Lean out the Business Performance Management System

Abstract

After multiple fruitless attempts at creating performance management tools allowing to assess its performance towards major corporate objectives, Brunswick Marine in EMEA, regional headquarters of the American firm Mercury Marine, decided to get an external perspective on the topic. This project thesis report is the result of a project aiming at improving Brunswick Marine in EMEA’s Strategic Performance Management System. The aim of the project was to define a process for strategic performance management in the company, while making use of Business Intelligence tools for effective reporting and automation. Indeed, its previous tools were abandoned relatively rapidly due to their lack of integration in the company’s standard performance review processes and their complex maintenance. Following a Lean Six Sigma project management approach, a standard theoretical process for Strategic Performance Management was first defined. This process was then used as a reference to both identify the root causes of the previous models’ failures and prioritize our solutions. Based on this analysis, strategy communication models were built to allow the company to cascade its strategy into objectives that would rationalize the choice of Key Performance Indicators. Some of the identified metrics were then implemented in Microsoft Power BI to showcase the benefits offered by the tool to the whole process. The resulting process from the proof of concept developed during the project would help the organization have a transversal perspective on business performance and turn data into knowledge, fostering decision-making.