The CIty of CHarlotte, North Carolina, states their mission and vision as follow

ID: 2492154 • Letter: T

Question

The CIty of CHarlotte, North Carolina, states their mission and vision as follows: City VIsion: The City will be a model of excellence that puts the citizens first. Skilled, diversed, motivated employees will be known for providing quality and value in all areas in service. We will be a platform for vital economic activities that give Charlotte a competitive edge in the market place. We will partner with citizenss and businesses to make this a communitty choice of living, working, and leisure activities. City Mission: The mission of the city is to ensure the delivery of quality public services and to promote the safety, health, and quality of life of its citizens. The city's senior administrative staff has selected the following five strategic focusareas in which the city should strive to excel: Community Safety- Evolved from an initial focus of crime and now includes livability, stability, and economic viability of a neighbor. Transportation- including maximizing public transit, building and maintaining roads, adopting and implementing land-use policies to support growth and transit goals, and ensuring adaquate pedestrian and bicycle connections. Housing and Neighborhood Development- Includes adaquate code enforcement, developing strategies for affordable housing, and neighborhood and business district involvement in problem identification and solution developments. Environment- Includes protecting air and water quality, land preservation, and energy and resource conservation. Economic Development- Including sustaining prosperity, keeping jobs and the tax base in Charlotte, and building a skilled and competitive workforce.

Requirements: Without calculations, develop a balanced scorecard for the city of Charlotte. In 500 words or more Explain in detail your choice of what appears in the top of your proposed strategy map. Bare in mind that the city's balanced scorecard need not to include every important service. Please cite or give references

Explanation / Answer

Financial measures typically play a major role in evaluating for-profit companies. Consequently, financial objectives are often the high-level outcomes to be achieved at the top of the Balanced Scorecard’s strategy map. The City of Charlotte, as a government organization, had to adapt the typical approach used by for-profit companies in order to implement its vision and mission. The five strategic focus areas listed in the case took the place of high-level financial objectives that appear at the top of a for-profit company’s strategy map. Because many financial, process, and learning and growth objectives would be common across several focus areas, the initial scorecard was built to encompass all five focus areas.

Given the high-level focus areas, the city placed the customer perspective at the top of the Balanced Scorecard. Charlotte treated its citizens as customers. Also, the city wanted to communicate its “business-like” approach so it wanted to retain the terminology used in business applications of the Balanced Scorecard. The customer objectives represent the city’s five focus areas of safety, revitalizing inner-city neighborhoods, transportation, restructuring government good value-for-money in city services, and economic development. The financial objectives were designed to help the city achieve its customer objectives cost-effectively and to enable the city to fund important projects via a solid tax base and high credit ranking. The learning and growth perspective objectives, likewise, were designed to help the city achieve its process objectives by monitoring technology maintenance and employee training to support continuous improvement. Both the process and learning and growth objectives should help the city achieve its financial and customer objectives.

Strategic focus areas

Community safety

City within a city

Transportation

Restructuring government

Economic development

Perspective

Customer

Reduce crime

Strengthen neighbor-hoods

Provide safe,convenient transportation

Enhance service delivery

Promote economic opportunity

Increase perception of safety

Maintain competitive tax rates

Financial

Expand non-city funding

Maximize benefit/cost

Grow tax base

Maintain AAA rating

Process

Increase positive contacts

Promote community-based problem-solving

Secure funding and service partners

Improve productivity

Streamline customer interactions

Increase infra-structure capacity

Promote business mix

Learning and growth

Enhance knowledge management capabilities

Close skills gap

Achieve positive employee climate