Balanced scorecard as a strategic planning tool

 

Part A

1-

A balanced scorecard is a strategic planning tool to help organizations evaluate their activities and performance according to .their vision and strategy..

Financial Hub: Contains purely financial objectives, such as return on investment, economic value added, product cost, profitability, cash flow, etc. Customer Hub: Customer is concerned with aspects related to customer service quality, market share, loyalty, and customer satisfaction, such as fulfilling their wishes by offering new products and services, or by improving service and responding to customer complaints and needs, etc. Internal Business Process: It is concerned with aspects of internal processes, such as the development of administrative business systems, cooperation between different departments and departments. Learning & Growth (Innovation) : Identifies the capabilities in which the organization must grow to achieve high-level internal processes that create value for customers and shareholders. (Bhimani,2010).

BSC serves as the cornerstone of the organization's current and future success, reversing financial metrics that report what happened in the past and does not indicate how to use it to improve future performance. It Link the organization's long-term strategy with its short-term activities. It enables the practical diagnosis and identification of new areas that should be characterized by the organization to achieve the objectives of the consumer and the organization. Demonstrates strategic vision,  and improves performance.

2-

BSC  helps Tesco monitor their development and their ability to innovate and innovate compared to other competitors. The four card activities are mutually supportive. Learning and development support internal processes and affect the quality of service and customer satisfaction, as well as the internal processes in turn affect the quality of service and customer satisfaction, all of which affect financial indicators. It is a communication tool to make the strategy clear to all employees of the Tesco. BSC is an organization-wide performance management system, more comprehensive than monitoring individual performance measurement and productivity. BSC balance  financial and non-financial aspects of Tesco. It achieve periodic performance reviews and learning to improve Tesco,  Introducing sustainability into the Tesco's operational processes, Enables the Tesco to manage the requirements of related parties , improves information flows, communicating and realizing  business objectives for all levels of the organization,  and Helps to apply effective HRM .

 

3-

The main concern of  the  Financial performance  measures is on  year-to-year or short-run rendering  according to the  accounting principles. Financial performance  measures don’t allow to deal with growth of customer requirements or competitors . Non-financial measures  able to back or reinforce  indirect, quantitative measures  of untouchable assets of the firm , for example ;  innovation, management capability , employee relationships , quality, and others , and these matters  can determine  the value of the firm . Non-financial measures provide supportive   showings  of coming financial performance . Moreover ,  the latest goal is maximizing   monetary  performance , present  monetary  measures wouldn’t  not get long-terms benefits   from specific decisions  . Non-financial information provide the wasted link between these successful activities  and monetary results by  providing  deep information on accounting or performance of shares  . it  face lower risks .Non-financial measures receive  Fewer external  noise, help in improving  performance of managers through providing precise assessment . In page  15 in strategic report,  the growth in the in the customer satisfaction  has increased by 0.3% to become  85.7%. Tesco is  a strong  driver  of social mobility.  The high dedication, and relentless of employees in Tesco leaded to support customer satisfaction . they developed its innovation such as Tesco app.  The designed  app which enable  employee to know their shifts, organize overtime and holiday.

4-

The strategic plan of Tesco creates presumptions  connecting to : the current economic climate and international economy; the organizational  defies  ; rival activities ; dynamics in market ; altering in customer conducts ; and the expenses of delivering the plan. There are  four scenarios have been set . there was assumption  in these scenarios  that repayment will be done for  outer debt in the  due time that contains consolidation of the Booker and related synergies. The scenarios have been put in order to overcome  the risks  that threaten the viability of Tesco.  There are  many opportunities  are obtainable to the Tesco for maintaining liquidity for going ahead in its business such as: reaching to new outer funding prematurely; more progressive short-run cost minimizing activities ; and minimizing capital expenditure.  According to  scenarios, the managers  have a plausible  predications that the Tesco will go ahead to process and pay its debts .

 

Part B

Budgets help the business to access their goals . it manage  and arrange processes in various divisions.(Alkaraan ,2006).Budgets interpret strategy of  the executives  into actual activities  . They allocate and define the resources, revenue, and needed operations to implement   the strategy  . It is vital  provide amazing  record of different  processes  of the firm. It  improve communication with employees. Budgets improve  resources allocating  . It  provide a instrument  for corrective procedures through reapportionment . furthermore  , budgets  have many limitations such as : when the manager implement  budgets in   automatically way   the employees will leave the work  because of   low of  involvement. If   the  managers put budgets in indiscriminately top down, employees cannot realize the purposes for budgeted costs, and will not be adhered to them. Budgets result in  realizing   the cause of inequity  . budget create competition  for resources. A powerful  system of  budget result in reduce creativity and innovation, making  it impossible  to obtain cash for new ideas. The issue of implementing the goals can be negatively affected by  interfering  sides  of budgets system.  In line with GAAP , the effective budgeting make the achieving of goals as difficult but not impossible  . therefore  , the strategic  managers who realize budgets and how to use them own powerful control tool for fulfilling  departmental and divisional goals. Inaccuracy is limitation of budgets. Budgeting  rely on various  assumptions to expect  the expenses and revenues that enable the manager to take precautions  such as changing in desires in   market. It provide manager with information about  with the chances and risks . changes in the macroeconomic condition like inflation   can increase  the expenses that are greater than  the expenses in budget  . It  consume more time and efforts.  Another disadvantage of it is  Rigidity as  there is specific numbers and amounts can’t be changed  as there is no flexibility   and this lead to  manipulation 

Part c

Capital budgeting is considered as the operations a company make in order to assess prospect basic projects or investments such as establishing new factory  that must be analyzed before accepting  or rejecting it because it need huge capital. (Horngren,2008). there are four steps  that relate to the capital budgeting process in order to accept or reject to the idea of the project.  The first step  is  Capital Project Ideas in order to generate  idea of project that can said  by the administration or workers  or strangers . the second step is assessing every venture proposal for lucrativeness as the profitability is considered as the basis  that push the finance director to accept or reject the project through calculating  NPV/IRR. The third step is  Prioritizing  lucrative ventures  according to the Firm-wide venture  as the company can start specific project  and delay another profitable project according to its strategy . the feedback and evolution is the fourth step  , when the take decision of  capital budgeting  , they should monitor their performance .

References

Bhimani, A. and Bromwich, M. (2010) Management accounting: retrospect and prospect, CIMA Publishing, London.

Horngren, C., Datar, S. and Foster, G. (2008) Management and Cost Accounting, 4th edn, Prentice Hall, Harlow.

Alkaraan, F. and Northcott, D. (2006)  ‘ Strategic capital investment decision  making: a role for emergent analysis tools? , The British Accounting Review, vol. 38,  pp. 149 – 173.

E304B Essay correcting

 Introduction

Essay writing is important to be learned by students. It has main rules to be followed such as giving care to the theme, hyper theme and macro them in addition to realizing the cohesion and coherence of clauses and the devices used to give correct sentences. The current paper is analyzing a written essay by a student focusing on the way it is written, errors and other areas. 

Original text with mistakes

Now adays internet is concided crucial for our every day life. It has benefited us in so many fields in life. It is now concidered an indispensible tool in our daily life. (clause1) The three most important advantages of the internet are it saves time, it helped in learning and benefited us greatly in our work. (clause2)

As they say: "time is gold" and it is important to use it effectively. (claus3) Internet reducess  the time we spend on searching for a certin information. Any thing we want to know is one click away from us. (cluase4) Another point is that in the old days communicating was through letters and that took a really long time and alot of money to get in touch with far away family members. (clause 5) These days you can keep in touch with your friends , family , and  relatives in chat programs provided and work with internet connection. (clause 6) Although internet is a way to save time it is also a way to spend time as we can logon some web sites that provide for us some online games .  (clause7) All in all internet is an efficiant tool to help save time. (clause8)

Second, learning has become more easier and appropriate and suitable for more and more people. (Clause 9) As an example online learning helped a lot of people to continue further studies and persue a higher place in the educational level.  people who are always busy on work and have a lot of responsibilities can learn online and get the learning materials online too. (clause 10) Another point is that instead of going to the library and search for the book you want, simply a click away you can download the book you want and read it online with various choices of magazines and newspapers especially these that are relevant to the course that you are studying. (clause 11) finally communicating with your teacher has become easier and available for students either by emails or chat rooms that are provided by the university site. (clause12)  to conclude what have been said above, internet provided a huge leap for the main kind  to the future as it helped improve learning. (clause13)

Working has become easier over the last ages as the internet started to provide us with more properties. first of all it is now possible to manage and run your work from home, by only having some specialized programs that work with internet connection. (clause 14) Moreover it is easier to communicate with your employees by sending email messages or creating a group on a program such as whatsapp. Another point is that you can watch the servailance cameras in your work by a program to keep everything in check. (clause 15) All in all internet helped us to progress and evolve for the better.  

Internet helped us to be more effictive and usefull in life. (clause 16) It has benefited us in three major feilds in life: first it is concedered a time saver, then it helped us to create a huge revelution in learning, and finally, it made our work easier . (clause 17) Be careful of misusing the internet because it is as they say a soard with two sharp ends.  (clause 18)

Premodifier for noun phrases	Post modifier for noun phrases
Any thing we want to know is (clause4)	Internet helped us to be more (clause16)
first of all  (Clause14)	Internet reducess  the time we spend (Clause4)
Moreover (clause15)

Table 1 modifiers

Temporal connectors	Contrast connectors
then (clause 17)	Although (clause7)
because (clause 18)
, and finally (clause 17)

Table 2 connectors

Heponomy	Co-heponomy	Meronomy	Co-meronomy
friends , family , and  relatives (clause6)	-	choices of magazines and newspapers (clause11)	-

Table3  lexical cohesion

Clause	Type of participant	Type of circumstance	Type of process	Circumstance's role	Voice	Noun Groups
Now adays internet is concided crucial for our every day life. It has benefited us in so many fields in life. It is now concidered an indispensible tool in our daily life.	Actor Goal	Extended	Material	unmarked	Passive	Internet Life Fields tools
Internet reducess  the time we spend on searching for a certin information. Any thing we want to know is one click away from us.	Actor Goal	Time	Verbal	Marked	Active	Internet Time Information click
Second, learning has become more easier and appropriate and suitable for more and more people.	Actor Goal	Cause	Material	Unmarked	Active	Internet people learning
finally communicating with your teacher has become easier and available for students either by emails or chat rooms that are provided by the university site, to conclude what have been said above, internet provided a huge leap for the main kind  to the future as it helped improve learning.	Actor Goal	Location	Verbal	Marked	Active	Teacher Room University Leap Site Internet
Working has become easier over the last ages as the internet started to provide us with more properties. first of all it is now possible to manage and run your work from home, by only having some specialized programs that work with internet connection.	Actor Goal	Extended	Verbal	Marked	Active	Ages Internet Properties Connection
Internet helped us to be more effictive and usefull in life. It has benefited us in three major feilds in life: first it is concedered a time saver, then it helped us to create a huge revelution in learning, and finally, it made our work easier .	Actor Goal	Extended	Verbal	Marked	Active	Internet Fields Revolution

Table4 them analysis 

Analysis

The writer wrote the text in main five paragraphs each with a number of clauses as declared above. The first paragraph came as introducing the topic in two introductory clauses. Thematic progression was not enough to introduce the topic to the readers as there should have been conjunctions such as "and" or "so". The word "internet" that formed the hyper theme lacked "the" which made the hyper theme weak and poor. Clauses that form the macro theme were not joined by any cohesive devices that made a poor macro theme. According to Dejica and Superceanu, (2004) statements that form the hyper and macro themes should be linked together by cohesive devices that can make them clear and strong, they added that separated sentences can't form a meaningful clause that bears the hyper or macro theme. The writer succeeded in writing good meaningful sentences in the second paragraph that was formed of six main clauses but nominalization was poor at many parts such as the first clause that was too short without any cohesive devices and the lack of right punctuation marks such as writing the commas after a space such as in "friends , family , and  relatives". There were also grammar mistakes such as using the article "a" with uncountable nouns as in : "for a certin information". Spelling mistakes were also apparent such as in words: "certin, reducess, logon, main kind and efficient." The third paragraph contained five main clauses that also needed coherence as in clause 10 there were two sentenced that needed a cohesive deivce to link them such as "and" or "in addition to". Spelling mistakes such as in "persue" made nominalization poor. There were also grammar mistakes that made the coherence weak such as in "search for", "these that" and "have". Punctuation needed to be more accurate such as in errors like: "finally". The fourth paragraph came in two clauses and one sentence that can be added to the fifth paragraph. The clauses were too long and contained many sentences that are not relevant to each other, some repeated and needed cohesive devices that can make them more correlated to each other. This can be seen in using the expression: "first of all" without following sentences with "secondly", "thirdly" and then "finally" but the writer used some of them in the fifth paragraph which may perplex the reader. " Moreover" was well used to add information but the expression "all in all" was meaningless and repeated in many parts of the essay with no need. There were also spelling mistakes such as in :" servailance". There were grammatical errors that made the cohesion of the paragraph weak such as using the preposition: "to" without need after using enabled us. The fifth paragraph was a conclusion but it lacked sentences such as: "In conclusion", "to conclude" to be started with and the writer used: "to conclude" in a wrong place that was in clause 13 in the third paragraph while it should have been used in paragraph five which is a conclusion for the essay. Spelling mistakes made the cohesion of the paragraph weak as in:" effective", "usefull", " feilds", " concedered" and "soard." (Dueraman, 2007).  

Number of words=529    

Rewritten text

 

Nowadays the internet is considered crucial for our everyday life as it has benefited us in so many fields in life. It is now considered an indispensible tool in our daily life, there are three important advantages of the internet which are that it saves time, it helps in learning and benefits us greatly in our work.

 

Firstly, as they say: "time is gold" and it is important to use it effectively as the Internet reduces the time we spend on searching for certain information in addition that anything we want to know is one click away from us. Another point is that in the old days communication was through letters and that took really long time and a lot of money to get in touch with far away family members. These days you can keep in touch with your friends, family, and relatives in chat programs provided and work with internet connection. Although the internet is a way to save time, it is also a way to spend time as we can log on some websites that provide for us some online games. In fact, the internet is an efficient tool to help save time.

 

Secondly, learning has become easier, appropriate and suitable for more and more people for example; online learning helped a lot of people to continue further studies and pursue a higher place in the educational level and people who are always busy at work and have a lot of responsibilities can learn online and get the learning materials online too. Another point is that instead of going to the library and searching for the book you want, simply by a click away you can download the book you want and read it online with various choices of magazines and newspapers especially those relevant to the course that you are studying. Finally, communicating with your teacher has become easier and available for students either by emails or chat rooms that are provided by the university site. To summarize what have been said above, the internet provided a huge leap for the mankind of the future as it helped improve learning.

 

Working has become easier over the last ages as the internet started to provide us with more properties; it is now possible to manage and run your work from home, by only having some specialized programs that work with internet connection, moreover it is easier to communicate with your employees by sending email messages or creating a group on a program such as Whatsapp. Another point is that you can watch the surveillance cameras in your work by a program to keep everything in check, the internet helped us to progress and evolve for the better.

  

To conclude, the Internet helped us to be more effective and useful in life as it has benefited us in three major fields in life: first it is considered a time saver, then it helped us to create a huge revolution in learning, and finally, it made our work easier. You should be careful of misusing the internet because it is as they say a sword with two sharp ends. 

  

Evaluation of rewriting

The essay was rewritten to correct the errors and add the needed cohesive devices. The first paragraph was supported by the use of the cohesive device: "as" to make a strong clause that has two main connected relevant sentences. "there are was added in the beginning of the second clause to make it understood and spelling mistakes were corrected such as in: "indispensible". According to Choo, (2009) conjunctions can be used to join two sentences to make clauses stronger and add meaning to sentences and this can support the coherence of the main theme of the essay. The second paragraph was started by: "Firstly" with a capital letter to make punctuation correct, the conjunction: "as" was also used to connect sentences into one clause. Grammatical mistakes and spelling mistakes were corrected such as in: reduces, log on some websites, certain and communication. Punctuation marks were corrected such as in the use of capital letters, commas, and full stops as in:" friends, family, and relatives, this can also be in adding a comma in the clause starting by "although": " time, to make it stronger and able to convey the meaning clearly. In fact was added instead of the meaningless use of "all in all". According to Crompton, (2004) theme in discourse should be supported by phrases that can attract the attention of the readers and make them eager to read, this can be done by using many different cohesive devices and articles that help in progression of the text. The third paragraph was rewritten to have less clauses as some clauses were joined to make one stronger clause such as joining clause9 and clause 10 in one stronger clause. The word: "Secondly" was added in the beginning of the paragraph to take the attention of readers to the information in the paragraph. Punctuation marks were corrected such as using";" in 'for example;' and spelling mistakes were corrected as in:" pursue". "To summarize" was added instead of "to conclude" to convince the readers that there is a summarizing sentence coming and there is a conclusion at the end of the essay. According to Dumai, (2018) grammatical and lexical devices can make sentences stronger and add effectiveness in meaning conveying because they work as means for communication with the readers and can make relations among sentences in different cohesive situations. The fourth paragraph was also supported with punctuation marks such as ";" in "more properties;" in order to tell that there are details coming. Two clauses were joined and made one stronger clause which are clause 14 and 15 and a new clause was made by joining the last two sentences together. "To conclude" was added to the conclusion paragraph to attract readers for the conclusion and "You should" was also added to the advice clause to support it and make it clearer. This was made in order to make cohesion and correlation of the sentences stronger and support the essay with lexical and cohesive devices that can make it clearer and more meaningful.

Number of words=502

Conclusion

In conclusion, it is necessary to focus on many parts of the essay before writing it such as the cohesive devices that can make sentences stronger and can make them relevant and clearer to the readers in addition to take care of the spelling, punctuation and grammar mistakes that make the text weak and poor.

References

1. Choo, Y. (2009). 'Improving Coherence in Writing through the Use of Themes in Essay Writing by Secondary School from 4 Students." https://www.academia.edu/28231875/IMPROVING_COHERENCE_IN_WRITING_THROUGH_THE_USE_OF_THEMES_IN_ESSAYS_WRITTEN_BY_SECONDARY_SCHOOL_FORM_4_STUDENTS
2. Crompton, P. (2004). ' Theme in Discourse: Thematic Progression and Method of Development Re-evaluated.' https://www.academia.edu/478504/Theme_in_discourse_Thematic_progression_and_method_of_development_re-evaluated
3. Dejica, D. Superceanu, R. (2004). 'Thematic-Structure Analysis of the Section Statement of Problem in Proposals.' https://www.academia.edu/2027067/Thematic-Structure_Analysis_of_the_Section_Statement_of_Problem_in_Proposals
4. Dueraman, B. (2007). ' Cohesion and Coherence in English Essays Written by Malaysian and Thai Medical Students.' http://fs.libarts.psu.ac.th/webcontent/Document/Doc2550/01January/research2007/LanguagesAndLinguistics/Cohesion%20and%20Coherence%20in%20English%20...Bayatee.pdf

5.      Dumai, A. (2014). 'An Analysis of the use of Grammatical and Lexical Cohesion in Theses Written byUndergraduate Students Majoring in English of Islamic University of Riau.' https://www.academia.edu/38746870/An_Analysis_of_the_use_of_Grammatical_and_Lexical_Cohesion_in_Theses_Written_by_Undergraduate_Students_Majoring_in_English_of_Islamic_University_of_Riau

E304B Book 3 (Managing communication flow: Textual meaning-making  

The underpinning principles of liberalism and how does it view the world at large

 

Liberalism is like other ideologies and philosophical schools, it has its own principles and it grew of some historical context with certain principles such as respecting people's freedom, individualism, liberty and moral equality.

The principles of liberalism all relate to its definition as liberalism relates to liberty of individuals and this is applies to all people and makes liberalism principles universal. Liberalism is based on the principle that persons should all be treated equally according to their humanity virtue, they need to have moral equity and respect whatever cultural background they belong to. Liberalism is based on the principle that diversity among people is tolerated and that people have freedom of reason. Individualism is one of the most important principles of liberalism and it takes the human being as an individual who represents the main unit of ethics and politics. Yet individualism is not the same as atomism as a liberal realizes the importance of individualism and the need for human connection and communication, liberals respect one's own relationships and features of culture such as language, color, religion, customs or traditions. Liberalism is based on the principle that people are free to have their own immense values such as faith, ethnic group, community, family and others.

Liberty is another principle that liberalism is based on and it starts by focusing on the individual liberty intrinsic value and that people are totally free in their actions, no one should interfere in it and this applies to all acts people make such as what they eat, drink, wear or belief and that they don't have to explain reasons for what they do. It also applies to people's goals and aims on both short and long terms. To a liberal person, an individual doesn't have to explain his own choices and reasons for these choices. Liberty has assumptions that also apply to the people a person chooses to communicate with and interact with and the projects people have to apply. Liberalism supposes that a person's understanding of God is his own choice and the choice of religion too and this also applies to his sexual or political beliefs. Being liberal means to respect the law too and liberalism doesn't mean to breach laws or not to follow public rules when someone is doing a project or making a business. Another principle of liberalism is respecting the property of others, intellectual property, respecting contracts, common laws and other rules set by communities such as caring for handicapped as an example.  

Universalism is another principle of liberalism as liberalism doesn't regard issues such as sex, sexuality, race, place, religion, class, wealth and other characteristics of individuals. Freedom of individuals includes the virtue of their humanity and having the right to live in a society where everyone is accepted and respected in moral ways. Issues such as racism and ethnicity are not accepted in liberal societies as people are not obliged to explain their parents' identities or religious attitudes. Liberalism means that there is no need for copying any single liberal constitution and then to paste it on another society as there should be interest in the historical and social context of such a society.

In conclusion, Liberalism can't be applied completely in any society in fact as it is a developing work that is liable to progress and it has weaknesses and strengths as liberal principles can't be described how to be applied by any one or any country as cultural backgrounds may decide how liberalism is applied in certain societies.