Sneak

Peek Webinar: Strategy Mapping in the Information Age

By Mr John Michael De Mesa

Additional questions raised by student audience

[Yesterday 10:38 AM] WARREN DAVID SAGA
Would you recommend the use of a balanced scorecard as a strategic planning and management
system for SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises), or is it more suitable only for large-scale
companies/corporations?

[JM] Strategic planning is something that SMEs should adapt. Our current situation is a good example
why even SMEs should have strategic planning. In terms of what tool, balanced scorecard is just one of
the many tools available. SMEs can use this and adopt their strategy according to scale. Right balance of
planning and execution will be of big help to them for sure.

[Yesterday 10:45 AM] JORIS MIKHAELLA YAP
With the current pandemic happening, as an experienced manager, what adjustment in
implementations of strategy do you believe would be effective to hit the targets, or at least survive
the operations for the year?

[JM] As a manager, I always tell my team that my #1 role is to make our working environment very
conducive for us to perform in the most efficient way. As such, I would always want to ensure that they
can raise any concerns to me and I will do my best to cover/address it, may it be with our operations or
their growth or sometimes even with their personal concerns.

In my current organization we are encouraged to be Agile. I believe this helped us a lot in terms of
managing operations in this current situation. Agile is the ability of being adaptable as the world
constantly change and shifts.

So, what’s the point of those two items I mentioned? For me what is important is you find certainties
while there are a lot of uncertainties/distractions around you. Be clear with your goal/targets and your
values. As both will help you navigate whatever change/shift we face in this world.

In addition, we also want to equip us with the right information or knowledge on how to navigate in this
unchartered water we are in. It is not weakness to seek help or additional knowledge. I find it very
helpful that we have materials that helps us be a better manager/leader in this situation.

For my team, I always tell them that we should always prioritize our health and safety because it is
what we use to earn for a living. We always want to ensure that they are our priority more than
anything else. After which, I always remind them that we want to ensure that we continue to be
productive as we want to ensure that we can continue operations despite what is happening as long as
the situation permits. Lastly, like how we are encouraged to be agile, I always assure them that
whatever targets we have set these are something we are ready to adjust in order to adapat to whatever
situation we will be in.

[Yesterday 10:52 AM] CHRISTIAN LAWRENCE RANARIO

As you have mentioned both creativity and simplicity in strategy mapping, both of which are terms
that are usually in contradiction, how can you integrate both factors in your strategy map?

[JM] You have to find balance. For some they may consider these contradicting terms, on the other hand
some would say it goes hand in hand. In anything we do, we always want to find balance. Creativity will
spark your mind to think beyond the box. Simplicity will remind you to focus on what is important.



[Yesterday 10:56 AM] MARK ALDRICH MONTALBO
With regards to the implementation of Scorecard, how do you effectively find the proper Key
Performance Indicators (KPIs)?

[JM] Make your targets simple and clear. This is very important before you are able to identify the most
effective KPI to track your performance. Different KPIs are readily available for us to use. We can easily
get examples from those who have already implemented the same target/strategy and even think of
ways on how to improve it.

At the end of the day, it boils down on you being clear on where you want to be and making sure your
KPIs tell you where you are at, at any given point in time.


[Yesterday 11:04 AM] DANAROSE LANTO
If the company experienced consecutive losses and was given limited resources and choices in
coming up with its new strategies, what should it value more--- making profit or sticking with its
company core values? (esp. if they cannot choose both)

[JM] If the company cannot choose both, I would say they would have to pick profit. Because at the end
of the day if they continue their losses, then the company will have to shut down and their core values
will be at the same situation. Making profit is not synonymous to bad behavior. So, choosing this over
core values will be just to ensure your business continues operations and be able to continue advocating
its core values at a better situation. Also, dropping company core values will not also be synonymous to
us doing all possible ways to profit and forget our integrity. And if your company was able to ingrain its
core values in the organization DNA, then you are not actually dropping it or throwing it at the bin, but
rather deprioritizing it for now to ensure you survive and continue, as I’ve said, advocating you core
values.

[Yesterday 11:09 AM] DANE ROMMELYN TRINIDAD
How companies focus on external factors and competitors when balance Scorecard concentrates
extensively on the internal factors but misses the external environment?

[JM] Once you have set your goals, agree that Balanced Scorecard looks at your internal factors. But
while you are strategizing and mapping, the scorecard does not limit you to look internally.
Customer/Financial perspective involves external factors as we want to consider how our customers
and shareholders looks at us. Internal Perspective gives you the space to identify what area do you want
to excel vis-a-vis your market’s/industry’s landscape.

Also, we are not limited to Balanced Scorecard when we are doing our strategy. As mentioned yesterday,
these tools/technical knowledges that we are getting in the university will be for the purpose of making
our brains or way of thinking familiar with it. Enabling us to use them whenever we are performing our
roles as managers or leaders in our organization.

[Yesterday 11:09 AM] DAINELLE ANNE JANABAN

Is it necessary to implement IT Software to report the Scorecard? Does it serve as a substitute for
manual compilation of data or are there certain measures that still need to be done manually?

[JM] Use of technology is very welcome, as long as it makes our lives easier and makes the process more
efficient. Excel/Access is one of the basic tools that is widely used in the corporate world. For those small
companies, I would say that Excel will be of big help to measure their performance. For larger
companies, they invest on softwares/technology that enhances the ability of the organization to
measure its performance.



Remember we do not want to be paralyzed or delayed in our strategies because it is taking us too long
to measure our performance. That is the reason why we employ technology.

Automate/Manual, what is important is we are able to measure our performance accurately as it will
tell you where are you at versus your targets.

[Yesterday 11:10 AM] JOSTIN ELLA IGARTA

In a business organization, there are various objectives that focus on customer satisfaction,
innovation, quality and production management, etc. How does strategy mapping assist in taking
multiple departments with multiple objectives develop a common purpose and direction? All
mapping methodologies have pros and cons. Particularly, what are the limitations of employing
strategy mapping techniques? Kindly enumerate some po.

[JM] One objective in creating a strategy is for it to be easily adaptable and clear. This is where strategy
mapping helps organization to focus on the important, like how the balanced scorecard limits the focus
into four perspectives. From there each department, unit or individual in the company will have to
connect/relate their goals. That it why we stressed during our session that strategy needs to involve
everyone. The success of the strategy is in the execution of the whole organization.

One sample I can give as a negative feedback to strategy mapping is spending too much time or
resources in creating strategies versus benefits or assurance of benefits to the organization. Another will
be strategy mapping may limit creativity or confine the employees into the specific focus of the
organization thus people will not be able to ‘think outside the box’.

[Yesterday 11:11 AM] JOANA MARIE TRINIDAD
I would just like to ask, how often should a company review the progress of its strategic plans and
when would the company know when it is time for their company to update its strategic plan?

[JM] Reviewing the progress depends on the timeline or horizon that the strategy covers. Also, as
strategies are usually the guiding principles, the individual targets of the units of the organization will
dictate the frequency of reviewing the progress. Performance in an instance can be reviewed as much as
weekly or monthly and can also be less frequent. If the stakes are high and the changes in the factors
affecting the strategy is very frequent, the frequency of review will be higher.

There are a lot of factors that can dictate or suggest when it is time to change the strategy but what is
important is your constant review in order to ensure you keep up with all possible moves/shifts in the
industry landscape.

The above points support the need for KPIs to be readily available. That is why applications are now
being offered by different organization to help others be able to get data and transform this to
actionable information.

[Yesterday 11:12 AM] VON ANDREI MEDINA

Can a company add a goal in their map during the implementation of their strategy?

[JM] Yes, this is actually what we expect. Units of the organization will have to create/add goals that are
applicable to their unit and still adhere/connect to the overall strategy of the company.

It is also normal that in the middle of implementation, organization will update (add/remove)
strategies. But as organization strategy are usually a general thought rather than being very specific,
they do seldom make changes during the implementation. As answered above, reviewing the strategy
and your performance will help you identify if your strategy needs to be updated.



[Yesterday 11:12 AM] JEAN CLOWIE HERNANDEZ
A “static” strategic map would likely lose its value over time, especially in this dynamic environment.
How can a “static” strategic map be changed, so it would match and adapt the firm’s organizational
agility?

[JM] Strategies should be designed to be adaptable/agile. Similar to the above answer, reviewing your
strategies and performance will help you identify if it is time to update your strategy as there are a lot of
factors to consider in re-strategizing.

Strategies are not set in stone rules that will never be updated. If this happens, then one thing is for sure,
the organization’s continuity is at risk. It might not be instant, but the future will be uncertainty, your
organization will be open to threats of emerging technology or disruptors.

[Yesterday 11:13 AM] DAPHNE GRACE FAUSTINO

Is there a time when you failed to achieve your goals and had to follow a different approach? What
happened po?

[JM] Achieving your goals are also subject to factors that are beyond your control. That is why we need
to be resilient and agile. As mentioned, one of the principles we have in my current organization is to
Fail Fast. This acknowledges the human nature to fail but at the same time stresses the important to
quickly move on from that failure.

If you fail to meet your goal the first thing you ask yourself is Why. Why did I fail? Not to dwell on it but
to identify ways where you can improve to avoid committing the same mistake in the future.

As a manager, I have my fair share of not meeting my goals. Let say I targeted to close certain
transactions at a given point in time. But as the demand for work and capacity we have changes, we fail
to meet that target. What I did is to give my manager a heads up on the possibility of my team not
meeting that set target. This will give her a notion that you are on top of things and at least you are
already doing something to mitigate and also avoid having surprises. Managers/Leaders hates surprises
because it will give them less time to strategize. Second is to provide the details on what happened and
your solution or plan of action to still do your best to meet the target. That plan should also have the
back up to show again how you are on top of the situation. Constant reporting of your progress will also
assure your manager that you are working on the item and will help ease their minds.

[Yesterday 11:13 AM] LEILAH LOUISE REYES
What are the challenges and the most challenging part in implementing the balanced scorecard? Also, if
unresolved, how does it affect the company’s strategic plan?

[JM] The most challenging part of implementing the balanced scorecard or any strategy/goals is getting
everyone on board. As leaders we want to make sure everyone is on board as we need everyone’s
cooperation and contribution to ensure the success of the strategy.
If unresolved, it will mean failure of the strategy and can threaten the continuity of business.



[Yesterday 11:14 AM] ANGEL LYN LLACUNA
Sir, may I ask how business planning is different from strategic planning? And is strategic planning only
applicable to large companies?

[JM] Business planning is usually done before you start a business. It is where you perform your industry
study, marketing plans, financial forecasting. While strategy happens while you are already running the
business. Because strategic planning already entails that you have already initiated the business operation
and is now finding ways to ensure continuity of business.
Strategic planning is not limited to large companies. As mentioned in our session, some small/medium
enterprise are often overwhelmed of the term strategy. They even skip business planning and jump into
starting the operations of the business as they feel their size does not open them to external factors in that
industry/market.
But as the current situation shows, it is very important to have this tools in business. Actually, one of the
books I’ve read suggested that business plans can also be applicable to our personal lives. As similar to
business we are affected by a lot of factors around us and will also need strategies to ensure we are not
distracted and bring meaning to our lives.

[Yesterday 11:14 AM] JARED TOLOSA
How often should an organization analyze the competition in the industry in order to understand
competitive advantages and disadvantages as well as identify areas that need improvement?

[JM] Answered in one of the previous question on whent to say it is time to change strategies

[Yesterday 11:14 AM] SELWYN DANTE

How does your company ensure that all your strategies are made-known and implemented at all
levels of management, all the way to the bottom level?
Edited

[JM] This is where your KPIs are important. KPIs will be the measure of where we are at and will give
you the signal if the organization is onboarded to your strategies.

[Yesterday 11:15 AM] JESTER ILAWAN

Do you use the basic 'SMARTER' principle in making a strategies? Does this basic principle really
helps?

[JM] Yes, SMARTER is the updated version that shows how tools also adapts to recent developments. The
addition of evaluation and reward shows that even tools are agile and adaptable. SMART goals, we all
know is very important as it will ensure that your goals are understanble, relateable and measurable.
Evaluate emphasizes the need to constant evaluate to know where you are at versus your goal. While
Reward entails the workforce factor where you will need to acknowledge accomplishment and Revise
your strategy if it is not working.

[Yesterday 11:16 AM] MIGUEL RICARDO PASCUAL
What if there is a conflict regarding your superior's goals and the company's goals? What would be
your approach in making the strategic plans?

[JM] You have to be confident and ask your superiors on how their set goals are contradicting. Just make
sure you are also able to explain how you have arrived to that conclusion and show your eagerness to
understand instead of just simply complaining. From there you will be able to align, either by
understanding where your superior is coming from or your superior realizing their gap and revising
their own goal.



If you still don’t align you will have to be clear with your superior. Saying you are okay just to end the
conversation will just result to a bigger problem. That is why alignment is very important. You can
politely still say that the goal is something you still don’t connect or you feel contradicts to the
organization's overall goal. This way your superior might need to involve someone else to mediate or
may let you have a skip level to resolve the conflict.

[Yesterday 11:16 AM] IZELLE JOSEF LI
Sir, as the number of Balanced Scorecard perspectives may be increased or decreased according to
the company, do you think it is possible that a company focuses more on the operational
performance and other non-financial measures (i.e. customer, internal, growth) and not highlight the
financial perspective much? Or would that put the company more at risk of suffering losses?

[JM] As mentioned during our session, balanced scorecard suggests only four perspective. But
companies, in doing their strategic mapping can add or may use a mix of different tools.

Focusing on one perspective is possible depending on the organizations culture. Some will suggest that
focusing on learning & growth and internal perspective will automatically take care of the other
perspective is permissible. As Kaplan suggested that the 4 perspectives are connected.

Any decision on what to prioritize puts the organization at risk. What is important is the organization
knows the risk and they understand the possibilities of choosing or prioritizing strategies as this will
help them be aware or conscious for the need of evaluating their decision on strategies and also make
them open to changing this if results are already suggesting an evaluation of the current strategies.

[Yesterday 11:16 AM] AARON CRAIG NG

How do you measure performance of your team? With that, how do potential indicators illustrate
that your team is performing to its fullest?

[JM] KPIs, Productivity & Quality of work will tell you if your team is performing well. Surveys or
Coaching will also tell you on their current capacity to perform. Hitting targets is one simple indicator
that they are performing. If they are meeting this and at the same time being able to still have time to
learn and grow, we can say they are performing at their fullest. The coaching and constant checks will
also help you assess their current capacity, if they are already overworked. There are a lot of ways to
measure performance, what is important is you choose and know what is your focus. Also, it is
important to know the frequency of this measures so you would not be too late when addressing
concenrs or issues.

[Yesterday 11:20 AM] MARIA ANGELICA DE GUZMAN
Isn't the use of a balanced scorecard as a strategic planning and management system too far-fetched
or rather difficult for SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises)? What are ways or approaches
applicable for them with regards to strategic planning?

[JM] The idea might sometimes be the only thing that is far-fetched and the fact that it is currently
employed by large companies also adds up to the connotation that SMEs will not benefit from strategic
planning.

SMEs need to scale strategic mapping to their size. You can make the perspective as simple as you can to
relate it to your strategy. Sometimes, SMEs are already praticing this without them knowing or they just
fail to institutionalize this. The challenge in not institutionalizing comes when the person creating the
strategy leaves the organization. Bottomline of creating a strategy is business continuity, if
organization wants to ensure this, they need to institutionalize it so that it can be transferable and
regardless of who runs the business strategic planning is already ingrained in the DNA of that
organization.



One sample will be a sari-sari store, if the current owner just focused on buying and selling, market
movement (price hikes) will easily impact the sari-sari store. If they are not aware of the changes or the
possibility of changes in price they will not have thought of having enough stockpiles to mitigate the
impact of price changes, that is a strategy. Or let say partner with a local grocery to get preferntial rates
or allowance when there are price hikes to give them competitive advantage. On customer perspective,
not knowing your customer opens you to risk when another sari-sari store opens and gets customers
from you. These facts are most often considered by SMEs as too complicated to think of, but if they want
to ensure continuity of business, they will have to think of this.

[Yesterday 11:22 AM] JOHN CARLO NALLOS
One of the factors on how a Strategic Planning is done is that it is simple and straightforward. How
does a company deal its strategic planning even if they have done it on a complicated basis in which
it can affect or it didn't attain in the company's operations in the long-run?

[Yesterday 11:22 AM] KAREN ASISTORES
What if the strategies planned doesn't work the way the company thought it would be? Would the
company make a new plan or stay with it and think for new ways to achieve it?

[JM] Companies needs to be Agile. As there are a lot of factors that can impact the success of the
strategy. Most of the time, the level of agility of the organization dictates their success. Fail Fast
principle.

[Yesterday 11:27 AM] JAMES PATRICK PAULME

what are the problems company encountered when doing strategy mapping? and how do you give
solutions to it

[JM] When the organization is not onboarded or does not understand the strategy. If this happens, what
you need to do is understand where your employees is coming from, they might have a valid reason why
they are not onboarded or it is hard for them to understand the set strategies. Once you understand
their point you will have to be confident in re-evaluating your strategy. Failure only comes in if you do
not acknowledge your misses and stick to what you believe despite the overwhelming facts thrown at
you. Just like what I tell my directs, you only fail as a leader if you close your mind to the opinion of other
people, if it is just one that can be immaterial if they are two or more you will have to ask yourself why?

[Yesterday 11:36 AM] RAFAEL JOHN PABUSTAN

How long do you think will the COVID have an effect on the strategy mapping of companies?

[JM] Our current situation has already triggered different organization to think of their strategies.One
example will be on BCPs, previously most of the organization will only have flooding, volcanic eruption,
earthquake or man-made disasters in mind in their BCPs. The current situation is a nice opportunity to
also asses organization BCPs and will definitely impact how they create or revise their BCPs. Others will
be on the WFH set-up. Long have we relied on the need to in an office because companies are afraid that
productivity might be impacted if managers are not able to monitor employees physcially. That fear
paralyzed most of the industry to adapt. Only those who were able to go beyond their fears have been
able to adapt and have easily navigated that hurdle.

This is also evident for Taxis. How long have we been waiting for cashless payments, right? Taxis are
now challenged to adpat, they waited for this situation to arrive and force them to develop cashless
transactions. Jeepneys as well, how long have the government and other sectors pushing jeepneys to
modernize. Some would have a lot of reason not to, but now look only those new style of jeepneys will be
allowed as the seating layout of the old jeepneys are prone to exposing passengers to transmit the virus.



On how long, it will now definitely be part of any strategy and planning. Hopefully organization will
now learn the importance of strategizing and not sticking with the current status quo as there are a lot
of uncertain possibilities that can impact their organization if they do not learn to strategize and adapt.

[Yesterday 11:46 AM] FERL DIANE SIÑO

While BSC is used effectively by many companies that are vocal advocates for its use as a strategic
planning tool, is implementing BSC really worth the investment because it can be a costly and time-
consuming tool?

[JM] Costly and time-consuming depends on how the organization applies this tool. Even large
corporations or advocate try to avoid spending too much resources on strategic planning. The current
situation we are at is one testament on how it is important to have a strategic mapping. A simple and
clear direction in this time of uncertainty will difinitely be of help to the organization and it’s employees.