A BALANCED SCORECARD FROM THE PUBLISHED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS OF JOHN Coursework

A BALANCED SCORECARD FROM THE PUBLISHED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS OF JOHN LEWIS - Coursework Example Nowadays, the employee co-owned business numbers nearly 76,500 employees (John Lewis Plc, 2011). Business activity of John Lewis Partnership is differentiated by several directions, including: John Lewis full line department stores and John Lewis at home stores, Waitrose supermarkets, Waitrose convenience stores, and online store (John Lewis plc, 2011). The first shop of John Lewis has been opened in 1864; for 147 years, the company has achieved unbelievable growth, by opening 35 John Lewis shops and enabling customers to enjoy shopping online through the corporate website johnlewis.com. (John Lewis Partnership, n.d). In order to understand what are the key drivers of the growth of John Lewis and what its pledge of success is it is critical to understand the whole picture of the company’s activity. For this purpose it might be helpful to use the Balanced Scorecard tool. According to the official sources, the balanced scorecard is defined as: â€Å"a strategic planning and management system that is used extensively in business and industry, government, and non-profit organisations worldwide to align business activities to the vision and strategy of the organisation, improve internal and external communications, and monitor organisation performance against strategic goals† (Balancedscorecard.com, n.d.). ... Strategy – Customer perspective Every profitable organization strives to achieve profit and/or maximize it. In Business-To-Consumer (B2C) model it is fairly difficult or even impossible to achieve financial objectives if the customer is neglected or treated by the company in not appropriate manner. John Lewis, being one of the UK’s retail giant, has achieved tremendous financial success mainly due to understanding â€Å"this rule of capitalistic world†. John Lewis is a company which strives to understand customer’s needs, to know their wants and relying on these, to continue to provide the best possible choice, value and service (John Lewis Partnership, n.d.). Thus, the company’s strategy is based on three pillars: 1. The best value, choice and service. John Lewis maintains competitive prices in order to retain existing customers and attract new ones, offers â€Å"an unrivalled product assortment† to customers, and provides excellent service through proper staff motivation (John Lewis Partnership, n.d.). 2. Accessible shops and service; John Lewis actively expands the territories of its shops in order to reach the maximum amount of potential customers. The key principles include easy access to shopping, either by visiting John Lewis’s locations or by ordering items through the website. Such multi-channel approach to retail enables company to increase customer’s satisfaction and loyalty to the brand. 3. Careful listening to what customers want (John Lewis Partnership, n.d.). John Lewis continuously maintains dialogues with its customers in order to understand what are their needs and wants, what are their interests and preferences. Thus, the company tracks its results in