You have recently joined a professional services firm, Mistry and Willoughby (M&W). M&W provide consultancy services to a wide range of large organisations. The team you have joined within M&W specialises in designing performance measurement systems for organisations and has recently won a tender to design a new performance measurement system for Airbus SAS (the commercial aircraft division of Airbus). The performance measurement system will be called the ‘Airbus SAS Scorecard’. Your manager at M&W (Ellie Scaife) has asked you to prepare a report for Airbus covering the requests from Airbus with respect to the new Airbus SAS Scorecard. You have received the below email from Ellie:
EMAIL To: Airbus SAS Scorecard project team
From: Ellie Scaife Subject:
Airbus SAS Scorecard Good morning team, I hope you are well. As you know, you will be responsible for producing the report on the new Airbus SAS Scorecard.
It is important that we do a good job on this, Airbus are a market leading global firm and they are a fantastic addition to our client portfolio. Given your management accounting experience and your knowledge of the Balanced Scorecard, I am certain you are the perfect team to work on this. As you are aware, when preparing reports of this nature it is good to work with others so various opinions can be considered and different skill sets can be combined; therefore, it is important that this report is team effort
I am very busy on other projects, although I will schedule some meetings with you over the coming weeks to chat over your progress. Please make sure you are well prepared for these meetings, as they represent a good opportunity to ask me questions on the report. However, given that you will be working as part of a team, I am confident that you can make sensible professional judgements, as and when required, between yourselves.
Airbus have recorded a video for M&W in which they provide some background information on the business, as well as finer details on the Airbus SAS Division and the requirements they have for the new Airbus SAS Scorecard. This video is very comprehensive so please ensure you watch it very carefully and discuss this as a group before you get started. I have also provided some brief background information on Airbus SAS and their requests in email attachment 1. You, of course, should be doing your own research as well.
The client has agreed that I can ask them some additional questions in a meeting I have scheduled with them in a few weeks, so I would like you to think of an additional question that I could ask in that meeting. Please remember they are a client and we should not be asking questions on things where the answer has already been provided and/or questions where we (the experts!) should know the answer.
The maximum word count for the report is 5,000 words and it must be written in the M&W house style. In email attachment 2 I have provided information on what is included in that word count and details of the house style used by M&W.
It will be your responsibility to produce the report and submit it to me for a final review. The report needs to be submitted to be by Monday 14 th December at 2pm, please do not miss this deadline.
Please get started straight away on this, there is a lot of work to do but this a great opportunity and I am sure you will do a fantastic job.
Good luck!
Ellie
Airbus SAS manufactures aircraft which are sold directly, and also via leasing companies, to commercial airlines such as Easyjet and Emirates.
Airbus SAS manufactures aircraft parts across Europe. The parts are then delivered to, and assembled at, one of five Final Assembly Lines (FALs). The finished aircraft are then delivered to customers (commercial airlines). The financial performance of Airbus SAS over the last few years has been very good however the division has been severely impacted by the Coronavirus pandemic.
The senior management of the division wish to have a new performance measurement system in place which will allow them to effectively measure and manage financial and non-financial performance once the pandemic is over. It is planned that the new performance measurement system will be implemented on 1st January 2022.
Following initial discussions with Airbus senior management, it has been agreed that a Balanced Scorecard (BSC) style framework will be used for the new performance measurement system and it will be named the ‘Airbus SAS Scorecard’.
The senior management of Airbus have requested that the Airbus SAS Scorecard have 5 perspectives, rather than the 4 perspectives within the traditional BSC framework. The first 4 perspectives of the Airbus SAS Scorecard will be as per a traditional BSC, therefore they will be as follows:
Financial perspective
● Customer perspective
● Business operations perspective (aka internal business process perspective)
● Innovation and learning perspective
Airbus wants to add a fifth perspective to the Airbus SAS Scorecard and have requested a recommendation from M&W on what this fifth perspective should be. Airbus has also requested that M&W recommend for each perspective of the Airbus SAS Scorecard the following:
1 critical success factor (CSF)
• 2 objectives
• 2 key performance indicators (KPIs)
Airbus recognizes that the implementation of the Airbus SAS Scorecard will require careful management and also clear communication with employees. They have therefore requested that M&W provide the following:
A critical analysis of the recommended Airbus SAS Scorecard;
● Guidance on how the Airbus SAS Scorecard can be effectively implemented;
● A poster/infographic detailing the key elements of the Airbus SAS Scorecard to be used when rolling out to Airbus SAS staff.
Write a report for the senior management of Airbus, providing the following with respect to the Airbus SAS Scorecard:
A recommendation, with supporting justification, for the fifth perspective of the Airbus SAS Scorecard.
For each of the five perspectives of the Airbus SAS Scorecard provide recommendations for the following:
• One critical success factor (CSF)
• Two objectives
• Two key performance indicators (KPIs); one for each objective recommended above.
You should also provide an overall justification for the CSF, objectives and KPIs recommended for each perspective.
An overall critical analysis of the recommended Airbus SAS Scorecard.
Guidance on how the Airbus SAS Scorecard can be effectively implemented.
Design a one-page poster/infographic detailing the key elements of the Airbus SAS Scorecard to be used when rolling out the new system to Airbus SAS staff.
Your report should include an executive summary, report introduction and overall conclusion.
Presentation, quality of sources, referencing and grammar
