing the 25 best practices within the overall planning zone I (priority). For the 22 best practices within the overall planning zone II (contingency), the company should consider their implementation if

The weight vector for the four performance measures under P1 is assessed as wjh (0.22, 0.28, 0.28, 0.22) (j1; h1, 2, 3, 4). The weight vector for the three local objectives of U1 under P1 is obtained by Eq. (6) as sijl (4.22, 4.22, 3.56) (i1; j 1; l1, 2, 3). To make the objective weights comparable, the normalized weight vector s0 ijl (0.083, 0.083, 0.07) (i1, j1, l3) is obtained by Eq. (7). With the adjusted decision matrices of the best practices and the normalized weights of business unit objectives, the relative importance value of best practices with respect to the global strategic goals of the company is obtained by Eq. (8). With the relative importance value and achievability level, the priority value of a best practice relative to other best practices is calculated by Eq. (9). Columns 46 of Table 2 show the importance value, achievability level, and relative priority value of all best practices, respectively. Based on the relative priority value, Columns 79 of Table 2 show the ranking of best practices from the aspects of the business unit, the BSC perspective, and the organization, respectively. These ranking outcomes provide a basis for the company to place its management focus on the best practices to be

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1 (II) Contingency zone 0.9 0.8 Zp3 0.7 Achievability 0.6 0.5 0.4 0.3 Vp1 0.2 (III) Non-priorityzone (IV) Long-term zone Vp4 Vp3 Vo 0.1 0.00 0.10 0.20 0.30 0.40 0.50 0.60 0.70 0.80 0.90 1.00 1.10 1.20 1.30 1.40 1.50 Improtance
Fig. 3. Implementation planning zones under the organization and BSC perspective dimensions.

(I) Priority zone

Zp4 Vp2

Zo Zp1 P1 P2 P3 P4

Vp2

1 (II) Contingency zone 0.9 0.8 0.7 Achievability 0.6 0.5 0.4 0.3 0.2 Vu5 Vu 1 Vu4 Vu3 U1 U2 U3 U4 U5 Zu5 Zu3 Zu4 Zu1 (I) Priority zone

Zu2

(III)Non-priorityzone

Vu2 (IV) Long-term zone

0.1 0.00 0.10 0.20 0.30 0.40 0.50 0.60 0.70 0.80 0.90 1.00 1.10 1.20 1.30 1.40 Importance
Fig. 4. Implementation planning zones under the business unit dimension.

more best practices are needed after considering the best practices in the priority zone. The company may consider implementing the 12 best practices within the overall planning zone IV (long-term), if the operational settings can be enhanced or additional resources are available for facilitating their effective implementation. For the 37 best practices within the overall planning zone III (non-priority), the company should consider their implementation only after considering all other best practices. To facilitate the implementation planning of best practices within the overall planning zones I, II, and IV, these best practices are further ranked according to their priority value, as shown in the last column of Table 2.

6. Conclusion It is of strategic importance for an organization to prioritize a set of best practices to be implemented at individual business

units for achieving its global strategic goals. In this paper, we have developed a new evaluation model together with a new implementation planning process to address this challenging issue from the viewpoints of the organization, four BSC perspectives, individual business units, and overall planning zone. In decision settings where self-assessments are required, a new adjustment method has also been developed to address the potential bias issue in the self-assessment process. The evaluation model and the implementation planning process developed in this paper provide a structured approach for an organization to manage and plan the implementation of a large and diverse set of best practices in a prioritized and phased manner. The outcome of the approach will help an organization draw a best practice implementation and management plan for the organization and for its individual business units by considering their specic strategic or operational needs. Although the approach is exemplied with the four BSC strategic perspectives and a two-level organizational structure, the MADM algorithm

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Table 3 Implementation planning zones of best practices. Best practice Planning dimension PZo U1 A111 A112 A113 A114 PZp PZu U2 A211 A212 A213 A214 A215 A216 A217 A221 A222 A223 A224 A225 A226 A227 A228 A229 A2210 PZijk Best practice Planning dimension PZo PZp PZu U3 A311 A312 A313 PZijk Best practice Planning dimension PZo PZp PZu U4 A411 A412 A413 A414 A415 A416 A421 A422 A423 A424 A425 A426 PZijk Best practice Planning dimension PZo PZp PZu U5 A511 A512 A513 PZijk Best practice Planning dimension PZo PZp PZu PZijk

P1

IV I IV III

IV I IV III

IV I IV IV

IV I IV III

IV I III III IV IV IV I I I I I IV IV IV III I

I I III III IV I IV I I I I I IV IV IV III I

III II III III III III III I I I I I III IV III III I

IV I III III III IV III I I I I I III IV III III I

II III III

II III II

II III III

II III III

II III IV I II I II II III II II III

II III IV I II I II II III II II III

I IV IV I II I II II IV II I III

II III IV I II I II II III II II III

III II III

II II II

III II IV

III II III

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P2

A121 A122 A123 A124 A125 A126 A127 A128 A129 A1210 A1211 A1212 A1213 A131 A132

III III III II III III II III II II II II II II IV

III III III II III III II III II II II II II II III

III III III II III III II III II II II II II I IV

III III III II III III II III II II II II II II III

A321 A322 A323 A324 A325 A326

IV IV IV II I III

IV IV IV I I III

IV IV IV II I III

IV IV IV II I III

A521 A522 A523 A524 A525 A526 A527

III IV II I II II II

IV IV II I I II I

IV IV II I I II I

III IV II I I II I

P3

A231 A232 A233 A234 A235 A236

I I IV I I III

I I IV I I III

I I IV I I III

I I IV I I III

A331 A332 A333 A334 A335 A336 A337 A338 A341 A342

I I I I I IV IV I II III

I I I I I III III I I III

I I I I I III III I II III

I I I I I III III I II III

A431 A432 A433

II III II

II III II

II III II

II III II

A531

III

III

III

III

P4

A141 A142

I IV

I IV

I IV

I IV

A241 A242

I IV

I IV

I III

I III

A441 A442

II III

II III

I III

II III

A541 A542 A543

II II III

II II III

II II IV

II II III

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Table A1 Description of best practices under four BSC perspectives. Perspective Learning and Growth Best practice Cross-training Incentives and recognition Leverage technology Strategy alignment Quick changeover Visibility enhancement Team empowerment and involvement Learning to learn Environment monitoring Leverage organizational knowledge Internal Process E-fulllment Back and front ofces alignment Process simplication Process automation Process integration Process redesign Standard operation procedures Streamlined and expedited procedures Centralization Outsourcing non-core functions Documentation and reports Graphics and analysis Accelerating information circulation Work assignment optimization Re-sequencing and parallelism Inventory optimization Optimal supply chain design Buffer tuning Strategy-tactics decision Audit before edit Continuous system improvement Alternative solution preparation Customer Communications Standardized utilization Customer engagement Fine-tuning and consolidate partnerships Lead time reduction Demand identication Supply demand synchronization Involvement rationalization Information accessible Monitoring and tracking Change management Dual responsibility Customer-centric resolution Highlighting performers Financial Continuous control and management Flexible allocation Minimizing non-strategic spending Forecasting and prediction Cost management Payment management Information technology plan development Potential cost identication Description Implement a multi-skilling and opportunity training program in different ways for all personnel to improve overall performance. Adopt an effective incentive and recognition plan to promote continuous improvement of employee performance. Leverage technology to support business strategy and to simplify and expedite the process. Align business strategy with organization mission and vision to support continual innovation. Increase equipment availability and respond to schedule changes and customer needs quickly and economically. Enhance visibility into information to enable respond to issues proactively and accurately. Ensure involvement and motivate capable employees by giving them more decision-making authority and clarifying their roles, responsibilities and performance standards. Unleash the quality potential of employees by teaching them the way to x problems themselves. Monitor environmental key issues via a sustainable strategic plan to manage impact, assess risk and gain opportunity. Commit to learning and leveraging organizational knowledge to foster innovation and learning. Use technology to provide an enterprise-wide platform that fully integrates all corporate routine operations and utilize online information to improve management ability. Use an alignment pattern to link operational excellence and customer intimacy at business level. Reduce process complexity and cycle time by eliminating redundant or unnecessary steps in processing. Automate business process to reduce potential human errors. Integrate cross-functional analysis and activities to eliminate waste, save time and gain a holistic view of the organization. Redesign the process for efciency and expediency. Formalize operating procedures and standardize processes to ensure sustainability. Streamline and accelerate operational tasks to maintain continuity, consistency and communication across shifts and data validity. Centralize resource and data to give more exible utilization. Deploy outsourcing strategy as a competitive weapon to reduce cost. Appropriately document and report data to plainly and systematically grasp analytic information. Use drill down tool to represent information clearly and vividly. Reduce the information cycle time to get real-time data and rst-hand resource. Apply computer algorithms to generate optimal and unbiased solutions to solve work problems. Rearrange the task processing order or execute tasks in parallel for efciency. Adjust the inventory parameters automatically based on the direct link of service level goal and demand forecast. Use integrated graphical and mathematical models to design the supply chain at the strategic level. Improve the way of buffer allocation. Make a conscious decision by differentiating strategies and tactics. Review the system before making any major changes. Set goals, solve problems and implement corrective actions on a regular basis. Consider alternative solutions for better achievability. Maintain and strengthen an open line of communication with the entire workforce and partners for better understanding of business decisions. Introduce uniform standards into the process, documentation and reporting format. Move the customers through the lifecycle to maximize their value. Cultivate value-based partnerships to strengthen and maintain effective relationships in business. Eliminate non-value-adding steps in the process to reduce lead time. Identify and understand the needs of customers to execute the business strategy. Use techniques to create a consensus demand plan. Rationalize the supply base, the number of departments, and groups and individuals involved in a business process to reduce complexity and coordination problems. Increase access to information. Monitor changes, reactions and track events across functions. Provide methods, tools and training to enable employees to manage changes. Assign dual responsibility to facilitate employees career development. Build a customer service strategy for long-term protable relationships and a win-win situation. Make proles of top performers to create a competitive environment within the company. Measure key performance metrics continuously to assist business control and management. Keep resource allocations exible and optimize resource selection through practical acquisition and deployment planning. Consider minimizing non-strategic spending in business planning. Use computer models to help make statistical forecasts for management review and predict customer behavior to reduce bias and boost accuracy. Engage in cost-effective mechanisms and activities. Manage payment timing and terms to maximize cash ow. Establish an IT plan that outlines what functions the organization does and describes how technology supports those functions. Identify less obvious and indirect costs in decision-making process.

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developed for the approach has general application for measuring the relationship between lower-level objectives and higher-level goals under any organizational settings. Thus, the approach can be applied to solve the general evaluation problem involving a given set of best practices for achieving the local objectives and global goals of a multi-level organizational structure grouped under any number of strategic perspectives.

Acknowledgements We are grateful to anonymous referees for their valuable comments and suggestions.

7. Appendix A See Table A1 References

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