Operational Executional Excellence – A

Competitive Advantage through the Utilization of a Balanced Score Card

Lawrence Magny

The Applied Project APRJ-699

Academic Coach: Dr. C. Vibert Athabasca University

Centre for Innovative Management 11 September 2010

Word Count: 14,913

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Abstract Manufacturing and/or marketing organizations are tasked with providing products that meet or exceed the value proposition with the Canadian wine industry inherent to these same challenges. Although in existence since the late 1800’s, it is considered one of the youngest producers of exceptional quality wine in the world with a need of the organization enhance the perception of its products and establish itself as a reputable and recognized producer of premium wine products. Import products represent roughly 75% of market share in Canada and continue to outpace the growth of domestically sold products within markets where consumers are found to be trending away from spirits and beer. The organization has identified the need to re-invent itself through a new vision, mission and strategic objectives communicated throughout the organization in efforts to re-center and engage employees and their efforts. Within operations, this new direction has presented challenges as pre-existing metrics indicating success may not be aligned or provide the greatest achievable expectations set forth by the leaders of the organization. Therefore, the approach to align the teams towards such needed outcomes may best be achieved through the effective implementation of a Balance Score Card as proposed by Kaplan and Norton. The Balanced Score Card can be defined in many ways, but ultimately embraces the need to effective and frequently communicate the needs of the business through metrics that are aligned to the Mission, Vision and any other strategic imperatives. As best stated by Peter Drucker “what gets measured, gets managed” through the consistent reminder of the needs of the business and the ability to track and redirect areas of the business before a misalignment occurs and non-value added time is generated. The Balanced Score Card represents a progressive approach to impacting the balance sheet as it embraces a holistic approach to an organization in key areas of finance, customers, internal business processes and people. Through the development of indicators that focuses each of these critical areas towards executional excellence and an appreciation of the impact on each other through a strategy map and value creation, organization alignment can be achieved across this business unit from executives to employees that execute the work. The intent of such a system is to provide needed transparency allowing for the appreciation of expectations and required engagement that will drive competitive advantage for Vincor.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................5

INDUSTRY OVERVIEW...........................................................................................6 RESEARCH PURPOSE .......................................................................................7 LITERATURE REVIEW ........................................................................................8

MISSION, VISION AND STRATEGIC OBJECTIVES ....................................................10 INTERNAL COMMUNICATIONS ALIGNING STRATEGY ...............................................10 CHALLENGES OF MEASURING SUCCESS – OUT-OF-THE-BOX SOLUTIONS ...............11 PRESENT DAY MEASUREMENTS..........................................................................11 PERFORMANCE MEASUREMENT ..........................................................................12 THE FUTURE – THE BALANCED SCORECARD........................................................15

THE RESEARCH DESIGN.................................................................................16 STRATEGY MAP ...............................................................................................17 DESIGNING THE STRATEGIC MAP – THE PRESENT DAY METRICS AND STRATEGIC INTERPRETATIONS ....................................................................17

KNOWLEDGE, EDUCATION AND GROWTH – PRESENT DAY/INTENTIONS ..................18 INTERNAL BUSINESS PROCESSES – PRESENT DAY METRICS/INTENTIONS ..............19 CUSTOMER LEG – PRESENT DAY METRICS/INTENTIONS .......................................20

Customer - Retailer......................................................................................21 Customer – The Consumer..........................................................................21 Customer - Internal Service .........................................................................22

FINANCIAL LEG – PRESENT DAY METRICS/INTENTIONS.........................................22 Fixed Costs..................................................................................................24 Variable Costs .............................................................................................24

DISCUSSION......................................................................................................24 KNOWLEDGE, EDUCATION AND GROWTH – THE LEARNING LEG.............................25 INTERNAL BUSINESS PROCESS ...........................................................................28 CUSTOMER SERVICE..........................................................................................30 FINANCIAL.........................................................................................................32

ANALYSIS..........................................................................................................35 RECOMMENDATIONS ......................................................................................36 CONCLUSION....................................................................................................36 APPENDICES.....................................................................................................38

APPENDIX 1 CORPORATE COMMUNICATION LOGO ............................................38 APPENDIX 2 MISSION STATEMENT – WHAT DOES SUCCESS LOOK LIKE? ..............38 APPENDIX 3 STRATEGIC IMPERATIVES ..............................................................39 APPENDIX 4 ROAD MAP...................................................................................40

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APPENDIX 5 F’11 OBJECTIVES – SVP OF OPERATIONS.....................................41 APPENDIX 6 F’11 OBJECTIVES – DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS.............................42 APPENDIX 8 KNOWLEDGE, GROWTH AND LEARNING LEG – GAP ANALYSIS .........44 APPENDIX 9 INTERNAL BUSINESS PROCESSES – STRATEGY MAP AND GAP ........45 APPENDIX 10 THE CUSTOMER LEG – STRATEGY MAP AND GAP ANALYSIS ...........45 APPENDIX 11 FINANCIAL STRATEGY MAP –STRATEGY MAP AND GAP ANALYSIS....46 APPENDIX 12 DATA ENTRY AND CALCULATION SHEET........................................47 APPENDIX 13 JULY CUSTOMER COMPLAINT SUMMARY........................................49 APPENDIX 14 EXAMPLE OF ACTION ITEM LOG....................................................50 APPENDIX 15 FINITE SCHEDULING ....................................................................50

REFERENCES ...................................................................................................50 PRELIMINARY SCHEDULE...............................................................................52

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Introduction

To be competitive in the Canadian wine industry, the Vincor Operations group is tasked with determining metrics and indicators that will provide a competitive advantage for the organization. As stated by Peter Drucker, “What gets measured gets managed”, part of the philosophy of management by objectives, it is clear that employees need to have cascading objectives that allow guidance and alignment within an organization. Presently, effort towards the generation of metrics that can provide such indicators has been generated through ‘out-of-the-box’ generic solutions and/or metrics based on experience and previous learning’s of individuals from other organizations. The organization has spent little time analyzing successes that has provided the present state of the business or what it could do, unlike other organizations, to be competitive into the future through the appreciation of available resources and capacities.

The greatest challenges faced by organizational leaders today include

decisions/metrics that link strategy to business direction and translate the Mission, Vision or business objectives. Metrics that may seem to provide good business solutions, practices and expectations for today’s business may also inhibit long term growth opportunities or negatively impact the quality of products - both in perception and apparent quality as seen by the consumers. The many competing interpretations of this theoretical direction have resulted in inter-departmental conflicts and excessive use of human resources towards non-value added activities perpetuating a lack of long term thinking and direction. Therefore, the question becomes “What objectives should the company measure that will drive Vincor and Constellation Brands towards the maximization of profitability and ensure business longevity”.

This study focuses the executive direction of the leadership team of

Constellation Brands Incorporated (CBI) towards the strategic alignment of the operations group in efforts to add value to the products and provide metrics of success in the form of the Balanced Scorecard (BSC). The operations team is lean, both in numbers and in execution, with a culture targeted towards the delivery of results in large volumes within a variety of package formats. Considering the present day economic conditions, with a further appreciation that economic conditions will be substituted by extremely dynamic and changing markets, there is a need and expectation to keep costs flat while provided the greatest product value to consumers. To best utilize the human resource capital and deliver expected results, alignment and/or re-calibration of existing operational indicators is needed in conjunction with the recommendation of new strategic metrics that will be centered towards providing the organization a competitive advantage. This study will look for more intrinsic indicators than simply financial and customer centric metrics, including internal business process and knowledge, learning and growth perspectives. (Kaplan, & Norton, 1996)

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Industry Overview Routes to market and channels have not changed for many years within the alcohol beverage industry with a shift of consumers towards wine consumption with beer and spirit sales remaining flat with little to no growth. This shift has presented opportunities through the maintenance of market share along with opportunities of growth through new products and brand extensions. New competitors have entered the markets with competitive products diluting sales and market share. These actions have resulted in slow organic growth with Vincor experiencing 6 % growth per annum whereas industry growth has been found to be 9%, resulting in a consistent outpacing of market share from 26% to an expected 22% in the next 3 years. With a new strategic direction including Vision, Mission and Strategic Imperatives, the organization wishes to reposition itself towards aligned goals in attempts to regain market share and margin.

The Canadian wine industry is extremely young in comparison to word wide competition with challenges of acceptance and respect as a quality wine producer. The challenge of being respected is a result of consistent climates being found around the world within large and established markets supported by favourable consumer biases whereas Canadian produced products are inelastic, complex, and stable. All wine products are price sensitive with consumers willing to pay slightly more for import brands with aggressive competition occurring in the $8 to $12 ranges. This very competitive area of pricing has resulted in volume/margin needs to meet stakeholder expectations, further generating conflict/competition and, more recently, compounded by present economic conditions as consumers trade down in price while consuming more wine at home. ("The Canadian Wine," 2009)

In the year 2006, total value of wine and wine based products sold was 784.5 million dollars with employment of 2,766 people, second in terms of economic value of production within the alcohol industry. The industry is compromised of 61 thousand metric tones of viniferous grapes and an additional 17 thousand tones of hybrid and Lubrusca grape varieties with combined volume yields of 54.6 million liters annually grown in Ontario and British Columbia. ("The Canadian Wine," 2009) The Canadian wine industry is comprised of 100% locally produced wines, identified by VQA (Vintners Quality Alliance) legislation and the blending of wines from both locally grown and import.

With many international growing regions, countries have planted in excess of demand to mitigate risks associated with environmental risks such as climate and possible insect infestations, resulting in surplus volumes when these issues do not occur. These excesses occur yearly and result in aggressive pricing to move inventories prior to such inventories loosing value and unusable. This has presented Canadian organizations the opportunity to purchase wine at a lower cost than domestically producing wines, allowing for competition in local markets against importers. With limited high quality grape availability locally, 100%

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domestic wine production is challenged by set pricing models with average cost per liter of Canadian wine versus Import wine is roughly 4 to 1 ($0.75 per liter for import versus costs averaging $3.00 per liter). Education/knowledge for wine production within Canada is still being developed in comparison to many competitors having more experience of varieties that prosper in their specific terroir and climate. Within the wineries, fermentation equipment, cooperage and processes of wine production specific to these varietals are still being understood and effectiveness determined through trial and error.

The federal government controls all alcohol sales within Canada through taxation and legislation with each the provinces further regulating alcohol sales, distribution channels, private store/sale permit, independent store locations and licensing. Federal and Provincial governments further regulate the wine industry through regulatory laws that are specific to each of the provinces including labeling laws and declarations, wine content requirements, chemical composition and alcohol levels. Both levels of government are considered threats as a result of their ability to change legislation and governance to the industry. Complicating the industry further, within the largest sector of Ontario, grape growers are organized and negotiate through the Growers Association whereas in British Columbia, growers and wine makers work directly to set pricing and quality expectations, with costs being much higher as a result of limited agricultural growing areas.

In 2007, it was estimated that the total import wine represented 200 million liters of wine and represented 67% of the total market providing 1.7 billion dollars of sales with only 630 million in 1997 being domestic sales (Agri-business). The growth of wine consumption has been trending positively with annual consumption per person of legal drinking age increasing from 11.3 to 14.6 liters between the years of 2000 to 2007 in Canada. Canadian produced products lag in wine consumption per capita with slightly less than 25% of consumers purchasing domestically produced products as compared to France or Italy with France being the largest importer into Canada at 26.2% of the market share followed by Italy at 18.8%, and Australia at 18.4%. ("The Canadian Wine," 2009)

Research Purpose Organizations today are tasked with the challenged of determining the best methods and processes to which resources can be redirected to align and achieve the needs of the business. The competitive environment and markets limits organizational ability to achieve long term strategic competitive advantages through technologies and processes, as most, if not all, are easily copied systems or processes by its competitors. This leads to short term with many organizations failing to appreciate the challenge of such large mobilization efforts or are unable to mobilize uniformly and in harmony with its greatest competitive asset, its human resources.

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Ultimately, people provide the necessary competitive advantage through both the execution of strategies and the development of emergent strategies. Once strategies are communicated and understood within the organization, the next challenge is the measurement of progress and direction to ensure the effective use of resources on areas of the business. Through these channels of influence, organizations of different sizes and demographics can outperform competitors and provide the greatest return to investors. This ability to align and mobilize employees can be achieved through many different vehicles with one of the most relevant tools being the Balance Score Card. Through an effective design and implementation of this performance tool, all employees can contributor to the metrics of the score card and provide critical engagement to optimize organizational success. This paper will discuss the Balanced Score Card (BSC) and its potential use with the operations group of Vincor International at the Niagara Falls location. Following this provision of the scope and implications of the BSC, a strategic map aligning the vision, mission and strategic imperatives provided by the leaders of the organization will be illustrated in efforts to appreciate the impact, relevancy and importance at each level within the score card. Following the design of the strategic map, the document will look to determine the value of present day metrics used to indicate success and the possible improvement of such metrics to better represent needed expectations. The expected outcome of utilizing this process is intended to maximize the effectiveness of the organizations resources and focus efforts towards strategies identified to be critical to both short and long term success.

Literature Review

Organizations are faced with challenges of aligning employees with specialized business knowledge and varying degrees of expertise, experience, leadership, attitudes and behaviors towards a positive and long term vision of how the organization wishes to operate and exist. With an appreciation of the internal environment, organizations need to have a profound understanding with the external environment to which the organization wishes to compete, prosper, grow and be profitable. Many external factors exhibit varying degrees of influence on how the organization operates/competes with theories to achieve organizational expectations expressed through compelling ideologies including Population Ecology, Resource Dependency Theory, Institutional Theory and Resource Based Theory. Each of these theories provides concepts explaining the impact of how the internal environment is managed.

The theory of Population Ecology promotes the concept that the external environment is a contributing factor of organizational longevity with survival a result of the performance and effectiveness within the market or grouping of organizations, known as a ‘population’. Darwinianism, or survival of the fittest, utilizes blue prints by the organization for guidance through stated goals with the

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forming of the actual structure occurring as a result of the findings of solutions that best fit the external environment, thereby defining the organization. (Hannan, & Freeman, 1977) This concept can be applied to the structure of Vincor, providing products through markets and channels that are heavily governed by government and legislation. The theory further considers the number of competing organizations within a population and the ability to control or utilize available resources, much in the same way living animals complete for survival within their habitat. The theory requires 4 criteria when evaluating fit including a high rate of variation among organizational forms, organizational mortality rates, an intently competitive industry and limited resources. These criteria do not best describe the organization (Hannan, & Freeman, 1977) although the theory does present the complications of what plagues Vincor today such as just meeting the expectations of the external environment and not challenging the internal environment to exceed barriers to develop new organizational forms that will provide long term competitive advantages. The organization has been in existence for a long period of time and the largest, making up much of the Canadian produced products, although the population of wine producers and importers selling products is increasing and diluting the market. Resource Dependency Theory considers the external influences to the internal operations as a result of an organizations reliance on external support to achieve business requirements and execution. Examples of resource constraints include government legislation/taxation and channels controlled by government followed by grape supply and the formation of complex relationships with all parties, reliant on each other for revenue generation. Through the development of such relationships and expectations by the parties, each party attempts the reduction of uncertainty as proscribed by this theory by attempting to influence power, stability and adaptability (Pfeffer, 1982). Some of these pressures and dependencies are alleviated by Vincor as a result of vineyard controlled operations influencing grape supply and the retail operations within the province of Ontario. Furthermore, political lobbying and coalitions/alliances with organizations that experience the same external pressures are formed while the organization continues to secure long term relationships with suppliers of wine to mitigate dependence and risk market supply. Institutional theory presents the concept that organizations are considered to be progressing towards a common structure and function in efforts to maximize profitability and longevity as a result of the same external and internal influences with rewards as a result of conformity and social acceptance (Scott, 1987). This theory discusses choices based on technology, information and income, further limited due to influence from societal expectations including ethical decision making and good corporate citizenship. Through these requirements of satisfying the many stakeholders who influence organizational structure and routines, the net impact on an organization is to achieve external

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acceptance and legitimacy. Considering these needs including financial, political and public opinion, best practices or methods of profit generation become shared resulting in a tendency towards conformity. With strong government influence for both domestically produced and import products, this theory is prevalent within the wine industry for channel support, but not with brand equity and the ability to lead as a result of strong consumer support. The exploitation of rare, valuable, non-substitutable and difficult to imitate resources and capabilities is a focus and basis of the use of the Resource Based Perspective. The theory discusses the long term position of an organization as a result of the needed resources to achieve a competitive advantage looking towards the creation of value that is not replicable by competitors or future entrants. This theory is dependant on resources as the method driving a competitive advantage and future uniqueness and success, providing indicators of avoidance for possible weakness or failure in the long term. (Hart, 1995)

Mission, Vision and Strategic Objectives The company leaders have identified the critical need of communicating

its reason for existence, the intended impact of its products, the areas to which it wishes to compete and how individuals can contribute to the organizations aligned/holistic success. This communication centers energy and resources necessary to understand how the organization wishes to be portrayed internally and externally and found in Appendix 1. The Vision statement is focused on providing consumers with products “To elevate life with each glass raised….benefiting our employees, customers, consumers, shareholders and the world around us” through products that exceeds consumer expectations and the provision of value based on quality and price in all categories to which the organization competes. The company further supports this vision through a mission statement where “We will nurture and build the most powerful portfolio of premium wine brands in our industry complemented with other select beverage alcohol products” and found in Appendix 2 - Mission Statement, Appendix 3 – Strategic Imperatives, and Appendix 4 – Core Values. Through these leading governances and philosophies and a profound understanding of the external environment, the company has provided the guidance and expectations to achieve executional excellence. (Vincor Online)

Internal Communications Aligning Strategy

The exercise of communicating the strategic business direction is done at a high level throughout the organization with interpretation of execution left to the various levels of management. This has allowed for emergent theories and strategies to drive the business through a bottom up approach but also create challenges as individuals/teams attempt to decipher what is best for the organization and compete to be heard if information is non-traditional. Therefore, a system that promotes measurements that are strategic and allow for alignment

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to organizational leaders expectations is critical to be competitive while preserving a system to capture internal emergent strategies. The design of such metrics need to allow for operational agility/flexibility to react to trends/changes and emergent strategies. One such example of a critical risk in the business includes the development of rigid standard procedures and employee confinement without the consideration for the creative and craft side of the business - a critical component by which the organization has achieved many competitive advantages. (Shimizu, Monteiro, & Laurindo, 2006)

Challenges of Measuring Success – Out-of-the-box Solutions As with most organizations, Vincor struggles in determining the best

indicators of long term business success and a vehicle that will communicate these indicators to all levels. The organization has looked to improvement initiatives including text book, best practice, or world class solutions utilizing systems such as Just-in-Time Methodologies, Lean Production Concepts, Customer Focus/Centric ideologies, Supply Chain theories and multiple hybrids/combinations of these programs. Each of these systems and ideologies have provided short term solutions and promise as identifying opportunities towards continuous improvement and long term sustainable systems, but with challenges.

These challenges are a result of the principles that the systems were/are

based upon the direction of another organizations visions, missions and business strategies in conjunction with the success indicators geared to the internal cultural of their business. As a result, these systems are fragmented when applied to other business models and does not fully engage the principles and needs specific to the organizations business strategies. These tools/indicators provided by such solutions may not yield expected results and may not be fully aligned to the expectations of CBI’s future organizational culture. (Basu, & Wright, 2005) Furthermore, the complexity of the wine industry with differing consumer expectations and competitor’s ability to copy out-of-the-box strategies or technologies would not provide the needed long term competitive advantage. JIT, TPS, TQM, Six Sigma are all great methods that provide an ‘engine’ for performance indicators for a company and can be linked to the companies financial indicators, but fail to measure critical business indicators including employee development (succession planning, training, development, engagement), consumer satisfaction indicators or internal process success.

Present Day Measurements

The present day metrics do not include major core processes of the wine industry as Vincor operates in two different core competencies: one being in craft technologies and the second being best described as Routine technologies. The craft side of the business is found in two areas of the business; Wine Making and Marketing, with Sales and Operations best classified as routine technologies

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(Daft, 2007). Wine making requires the technical and professional expertise of wine making and the blending of wines for either commercially produced products or the production wines that best exemplify the vintage and growing year. This core organizational area provides the value proposition and not measured, thereby not providing enough limelight, resources or capital long term.

Further disconnects may be the result of a new Visionary direction

towards premiumization and quality of product versus our previous Vision “of being the leading international producer and marketer or beverage alcohol brands with a broad portfolio across the wine, imported beer and spirits categories”. At this time, the organization has not taken the critical steps to understand the impact of the new Vision statement and methods of value creation through this new direction. This has complicated the business and has a potentially damaging impact to present day process, including barriers to success and the continuation with existing metrics with the same weighted value. As proscribed by many theoretical practitioners, the reassessment of the direction of the organization to core competencies through the new Vision and Mission may allow the organization the long term success and returns. In essence, the metrics presently used today may be antiquated as a result of old ideologies of business growth through acquisition or market dominance versus a new centering of organic growth and the provision of products that over-deliver in all price points’ with an emphasis on the craft side of the business.

As described in the writing of Kaplan and Norton in the book Translating Strategy into Action, “people are viewed as problem-solvers, not variable costs”. (Kaplan, & Norton, 1996) Salaried and hourly (union and non-union) are treated differently and contradict the organizations core value systems of how people are to be developed and managed, with no metrics for success. The organization recognizes that there are many contributing factors that are required to achieve a competitive advantage through emergent strategies and the need for employees at all levels to contribute. The challenge of the organization to translate these tangible expectations and generate the cultural and behavioral changes are not measured or communicated.

Performance Measurement The development of performance indicators is a critical process as it directs the functional areas of the business towards the expectations of the leaders of an organization. Organizations focus their products or services through strategies that leaders believe will produce the greatest outcomes including the maximization of profitability, business longevity, customer satisfaction or brand/product awareness. The strategies chosen may include the production concept (make and sell easily produced and distributed products), the product concept (make and sell premium products), the selling concept (make and mass sell as much as possible), and the marketing concept (meet the expectations, demands or needs of the customer) or varying degrees of each of

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these strategies. The metrics chosen need to focus the above specific goals/expectations of the organization while appreciating the external environment (SWOT, 5 – forces, etc) and an intricate knowledge of the internal culture, available resources, capabilities and technologies of the organization. The primary challenge is how to best communicate the moulding of a new corporate culture and the value that its mission and vision will generate. Through a chosen vehicle of communication and alignment, further supported by performance indicators that are continually communicated, an organization places itself in a better position to gain the needed capital, resources and time to deliver on their results and align business units towards common goals.

To maximize revenue, organizations first need to holistically appreciate their value proposition of the service or product to ensure that it meets human and social needs. There is then the need to create and deliver value of their product or service at a price whereby customers have their needs fulfilled and perceived as a benefit. The next requirement is the need to meet owner/investor expectations, generally through financial expectations and/or growth strategies providing the greatest return on investment. Financial indicators are achieved through organizational effectiveness of key business processes, ensuring that value is created through each of the actions taken by the company and non-value added activities eliminated thereby complimenting internal performance requirements. The final layer that supports organizational effectiveness is the engagement, alignment and development of its human resources – the only true competitive advantage of an organization as all other processes, technologies and systems are readily copied and mirrored. These layers of organizational requirements are transposed to the balance sheet and the financial performance of a company.

All objectives and metrics need to be aligned to the growth and improvement of the business, ultimately impacting financial achievements and longevity. There are many metrics/indicators that are accepted by the business society of an organization’s financial health and ability to sustain business continuation while delivering financial expectations. These financial indicators can be grouped into Liquidity metrics, Activity metrics, Leverage Metrics, and Profitability metrics. Organizational effectiveness can further be evaluated by

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comparing the organization to others that compete within the same markets and channels further indicating the effectiveness the organization as compared to peers. These metrics/ratios may also indicate the direction of the organization and its long term strategies. The challenged faced by many leaders is how to translate industry accepted metrics to metrics that translate activities within the organization that can provide the needed direction and impact of its employees. The organizational unit held most accountable for product expectations are generally found under the scope of the marketing and selling group, with effective organizations embracing these activities as a whole. This group is considered the eyes and the ears of an organization and expected to fully understand the external world of the organization, the market, channels and customers to which the organization competes. Expectations that will direct the organization towards trends and consumer expectations are required providing the organization continuity. Marketing utilizes the 4 P’s including the Product, the Place, the Promotion, and the Price of the products and services. Each of these critical business areas are reliant on each other and need to be maximized in all forums to which the product competes. The Product itself needs to provide the customer with the perceived value and meet or exceed the need of the intended use. The Place ultimately becomes the accessibility of the product or service when the need is required by the customer and the readily availability of the product/service. It is critical that customers are made aware of the product or service, and therefore, promotion is required and finally, the price of the product needs to be accessible and acceptable to the customer. Each of these requirements can be measured to indicate improvements or possible weaknesses and direct the organization. The above requirements, both financial and customer centric, are achieved through a transparent, lean and value added activities of an organization maximized by the efficient use of internal operations, processes, resources and human capital. All internal actions cost the organization human resources, time and ‘forgoable’ opportunity costs that may have been used elsewhere to generate revenue. Organizational effectiveness engages all members and encompasses the organizations ability to mitigate wastes (time, money, human resources, etc.) through a profound knowledge of what is providing necessary value to the organization and critical to meet both short and long term goals. Foundationally, the most important resource available is human capital and generally accepted as the single greatest competitive advantage. This critical resource allows for heightened business success through the strategic alignment to business needs, emergent strategies, mitigated risks through working experience and new opportunities to improve. Many indicators of employee engagement include the possible use of surveys, attendance, achievement of personal and departmental objectives, turn-over, training/development, and the ability to effectively succession plan.

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The Future – The Balanced Scorecard The Balanced Score Card (BSC) is found to be the most appropriate tool

and systematic approach that can provide an organization a performance management system with acute indicators of organizational success and allow for both yearly and mid-term (3 – 5 years) performance management goal alignment while still maintaining needed organizational flexibility. This business map of success includes the components of both tangible and intangible business processes that can be thoroughly expressed and communicated through the BSC. The BSC is found to “represent a balance between external measures for shareholders and customers, and internal measures of critical business processes, innovation, and learning and growth” (Kaplan, & Norton, 2004). This philosophy of the BSC matches the encompassing vision and would allow a greater alignment of strategic direction by all organizational departments.

The BSC allows an organization to determine and direct its core

competencies and strategic direction in a manner as to ensure transparency and expectations versus traditional business indicators towards strict financial metrics of success. The BSC differs from traditional performance managements systems with “even those that use many non-financial indicators, focus on improving the cost, quality, and cycle times of existing processes. This tool highlights those processes that are most critical for achieving breakthrough performance for customers and shareholders”. (Kaplan & Norton 2004) It is best used for driving cultural and behavioral change within organizations embracing four hierarchical groupings including the Financial Leg, the Customer Leg, Internal Business Process Leg and the Knowledge, Learning and Growing Leg. (Hannabarger, Buchman, & Economy, 2007) The process by which change occurs is through the execution of the score card that is linked by the understanding of the impact of each of the 4 areas. To achieve financial expectations, customers need to be satisfied. To satisfy customers, internal business processes need to be optimum, and for internal business processes to be effective, employees need to be knowledgeable and organized.

The greatest opportunity for the Vincor Operations group includes the needed appreciation of expectations, understanding of personal impact/contribution and the execution of all members of this lean group towards the fulfillment of the strategic imperatives. Through the investigation of many theories, best practices, good manufacturing process and an appreciation of the present day organizational culture, the Balanced Score Card provides the needed direction and flexibility that can achieve today’s expectations with the ability to diversify or adapt to changes in the external environment that impact the business.

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The Research Design

This conceptual paper is focused on defining metrics to engage the Niagara Falls Operations group towards the mission, vision and strategic needs of the business through a performance managements system known as the Balanced Score Card (BSC). The goal is to provide the operations group with metrics that are based on holistic and transparent objectives that translate the Vision and Mission of the organization. The intended outcome is expected to allow the operations group the needed direction of driving a competitive advantage to the core business and best alignment to customers needs through both independent and functional unit development. With the need to provide overarching metrics through this system considering both present day challenges and weaknesses, and an appreciation of the needed energy and efforts towards long term success, all efforts will be made to provide metrics that drive continuous improvement to achieve a newly coined internal term – executional excellence. The process to develop the BSC will begin by assessing the stated intent of the Vision, Mission and Strategic objectives and interpret how these communications are intended to shape the corporate culture. Following this analysis, the paper will discuss the areas of impact within the Operations group illustrate how this group will become influential and strategic partner within the organization.

Each of the strategic objectives will be mapped and determine the value to

the organization in efforts to first identify what the operations group needs to do to align to this strategic direction and further provide gaps of what exists within present day metrics. This mapping process is intended to provide the potential benefits to the organization and also used to identify potential shortfalls of the scorecard in efforts to ensure that transparency and direction to the outcomes are weighted to achieve value creation of this program (Niven, 2002). Once an isolated evaluation of the process mapping and value mapping is complete, evaluation of present day metrics will be assessed to determine the relative effectiveness and alignment to strategic success including both negative and positive indicators. It is recognized that this process may challenge existing ideologies and metrics and potentially a barrier to the success of this document and program. Ultimately, all efforts to clearly identify existing strengths and weakness to ensure employee alignment and energy will be addressed in efforts to best represent organizational expectations.

The BSC provides individuals with a defined map of performance metrics that link how individuals contribute and support their team and business processes including the impact to other departments. This approach supports the organizations success and ultimately a competitive advantage. The choice and design of the Score card is critical to ensure that all employees are aware of what the senior management team believes will meet and exceed customer

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expectations. Each of the four legs of the BSC are equally weighted to drive this holistic approach to executional excellence and create future value through the investment in people, processes, technologies and innovations.

Once a full appreciation of corporate strategies are understood, objectives that will drive successes with the ability to accurately define and reach the needed objective following the principle of SMART objectives - Specific, Measurable, Achievable/Attainable, Realistic and Time-limited, will be developed. These measurements become the teams Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) and require acceptance, meaning and engagement to all individuals, influencing their actions within their control.

Strategy map

The strategy map is a diagram of an organizations strategic goal illustrating each objective as text. These strategic thoughts/objectives/ intentions are linked across two or more bands with each band representing a perspective and relationship through arrows linking objectives together and their casual relationship and impact to one another. This outcome provides euphemistic indications of where causality lies and exercised respecting the hierarchical levels of business needs. The hierarchical inter-dependencies between these perspectives contain one or more objective(s) that in turn, are associated with one or more performance measure(s). It follows that the arrangement of objectives on the strategy map need to be devised keeping in mind the dependencies implied by the choice of perspective headings as found in Appendix 7.

Designing the Strategic Map – The Present Day Metrics and Strategic Interpretations Designing the strategic map can first be thought by classifying the visual expectations of the organization into each of the 4 areas of the BSC to derive the strategic objectives with an appreciation of broader impacts across each of the metrics. Each of these specific areas are found in differing areas and levels of management and, although provide direction, may not be held as critical by the senior management. This visual diagram linking each of the critical strategic objectives and their impact amongst one another add value at each level of the map upwardly impacting the vision of the organization. When viewing this map, it is expected that the senior management team has done its due diligence in fully acknowledging the external environment while considering the skills, capabilities, knowledge and ability of the internal teams. With these two realizations, the organization has developed a vision of how it wishes to be viewed and understood both internally and externally further supported by its mission statement and strategic objectives.

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This map can be viewed from the foundational requirement of people and their individual alignment to the organizational goals. Cognizant of the need to provide learning, growth and development to each individual, the expected impact and focus needs to be directed towards the improvement of the internal business processes. With improvements in the internal business processes, the outcome should be converging towards customer/consumer satisfaction intended to exceed their expectations and ultimately providing the necessary financial requirements of the organization. As found, theses cascading objectives impact upwards in the strategy map, beginning with people and ultimately impacting the vision of the organization. Conversely, this map can be viewed from a top down approach across the BSC, aligning each of the strategic objectives to the vision through each of the legs as can be found in Appendix 1, 2 and 3. This map fully engages how leaders of the organization provide the needed direction by all members of the teams and fully apply the competitive advantage of its people through the learning and growth leg of the score card. A summary table is provided in Appendices 8, 9, 10 and 11 for each of the legs with black text indicating present day metrics and blue text indicating proposed metrics that will provide the expected strategic outcomes.

Knowledge, Education and Growth – Present Day/Intentions

The organization has identified the need to engage people as the non-replicable resource that will provide the needed competitive advantage. The company has achieved its greatest successes through the promotion of entrepreneurship and encouragement of individuals to think like a shareholder, be forward thinking, open, flexible and innovative. For many years, these expectations formed the corporate culture and captured on individual performance appraisals, tied to merit increases, and individual promotion with the sharing of best practices lost as success only shared amongst the employee and the supervisor. There are no metrics provided that indicates successes in such areas with culture shaping done through actions taken by the company including promotion, lateral movements and terminations.

To encourage individual educational development, financial assistance has been made available with payment upon successful completion of studies. IDP (Individual Development Plans) has been drafted for those individuals selected for promotion or individuals who aspire to learn and develop within the organization. Presently, this development program has a financial cap of $3,000 per individual per annum with no metrics that indicate the success of these programs at all levels of management.

Constellation has also identified and communicated the expectation of treating people with respect and to value each others differences. There is an expectation to continually strive to build a collaborative environment supported by an expectation to appreciate and reward the contributions of everyone. The company expects its employees to drive action and focus on results while being

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accountable in efforts to foster future success by keeping things simple. Integrity through employee execution of high ethical standards is expected through the provision of an employee handbook. The company is also a believer of employees acting in its best interest and keeping in mind requirements of Corporate Social Responsibility, caring for the impact it has on the environment and the safety of its employees. There are many challenges with translating these beliefs within a numerical performance indicator, but consideration for recycling initiatives, green initiatives and internal business processes may provide the needed indicators of such expectations. When evaluating these expectations of the company, very little indicators of success are provided as it pertains to these objectives and there is a challenge to translate such indicators of success into metrics that provide a pulse of the organization.

Internal Business Processes – Present Day Metrics/Intentions

Through the development of people, the next critical step in ensuring business optimization through the development of process and systems that best provide value to the consumer and maximize the potential profit of the organization. The organization has recognized this critical area and looks to improve organizational effectiveness through the optimization of is structure and continuously improve processes and expand collaboration across functions and companies. The operations group has the responsibility of providing products that are acceptable to both consumers and customers, supported through metrics that continually emphasize getting production done right the first time while minimizing wastes such as re-work. These outcomes ultimately measure the success of the present methods of internal packaging and processing and provide opportunity to improve. Presently, the organization captures ‘right first time packaging’ error with and expectation of 5000 defects per million or less and achieved ‘right the first time blending’ error of 5000 liters of defects per million or less per month.

Operations are responsible for the planning of both commercial products

and specialized products supporting the sales function. This requirement includes the procurement of packaging materials, domestic wines and import wines in alignment to the master planned production requirements. The organization utilizes a push methodology of manufacture whereby products are produced to forecast with an expectation that the customers/consumers will order and purchase products based on previous trends or special limited time offers. There is a need to ensure there is adequate supply of products based on forecast including the delivery of new products to meet promotional launch and timing. This is a critical aspect of the business and measured through an internal metric of customer service levels (CSL). The calculation is performed by assuming that if there is no inventory available in the distribution center, there is a missed sale and the amount of missed sales is based on the daily forecasted sales. The expectation is to achieve 98% CSL (or, more accurately, available inventory) in efforts to maximize profitability. This metric is further supported by

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another internal metric known as schedule adherence indicating the plants ability to procure and produce products within the week committed to and planned.

Vincor utilizes ISO (International Organization for Standardization) as its

primary method by which its processes and systems are captured in document format to minimize risk to the business and allow for the capture of improvements in this Quality Management System (QMS). Furthermore, to ensure the safety of the consumers, the company is certified as HACCP (Hazard Analysis of Critical Control Points) complaint, a process by which the processing and packaging processes have been evaluated against food safety standards that consider potential physical, biological and chemical risks. Processes are captured in the form of work instructions allowing for the standardization of work practices, setting of expectations of performance, quality and training. When processes fail, a Corrective Action Report (CAR) or a Preventative Action Report (PAR) is generated allowing for root cause analysis and the capture of improvements within the system. Expectations to achieve ISO recertification are critical for business sustainability and improvements identified through failures and internal and 3rd party audits.

As part of the QMS, the operations group is required to notify and support

both marketing and purchasing in tracking vendor performance in the form of non-conformance reports (NCR’s) or Supplier Non-Conformance Reports (SNCR’s). The QMS requires equipment preventative maintenance ensuring the quality of products and the performance and safety of the equipment within the scope of the Preventative Maintenance System (PM’s). Downstream of the operations group include the accuracy of freight bills and actual loads stream-lining receipt and put-away within the DC ensuring system accuracy and customer satisfaction.

Customer Leg – Present Day Metrics/Intentions

The greatest challenge in providing value to a customer is first defining what is expected by the customer or consumer. This challenge plagues many organizations and, depending on the product, service, organization, vision, strategy, department and person, impact the expectation of each these areas and defined in many ways. Basically, excellent customer service or product provision may is most often defined in relation to the perception of the product or service by the customer and/or consumer themselves, and not by the company itself. The organization is tasked with determining how it can first meet the needs of the customer/consumer within a certain cost followed by the ability to exceed expectations of the customer through the provision of exceptional value - over-delivering based on their original perception. Many tangibles in the wine industry feed into this perception of the customer/consumer including the packaging, the product, the perception of the value of the product, the cost, the perceived peer acceptance and the consumer’s belief of the corporation itself as a good Corporate Citizen and producer of quality products. For Vincor, the

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customer leg of the scorecard can be seen as two sections – one including the Customer and the second being the actual Consumer. The reason for this distinction is a result of the need to appreciate that the organization must first satisfy the requirements of its customers, or distributors of the product, in efforts to provide its products to the satisfaction of the actual consumers of the products.

Customer - Retailer The two customers who retail the products are the Provincial government ,

the largest distributor of alcoholic products, marketed under the name of the Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO) along with a company owned distributor and retailer of wine, the Wine Rack. There are in excess of 750 LCBO stores throughout Ontario with some small and private entities in rural areas along with greater than 160 Vincor owned wine stores. Both of these groups have an expectation to maximize revenues through the retail sale of products to the actual consumers of the products.

To appreciate the needs of the customers, the operations group best supports the organization by ensuring products are:

◊ available when ordered (on hand), ◊ on time, in correct quantities with no losses or damages, ◊ support effective distribution systems, ◊ aligned to their business strategies including margin (profitability), volume

and quality, ◊ wanted by their consumers, ◊ new products and first to market, ◊ responded to for complaints / returns.

The organization spends much time measuring customer service levels

through the provision of products available at the time of order with an expectation of operations to provide 98% CSL levels or greater at all times.

Customer – The Consumer

The company has the strategic objective to provide superior products and services to the consumers and ensure supported by long term strategies of premiumization of the portfolio. Metrics that are communicated to managers include the number of consumer complaints found through the Point of Sale (POS) system of the Wine Racks retail stores and a new system of a customer complaint ‘hot-line’ that allows consumers to call and discuss their opinions and findings. Both of these inputs are provided monthly through the national quality group and provide valued input and feedback from the end user. An example of the data is provided in Appendix 13. This data is kept within the management team and provides input towards continuous improvement initiatives and process changes.

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Customer - Internal Service

With operations a key factor in the supply chain process, the group impacts cross-functionally across many areas of the business. Upstream, teams including marketing and purchasing are impacted by decisions made by the operations group including when to produce, methods of production and volumes to be produced to meet the demand of the sales team. New product development is critical to meet the needs of the business but not measured on how well the organization achieves its objectives and its ability in meeting the needs of customers or consumers.

Critical to meeting the needs of the customers downstream of the

operations group is the expectations of ensuring the Distribution Center (DC) has the necessary products on time and in full to meet the shipment of products to the customers. This requirement is only measured through the CSL metrics, although the ability to provide accurate transfers both physically and electronically are not measured.

In efforts to best support the internal purchasing group, data on vendor

performance is critical to ensure that the organization has been able to achieve the greatest cost efficiencies and vendor support to meet the needs of the business. These variables include the suppliers abilities to deliver quantities and quality in accordance to the Purchase Order (PO) requirements, respond to changing markets, and provide new and innovative materials and processes that provide a competitive advantage while maintaining cost. When there is a failure due to suppliers, the operations group is required to generate Supplier Non-Conformance Reports (SNCR’s) and provided details of why the supplier has not achieved the agreed upon expectations of the PO.

Financial Leg – Present Day Metrics/Intentions

The financial perspective is found in many organizations and adds value to the organization through an understanding of “whether a company’s strategy, implementation, and execution are contributing to bottom-line improvement. Financial objectives typically relate to profitability – measured, for example, by operating income, return on capital employed, or more recently, economic value added”. (Kaplan & Norton 2004) Many organizations have understood the importance of such metrics and use such indicators to guide the business forward based on previous experiences. Vincor and CBI have an expectation to grow cash flow and return on invested capital (ROIC) supported by the focus of growing sales faster than expenses. Within the control of operations, this can be translated to many financial areas of responsibility. The Niagara operations group has a budget based on the production of 3,444,000 – 9 liter equivalent cases achieving budgeted fixed and variable costs. The challenge with the translation of needed success is that the organization utilizes financial analysis with the same allocations of time and effort for all products and does not use

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costing models such as activity based costing (ABC). Therefore, efforts in the production of highly specialized and premium products are absorbed at the same cost as highly popular and commercialized products that are more easily produced and require less time and effort. Considering this challenge, achieving budget is at jeopardy if forecasted sales are excessively incorrect or there is a major shift in consumer preferences and the requirement of the production of more capital intensive products, not absorbed at standard costs.

There is an expectation for the organization to grow cash flow and return on invested capital (ROIC). This has been communicated through the expectations to grow profit, reduce net working capital, and use capital investments efficiently and finally, pay down debt. Growing Cash Flow is somewhat ambiguous as it does not define the expectations of the senior management team. It will be assumed that the organization has expectations of turning over its capital in the form of cash more frequently throughout the year with the objective of maximization of profits through sales and minimization of associated costs. This indicator is influenced by many internal factors including generating the greatest Internal Rate of Return (IRR) on capital and the Net Present Value (NPV) of use of capital. It is clear that the organization wishes to provide premium products with portfolios that represent the greatest profit margin as opposed to margins found in value or popular brands. Furthermore, if there is a requirement for the development of new products or re-launch of existing products, there is a need to increase net selling prices or divest and rationalize lower-return products with efforts to reduce the average cost of goods sold.

The operations group has a direct impact on each of the above in many different areas with the largest costs to the business within its control. Cash flow is impacted by overhead costs per case, inventory levels of finished goods, and spends of capital for the improvement of the infrastructure impacting safety, quality, cost savings initiatives and material usages as compared to standard cost. Within the expectations of premiumization of the portfolio, operations are tasked with the critical need of providing superior products in the form of both wine and packaging. This is a great challenge as return of investment on capital spend towards such initiatives is difficult to translate to the bottom line of the business. There are a few different approaches to understand this impact and can be prioritized by the overall financial value to the organization, the potential financial losses and the controllability of spend.

An example includes the capital spend for the plant as a whole. Within fixed costs, many costs may also be variable as the plant consumes such costs at a rate relative to the production of products or at the discretion of the management team. The measurement at the plant level is measured by the number of cases generated and the cost to do so as compared to budget and relative rate of absorption. This is found in the objective to achieve commercial winery cost plan of $3.60 / 9L case based on 3,444,000 cases produced. Furthermore, there is an expectation to increase sales volume at or above

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category market rates while containing or reducing expenses. This impacts the operations group as a result of the need to increase the level of technologies within the facilities, increase the amount of work done to produce such products and increase the knowledge and development of the human resources. This expectation increases both fixed and variable costs along with impact the depreciation and amortization expense of the business.

Fixed Costs

Fixed costs can be further defined and/or classified as a required spend that may be flexible if the business dramatically changes. Costs that cannot be deferred as a result of a major loss of business include property taxes, heat, and electricity and can be found to represent a very large cost to the business. Therefore, fixed costs can be further classified into two groups – fixed overhead costs that are uncontrollable and fixed overhead costs that are controllable. With the growth of the business and the development of premium products, much more fixed costs have become apparent through land development of vineyards, building expansions at many of the sites and capital intense equipment requirements within the facilities to provide the organization with expected long term return on investments.

Variable Costs Variable costs are somewhat proportional to the amount of product generated. The philosophy of how to best manage variable costs is a challenge for most managers as the culture of the organization dictates the perception of how this budget is managed with these costs primarily found through the costs of human resources and considered potential cost savings opportunity. This is generally the first group impacted during economic downturns and the most expendable group, most likely reduced during capital spend and more efficient operational effectiveness. In some organizations, this group represents the greatest opportunities for growth of the organization as people can be redirected and re-deployed quickly to maximize opportunities and organizational growth strategies, presenting a competitive advantage.

Discussion It can be found that the strategic direction of the organization has been clearly communicated and it is the expectation of each of the functional groups to provide the necessary direction to their teams. Through the analysis of the strategic direction of the organization and the present day metrics to which the organizations presently places much of its effrots, the identification of numerous opportunities in the forms of metrics have been identified aligning people to the needs of the organization. This road map needs to be departmental based and specialized through the expertise and knowledge of the functional group.

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From the strategic map, it was determined that there are opportunities to center the operations group towards strategic success in all areas of the Balanced Score Card. These opportunities can be found under each of the 4 legs of the score card in Appendices 8, 9, 10 and 11. Throughout the analysis, it has also been determined that very little of the companies success is communicated throughout the organization in a transparent manner as to allow leaders, managers, supervisors and employees the opportunity to engage weaknesses and critical human resources to achieving expectations while celebrating successes and achievements. As determined by the analysis of the strategic map, the understanding of the strategic objectives driven by the vision and direction of what would best support the business and create and provide value, each of the strategic objectives where translated into metrics that may best represent the strategic direction of the organization and allow for all levels of management the time and effort towards results that impact the expectations of the leaders of the organization. For each of the four legs of the score card, considering both existing metrics and new metrics, the final result of a balance score card can be presented in both an excel format and a visual tool that needs to be shared when updates occur as captured in appendix 12. Within each of the legs, metrics that may provide for a better strategic alignment for the operations group have been provided and are as follows.

Knowledge, Education and Growth – The Learning Leg People provide the vehicle by which organizations function and achieve needed requirements to execute the organizational goals. Equipment, systems, tools and computers are all designed to support the objectives of an organization but it is the people that decide, react, contribute, problem solve and take actions that best represent the interests of an organization. To ensure people have the necessary knowledge of expectations, there is a need to effective guide individuals and mitigate risks associated with being blind-sided by competitors, the associated costs with high turn-over rates and the associated knowledge and experience loss, poor quality work and products/processes, recruitment costs and the motivation of remaining individuals.

The Knowledge, Education and Growth leg of the score card is critical to establish the foundational part of the hierarchical structure allowing for the alignment and development of the people that support the organization and support the next leg, the Internal Business Processes. To best impact the Internal Business Processes, individuals need to be engaged, knowledgeable, capable and willing to assist in the improvements of the processes that they contribute within their roles and willing to change processes responsively as to achieve the needs of the business. The organization is tasked with providing both direction and feedback on the mobilization of it peoples and ensuring the critical strategic alignment.

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The key areas to which the organization has directed its managerial efforts include the need to improve collaboration across business units, be admired to work for, considered fair and equitable as an employer and employees are awarded and appreciated. Presently, as found in appendix 8, there are no metrics that indicate success in these areas, and therefore, not communicated on an on-going basis. The management team relies upon the supervisors of employees to remember to consider these expectations. Within this scope, but not covered in the strategic imperatives, is the companies focus on employee safety and the environment. Safety indicators including the number of days without a lost time, accident frequency rate, total incident rate by location, and severity rates are communicated throughout the managerial team, but not to the floor level and must be included in the score card. The Knowledge, Learning and Growth leg of the score card communicates the development of people towards excellence in their capabilities including the tasks they perform, their ability to measure their processes, their effective communication, team-based problem solving and getting along with others. This strategic need is different from the other legs of the score card as this area promotes individualism. Within the operations group, there is a need to isolate the two groups, one being management (salary) and the other being hourly due to barriers of unionization including seniority and collective bargaining language pertaining to job structure. Even with these minor constraints, there are opportunities to better train and develop these individuals through increased knowledge of the business and expectations through effective communications and alignment. The analysis of the present day business has identified that individuals have been developed through on-the-job training and/or hired based on their skills and knowledge from previous employment with the strategically seeding in their positions. Core competencies of individuals have been found to include experience and learning through successes and failures, both within the organization and in past work experiences. The weaknesses are found to be an unshared learning of best practices as many operators have their own methodologies of work completion and perception and interpretation of value creation. The methods by which improvements can be made to influence and develop people can be executed through effective training and employee development working towards the broadening of knowledge, skills and processes within the hourly group. The development of managerial members can be achieved through the documentation and measurement of employees through performance appraisals with the ability to increase their knowledge from both internal and external educational sources. Foundational metrics that may direct and indicate the company’s commitment to individual development are found in simple metrics such as employee hours spent training and/or the money spent to increase the knowledge of management members.

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A critical method in ensuring the alignment of managerial members is through the effective administration of the Performance Appraisal system, supported through the human resources department and the process by which individuals are rewarded merit increases and a component of the annual financial bonus system. The results of these appraisals provide indicators of employee engagement and willingness to support the organization through the personal benefit of achieving set goals and the needs of the organization. All organizations are faced with the challenge of satisfying societal pressures of good corporate citizenship with expectations that organizations operate legally and incompliance to all governance and legislated bodies. Society also places expectations on organizations with respect to general societal concerns such as the environment and the impact the organization has. The operations group can support this expectation through the measurement and action of reducing its energy consumption per unit (case) of product generated along with ensuring that there are no losses of product to the municipal waste water treatment plant along with the reduction of wastes to landfill. To best influence and align the hourly manufacturing group to achieving the financial requirements of the business, a metric celebrating the ability of the team to achieve operational budget on a weekly basis (R2’s – Required Results) is needed further rewarding achievements and promoting on a monthly basis the number of times the operations group was successful in their achievements. This result is indicator of the management and hourly peoples ability to meet the variable and fixed budget on a weekly basis based on the product mixed produced.

All of the Knowledge, Learning and Growth metrics are found to be centering employees towards individual commitment of strategic necessities. There are many biases and challenges in translating a set of questions, indicators or performance to this understanding and how active the metrics are changing the perception towards business needs. To determine a total level of engagement as an indicator that is measurable, the score card will provide a sum of the average of all metrics to determine how well the entire team was able to be mobilized towards the strategic imperatives of the organization.

Safety has many implications within an operations group and critical by all

to minimize possible accidents or incidents. Management has high external exposure associated with this area of manufacturing including personal fines and criminal prosecution due to a worker injury/death along with the need to manage the moral of the workers after an accident, public perception as an employer and the health and well being of employees. Ultimately, metrics such as the number of days without a lost-time injury, severity rate and incident rate are good indicators of past effectiveness but does not proactively take action into future potential injuries. Therefore, an effective and proactive Joint Health and Safety committee can favourably impact an organization long term through the

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identification, analysis of risks, recommendations and controls of hazards within the workplace. Regular closures of action items that have been identified for correction indicate the future avoidance of possible risks within the workplace. Lastly, the perception of individuals as it pertains to their safety and the commitment of management and their co-works can also provide imperative indicators.

Internal Business Process The Internal Business Process includes the measurement of processes executed by individuals and the effectiveness of such execution to best support the customers and the financial legs. Processes can also be viewed as the activities that create value and enhancement of the value proposition to the products and/or services. Therefore, metrics need to direct value creation through the improvement of existing systems with directional considerations towards metrics for future expectations of consumer and financial requirements with metrics supporting post-sale consumer feedback. Theses critical areas can also be translated by priority and level of investment by the organization with a need to achieve the associated return on investment. To ensure the accurate capture of information and ensure effective internal processes, all costs need to be properly allocated to COGS and applied to the sale of the product ensuring profitability. If not, the organization would need to absorb such costs as a direct loss to the Profit and Loss statement and an indicator to shareholders of potential organizational ineffectiveness and their confidence in managerial abilities. The following costs are the rounded values of investment and operating costs by the company, managed through the internal business processes and found to be: Total Finished Goods Production (annual) $138,000,000 Monthly Carrying Costs Value (average) $27,000,000

Bulk Wine – Per Year Cost $44,800,000 Monthly Carrying (average) $8,000,000

Packaging –Yearly Spend $36,000,000 Monthly Carrying costs $4,100,000 Plant Value, Including Equipment $48,500,000 Plant Assets Value $32,000,000 Plant costs – Variable and Fixed $9,450,000

The above capital is managed through the operations group and requires effective processes to ensure losses are mitigated. Work orders generate finished goods in the ERP system and allocate raw materials and bulk wines, the largest cost/risk to the business if not properly captured. There is a need of the

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values communicated to be extremely accurate as taxes are paid on the packaging of alcohol at $0.564 per liter. With the production of 31,000,000 liters packaged per year, taxes represent $17,400,000 to the organization. Also critical to the organization is the need to have the highest and most stringent controls in place as the federal government has the ability to revoke the winery license if they believe that all taxes owed are collected, crippling the organization with no ability to produce core products. With large capital costs associated with operating the plant and equipment to be able to provide consumers with products that meet or exceed the value proposition, there is a need to ensure that the equipment achieves expected output within quality expectations. Large investments in capital has been spent in efforts of providing the infrastructure in assets that presently exceed competitor equipment, and if not utilized to the realized potential, results in a loss of competitive advantage and a higher cost of capital absorption. Therefore, clear metrics indicating line uptime and the organizations Require Results (R2’s as termed in the company) is needed to translate the investment into budgeted terms. This metric allows all levels of the organization the transparency of the investments made and focuses all the need to increase asset uptime and utilization. Without assets and equipment, the organization cannot produce and achieve any of the hierarchical expectations including the selling and marketing of products. The need to maximize the length of useful life of its assets can be achieved through a preventative maintenance program (PM). This program provides an indicator of the organizations commitment to protect its assets and provide products that are safe to consume. This program also mitigates large and expensive repairs and provides controlled operational spend of repairs through foreseeable and budgeted repairs based on equipment experience. Coinciding with the above two metrics, capital spend is justified through expected returns on investment and the need to justify such costs to improve long term business strategies. The greater the capital spend on assets, the greater the need to capture expected savings and look for synergies and/or other opportunities to reduce costs. Therefore, the need to keep the operations group poised on providing the greatest return after the capital spend along with committed accountability to such capital investments are required and captured as a metric indicating the benefit to the organization. Overall Equipment Efficiency (OEE) is a cross-functional metric that provides a more holistic indicator of how effective a whole production line is functioning. This metric translates and compounds the three critical areas of manufacture including line availability, line performance (in the form of uptime) and the lines ability to produce quality products. Although this is more of a top level metric, this indicator provides operations with the overall health of the production line and its ability to achieve its primary function.

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Continuous improvement is critical to all organizations and needed to remain competitive in business and provide competitive advantages if all programs critical to add value to an organization exceed competitors and instilled as part of an organizations corporate culture. Translating these initiatives and impacts is a challenge but can be influenced by the number of actions that are documented and measured. Within the operations group, the team has decided to capture such initiatives in a log with excel known as the Action Item Log (AIL). This excel based log allows for opportunities identified in the day-to-day processes and long term strategic needs to be captured and assigned to individuals for ownership with reasonable deadlines provided. An example of the AIL is found in appendix 14. Through the strategic philosophy of driving action, results, and accountability in efforts to foster future success, metrics that direct the accuracy of system information supporting quality requirements (ISO - National Recall Program) and financial requirements including inventory accuracy and alcohol taxes are presented. There is a need to ensure that present day practices and improvements made are captured in a system that provides the foundation of the internal business process. The system used to achieve this need is the organizations ISO 9001:2000 quality management system (QMS) and further supported by the HACCP system and food safety. To maintain the momentum of improving the processes and ensuring the accuracy of how processes are carried out, there is a requirement of submission and control of all new process through the documentation of such processes along with an annual review of previously existing documents in efforts to ensure accuracy and relevancy is required. A metric indicating how many of these processes are evaluated and the capture of new processes is required to ensure a focus on continuous improvement and system maintenance. One metric that has been identified that may be a shorter term objective is the need to ensure the proper electronic and physical transfer of finished goods to the Distribution Center. It has been identified that there are many clerical and procedural errors that have resulted in the generation of paper losses of inventory and the additional work in investigating and determine root cause and correction.

Customer Service

The customer is the most critical partner to an organization and provides the needed revenue for organizational longevity and success. The customer dictates the expectations of the product/service and the price that they are willing to pay to meet their personal needs. From this acknowledgement, companies need to provide a product/service that attains higher goals including exceeding expectations at the set market price while managing the challenges of creating profit for shareholders. The organization believes that it can achieve such

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requirements through the philosophy of being recognized for quality products by staying close to its customers and reacting through the continuous improvement of its business. Metrics that best translate these philosophies are achieved by the operations ability to produce quality products including wine and packaging. This group needs to ensure that quality products are available when need by both the customers and the consumers along with new and innovative products that consumers may be interested in purchasing. There are two streams of quality indicators presently within the company. The first indicator of consumer satisfaction is found through the direct communication with consumers through a toll free telephone number provided on the back of the products. This system is new to Vincor and will enable the organization to gather critical information about consumers concerns and allow for the maintenance of a relationship with the consumer. Since there is no base-line data, this metric will be the number of un-satisfied consumers supported by a separate posting on the actual consumer concerns. This data will be tabulated and provide a method by which future actions for improvement can be taken. The second stream of quality data feedback is through the Wine Rack division and the reason codes by which inventory is removed from the system. This data will be provided monthly to ensure a continued enforcement on improving quality and again drive opportunities of continuous improvement. This information needs to be regarded as the voices of the consumers and an indicator of their expectations. In efforts to ensure that products are exceeding the value proposition of the wine itself, wines are tasted and rated against competitors within the same price point and volumes. This internal tasting is done blind to ensure a non-bias score and ranking and allow the wine making group and marketing the opportunity to judge products, improve products, or stay abreast of the trends of the competition. The products chosen include the highest selling import and domestic producers along with new potential threats to existing markets and channels. This activity has not been communicated outside of the wine-making group and needs to be provided within the score card to allow the organization to promote a culture of quality products and a sense of pride and ownership of quality. A requirement of all business is to have a product or service available in the right place and the right time in efforts to meet the need of the customer. This metric is generally captured as a customer service level, generally defined as on time and in full. Vincor utilizes a replenishment system, or push system, whereby inventory is made available based on forecast requirements. As inventory is relieved, production is planned based on expected depletion and replenished prior to running out of all inventory. If a product is unavailable, the company measures lost sales for every day of no inventory available based on the theoretical sale of products based on forecast. The expectation for operations is 98% inventory levels at all times.

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The ability for the plant to meet the metric of customer service levels of 98%, there is a need for the plant to maintain its planned schedule adherence producing within the week to which products were planned through finite scheduling. The logic supporting this metric is to keep people focused on achieving production expectations and on process improvements geared to meeting company needs. The metric is calculated by locking in a finite schedule and, upon completion of the week, measure the ability of the plant to meet the planned production. A screen shot of a finite schedule is found in appendix 15. The last critical metric identified through strategic map is the need to support the business through the commitment of delivering new products in the needed timeframe. New products provide the organization with opportunities experienced through the first mover approach/strategies of sales. Furthermore, the ability of the organization to react to new threats and entries within the market require a lean system by which the company can respond to competition and maintain or gain market share. The metric is needed to ensure that the operations group keeps this strategic objective as a paramount belief as it represents the long term success of the organization. This metric will be calculated by the group’s ability to meet both the volume requirements and the expectation of having inventory available on the date needed within the distribution center.

Financial

“Money is king” - a term that drives organizations towards needed business success encompassing all short and long term strategies and daily decisions. Many short term metrics pertaining to financial metrics provide returns that exceed expectations at the potential risk of trading-off future emerging market opportunities, the loss of intellectual capital in the form or human resources or, at extreme, breaking laws designed to protect a variety of interests in society. All metrics within the balanced score card ultimately roll up to having varying degrees of impact to the BSC and the ability for an organization to prosper presently and into the future. Finished goods inventory is the largest controllable cost of the operations group and impacts the organizations ability to meet budgeted cash flow requirement. Ultimately, the group needs to be targeting the production of products in an efficient manner with decisions towards larger volume runs, maximizing labour usage and line uptime through less change-over’s. Within the cellars (winemaking), the amount of time spent preparing a wine that is 1,000 liters or 100,000 liters is roughly the same when considering tank and line sanitation, the movement of wine from a variety of tanks and equipment set up and pumping of wine. Considering the wine approval process, the time to analyze and ensure product integrity of tasting requires the same length of time. Therefore, operational groups may favour this ideology of large volume production runs at the detriment of the best interest of the company through

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increased inventory levels. On hand finished goods inventory require to be managed while minimizing costs associated with the use of financial capital, extra use of human resources to produce, and the additional costs of transportation, storage and distribution. Therefore, the metric is designed to ensure that the operations group does not take liberties through over-production and over absorption of costs, protecting the organizations cash flow. This metric is calculated by subtracting the budgeted inventory levels (based on forecast) from the actual, on hand inventory. The weakness with the above metric is a result of the company’s expectations to budget inventory levels 16 months in advance of need. This results in incremental budgeting based on sales forecasting volume and 9 liter case requirements through historical data. To overcome such challenges of dramatic changes in the business, both favourably and negatively, a metric that indicates days of stock cover based on forecast is required as to provide the operations team the ability to react to unforeseen trends. This metric is calculated and compared to the budgeted of on hand inventory through forecasted requirements in the upcoming time period. The ‘days on hand’ metric also provides the group an indicator of cycle time of finished goods focusing efforts on turning inventory over more frequently, generating the greatest capital return on investment. The most basic financial indicator within operations includes the requirement of tracking fixed costs spend as compared to budget including fixed costs to budget absorption in relation to cases produced. Although fixed costs including property taxes, building maintenance and management salaries are not flexible in the short term, some costs associated within this category including electricity usage, water and water treatment, heating and consumables relating to production are somewhat variable based on production volume. This metric ensures that the operations group is managing the day-to-day costs in relation to fixed costs and ensure that accrual based accounting is accurate and reflects the actual spend within the specified timeframe. Variable costs are just that, costs that change in direct relation to the number of cases produced. This need is more critical to manage in shorter cycles and an indicator of how well the team manages labour and production outputs. The management of cash flow is a critical measure to the business with bulk wine and raw materials purchased on hand a benefit to react to unforeseen sales opportunities and customer service levels, but considered a detriment when considering the effective use of capital. Therefore, there is a need to ensure that there is an adequate amount of raw materials in the form of packaging and bulk wine on hand, but within planned budget and a critical balancing metric.

The organization has a strategic direction towards the premiumization of the portfolio of products that generate the largest gross margins.

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Premiumization requires the provision of higher priced products with both premium packaging and higher cost wines, and most often, a higher monetary value of COGS. These higher COGS translate to the efforts of premiumization and impacted by the operations group through the preparation and added costs of wine preparation and packaging, resulting in a greater gross margin per case generation per case produced, on average. This metric, supported further by tasting panels as compared to competitors, provides the needed indicators towards success of this premiumization objective.

With high COGS, there is a need to ensure that asset disposals and write downs (de-valuing) of materials and finished goods are minimized, further supported by the philosophy of lean manufacturing. Two metrics provide for this initiative including blended right the first time (BRFT) and packaged right the first time (PRFT). When considering the costs associated with one blend not meeting the chemical or organoleptic expectations of the brand, the loss to the organization could be in the 100,000’s of thousands of dollars. Therefore, processes and monitoring of such critical processes is crucial to achieve the net margin of the organization. Packaging errors may result in extensive rework of the product with most issues found to be uncorrectable, resulting in a loss of margin as the company may be forced to discount to a point of simply recovering costs through ‘friends and family’ sales, or decant the wine and use for port and sherry at 1/7th book value.

In the manufacturing of all products, wastes are generated as a result of handling materials and bulk wine. Within the cellars, wine requires consistent attention and evaluation resulting in micro losses. These requirements include sampling of wines to ensure the integrity is maintained, filtering to ensure the wine is ‘clean’ and no bacteria or yeasts are present that may begin to convert the wine to acetic acid (vinegar), movement to tanks that are ‘right’ sized to the remaining volume and the evaporation of water. Each time a wine is moved to maintain its integrity, losses occur as result of product remaining residual within the tanks, lines and pumps along with solids remaining within the filter media. On average, losses are found within the cellars at roughly 2% of the total volume handled. When considering that the cellars process an estimated 3,000,000 liters per month for bottling, the cellars actually move 9,000,000 liters per month as a result of the above requirements. This critical measurement ensures that all efforts are taken to minimize losses and provide the lowest impact to the consumer absorption of such costs.

Bottling loss is a second challenge as a result of losses in bottling lines and chemical rinses including round offs within the filler bowls. These wine losses are captured, for the most part, and de-valued. There is a need to minimize these losses and look for opportunities that reduce these financial losses to the company while ensuring that budgeted losses are, at a minimum, achieved.

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The two last two unbudgeted losses that represent a large potential financial risk to the organization are bi-annual inventory counts. These metrics present the operations group with an understanding of daily processing losses and the failure of accurately tracking such incurred costs as a result of manufacturing. If existing controls and internal business processes are not adhered to including the proper allocation of materials against work orders to adequately reflect usage of materials, the company is required to absorb such costs against the profit and loss statement. Furthermore, the proper use of asset disposals and the ability to provide provisional projected losses to finance are captured within this metric and a more efficient outcome control of internal business process failures.

Analysis Throughout the development of the Balanced Score Card, the translation of theory to the effective practical application of this tool in efforts to maximize the potential benefit of this tool was a challenge. There were many difficulties found in the translation of strategic objectives to metrics as a result of interpreting the intent of the strategic objective(s) as it pertains to operations within each of the legs of the score card. This included the challenge of the determination of the processes and/or systems that would provide the greatest impact to expected objectives and the knowledge, training and skills required to achieving the hierarchical objectives. Managers may also not see the importance of such metrics or wish to not communicate such metrics as they believe it to be sensitive business information. In addition, the metrics that were chosen may not be seen as having the same level of importance or value by some individuals. Risks identified during rollout and monitoring of the BSC may include a possible lack of commitment by various members of the team along with the acceptance by the hourly people of importance that may be met with barriers and resistance due to a lack of understanding or change.

An important consideration within management may be the challenges of

redirecting efforts and resources towards goals that may not be shared by all and may present a challenge if senior executives do not see the value in the program. With a new direction towards these strategies, many preconceptions or ideologies that allowed the company to achieve its present rewards may still be cherished and need reconsideration to understand the existing and future value. Senior management may not provide the teams the authority to take the necessary actions to impact the metrics and derive emergent strategies. All thoughts of possible impact need to be considered and the value of impact rationed against the present methods of execution within the company.

The tool is only an indicator and people may take unnecessary risks or not

report truthfully on actual outcomes in efforts to achieve or maintain a high level of expectations. People need to understand that this is a performance management tool providing direction with expectations to improve processes

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over time and all activities of value need to be weighted and not negatively impact other processes outside of the scope, reducing overall value add to an organization. This tool should be used as a guidance to allow people to move in a direction for their person development and knowledge directed towards a net benefit to the organization.

Recommendations Vincor and Constellation, like many organizations, are tasked with the need to translate the mission, vision and organizational strategies throughout the various groups within the organization with efforts to align the many individuals towards a common goal. This common goal has been analyzed and holistically embraced by the leadership team of the organization resulting in philosophies’ that best represent the needed corporate culture and understanding of each and every person within the company. The challenge faced by the leadership team is how to best translate these values and beliefs and lead people towards a winning and flexible culture prepared for the challenges that the organization will face in the future. This tool provides this vehicle and considers and centers on each of the critical areas of the business including finance, customers, the business processes and the people themselves. It allows for people to understand what success looks like through concrete and controllable metrics that every person can contribute to through their actions in business processes and their own personal development. This operational BSC is designed to allow people to re-think about the business and heighten their individual attention towards positive impacts to themselves and the business. The primary objective of translating theoretical strategy to every day business practices reduces barriers placed on individuals of how to understand the expectations of the executive team and allow them to contribute to success through metrics. The metrics are designed in a manner as to allow for individual creativity, supporting ideologies of acting like an owner or entrepreneurship, while still achieving overall needs. This process is critical as it allows people to personally develop and utilize ‘out-of-the-box’ thinking to provide personal gratification of success.

Conclusion This report transcribes the theoretical applications of the Balanced Score Card, as designed by Kaplan and Norton, to a functional and practical tool providing the operations group with indicators and metrics that will drive continuous improvement and adaptability towards executional excellence. The metrics are designed to convert the Mission, Vision and Strategic objectives as defined by the executive team to defined areas of need. The outcomes of the results will be communicated throughout the operations group on a monthly basis ensuring successes are celebrated and areas not achieving expectations highlighted and managed diligently. The score card promotes and allows individuals to see progress in many critical areas of the business and develop a sense of pride in their work and accomplishments while allowing for a corporate

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culture towards continuous improvement and adaptability and the greater good of the organization. The results also provide management the ability to understand and appreciate how decisions both favourably and negatively impact the day to day execution of the business and provide a greater understanding of how each leg of the score card requires attention and actions to impact broader key areas. Limitations of this study include the generation of metrics based solely on an individual study with an appreciation that greater opportunities for operations strategic engagement being found after the launch of the program and require inclusion and the re-weighing in of emergent metrics. There is also the potential that individuals will not buy into the metrics or show interest as a result of change or a lack of appreciation and understanding. To overcome such issues, a power point presentation discussion the importance of such measurements supported by Q&A sessions will be provided to reduce barriers with intent of gaining a majority support of the program. The Balanced Score Card is a necessary tool solving many challenges organizations face to be competitive. Human Resources are critical to meeting the organizational needs through their knowledge, beliefs, engagement and willingness to focus their energies towards the vision and mission of the organization. With the convergence of all individuals from different business areas towards one common goal, there is a greater likelihood of achieving success. To achieve this outcome of one common focal point, there needs to be drivers and/or motivators that move individuals to learn, grow and increase their knowledge to impact the internal business processes towards the customer expectations/needs, thereby providing the necessary financial requirements. The Balanced Score Card moves individuals towards being united as one entity, all sharing the same required results of executional excellence. The intent of the score card is to provide systems and processes that shape corporate culture within the organization towards leadership expectations. Through the metrics of the scorecard, opportunities will be uncovered that may favourably impact outcomes and results and organizational effectiveness, resulting in further studies in each of the legs. Such studies may include the ability of the organization to further improve business intelligence studies including consumer trends and expectations, customer requirements, product packaging expectations and long term direction of the industry. Studies that may also be considered is an appreciation of industry financial ratios specific to the wine industry with an appreciation of potential growth and long term success versus using indicators of profitability to shareholders. These indicators may also uncover the best direction for an organization through a profound understanding of internal business processes that contribute to the greater financial impact within the organization. Lastly, employee engagement studies may provide the organization with a better understanding of potential opportunities to shape the corporate culture towards strategic imperatives and may be of great benefit to the organization.

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Appendices

Appendix 1 Corporate Communication Logo

Vision – Listed at the top of the circle of success Mission – Center of the circle Strategic Imperatives – the 3 to 5 year plan focusing employees Surrounding Circle – the 5 core competencies focusing expectations of how we wish to manage the people. (Vincor Online) Appendix 2 Mission Statement – What does success look like? What does success look like? We will . . . • Drive significant shareholder value creation through focused brand

strength, operational excellence and enhanced financial performance. • Strengthen and distance ourselves as the #1 wine company in profits

and have several of the top 10 strongest wine brands in the world. • Be among the most admired companies to work for. • Continue to build strong routes to market in our core markets and

develop routes in other markets by establishing the strongest ties with our retail and distributor partners.

• Be recognized for quality products in every segment we compete. • Continue to drive our mix toward premium brands. • Be responsible stewards of clearly differentiated brands with unique personalities. (Vincor Online)

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Appendix 3 Strategic Imperatives Premiumize the overall portfolio:

Increase net selling prices Reduce average cost of goods sold Shift our mix toward higher-margin, higher return products Divest or rationalize lower-return products

Grow cash flow and return on invested capital (ROIC):

Grow profit Reduce net working capital Use capital investments efficiently

Pay down debt Grow sales faster than expenses:

Increase sales at or above category market rates while containing or reducing expenses Build brands:

Make focused investments on Constellation priority and local priority brands Continuously improve the image of our premium brands with consumers

Improve organizational effectiveness:

Optimize and leverage our structure Improve employee engagement Continuously improve our process Expand collaboration across companies and functions

Core Values • People - Treat people with respect and value differences.

Continually strive to build a collaborative environment Appreciate and reward the contributions of others

• Quality - Do the right thing for business. Demonstrate speed and quality in all areas of our work and results.

Apply the highest standards of excellence to every facet of the business Continually improve our systems and processes Never let our size diminish our attention to detail

• Entrepreneurship -Think like a shareholder. Be forward thinking, open, flexible and innovative.

Foster an environment of innovation and individuality Drive action, results and accountability to foster future success Strive to keep things simple

• Customer Focus - The right brands and strategies to meet the customer’s needs. Anticipate their needs and deliver against those needs Stay close to all of our markets and customers Provide superior products and services to our internal and external customers and consumers

• Integrity - Consistent and high ethical standards in everything we do. Negotiate and deal fairly, but firmly Treat everyone fairly and equitably (Vincor Online)

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Appendix 4 Road Map

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Appendix 5 F’11 Objectives – SVP of Operations

(Internal Communication)

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Appendix 6 F’11 Objectives – Director of Operations

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Appendix 7 – Strategic Map

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Appendix 8 – Knowledge, Growth and Learning Leg – Gap Analysis

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Appendix 9 – Internal Business Processes – Strategy Map and Gap Analysis

Appendix 10 – The Customer Leg – Strategy Map and Gap Analysis

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Appendix 11 – Financial Strategy Map –Strategy Map and Gap Analysis

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Appendix 12 – Data Entry and Calculation Sheet

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Appendix 13 – July Customer Complaint Summary

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Appendix 14 – Example of Action Item Log

Appendix 15 – Finite Scheduling

References The Canadian Wine Industry. (2009). Agriculture and agri-food canada. Retrieved (2010, June 10) from http://www4.agr.gc.ca/AAFC-AAC/display-afficher.do?id=1172244915663&lang=eng Basu, Ron, and J. Nevan Wright. (2005) Total Operations Solutions. (Elsevier Science and Technology Books, Inc.) © Books24x7. Retrieved from

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http://ezproxy.athabascau.ca:2051/book/id_17777/book.asp (accessed May 14, 2010) Brasen, Steve, Richard Lamming, John Bessant, and Peter Jones. (2005) Strategic Operations Management, Second Edition. (Butterworth-Heinemann. ©) Books24x7. Retrieved from http://ezproxy.athabascau.ca:2051/book/id_28165/book.asp (accessed May 14, 2010) Daft, Richard. Organization Theory and Design. 9th edition (2007). China: South-Western, Print.

Hannabarger, Chuck, Rick Buchman, and Peter Economy. (2007) Balanced Scorecard Strategy for Dummies. (John Wiley & Sons) Books24x7. Retrieved from http://ezproxy.athabascau.ca:2051/book/id_22693/book.asp (accessed May 18, 2010)

Hannan, M., & Freeman, J. (1977). Organizational ecology. Harvard University Press.

Hart SL. (1995). A natural-resource-based view of the firm. Academy of Management Review Kaplan, Robert S., and David P. Norton. (2004) Strategy Maps: Converting Intangible Assets into Tangible Outcomes. (Harvard Business Press) Books24x7. Retrieved from http://ezproxy.athabascau.ca:2051/book/id_14515/book.asp (accessed May 12, 2010)

Kaplan, Robert S., and David P. Norton. (1996) The Balanced Scorecard: Translating Strategy into Action. (Harvard Business Press) Books24x7. Retrieved from http://ezproxy.athabascau.ca:2051/book/id_2415/book.asp (accessed May 12, 2010) Niven, Paul R.(2002) Balanced Scorecard Step-by-Step: Maximizing Performance and Maintaining Results. (John Wiley & Sons) Books24x7. Retrieved from http://ezproxy.athabascau.ca:2051/book/id_3757/book.asp (accessed May 12, 2010) Pangarkar, Ajay M., and Teresa Kirkwood. (2009) The Trainer's Balanced Scorecard: A Complete Resource for Linking Learning and Growth to Organizational Strategy. (Pfeiffer) Books24x7. Retrieved from http://ezproxy.athabascau.ca:2051/book/id_29648/book.asp (accessed May 24, 2010)

Pfeffer, J. (1982). Organizations and Organization Theory. Marshfield, MA, Pitman.

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Scott, W. R. (1987) “The Adolescence of Institutional Theory”, Administrative Science Quarterly, 32, pp. 493-511; Shimizu, Tamio, Marly Monteiro de Carvalho, and Fernando Jose Barbin Laurindo. (2006) Strategic Alignment Process and Decision Support Systems: Theory and Case Studies. (IGI Global) Books24x7. Retrieved from <http://ezproxy.athabascau.ca:2051/book/id_12634/book.asp> (accessed May 24, 2010) Smith, Ralph F.. (2007) Business Process Management and the Balanced Scorecard: Using Processes as Strategic Drivers. (John Wiley & Sons) Books24x7. Retrieved from http://ezproxy.athabascau.ca:2051/book/id_16876/book.asp (accessed May 24, 2010) Vibert, C. (2004). Theorizing on macro-organizational behaviour: a handbook of ideas and explanations. New York: M.E. Sharpe.

"Vincor Online" Vincor - Intranet. Vincor International, Web. 10 May 2010. <https://vincoronline.vincor.ca/cms/EnglishHomePage.aspx>.

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