VW Do Brasil
Report by Khaled Akida – BU671
Word Count: 1749

For Case Discussion 1. What challenges does Thomas Schmall face upon becoming CEO of Volkswagen do Brasil in 2007 (VWB)?
Since 1999 till 1007, VWB faced market share decline and financial losses. Schmall and his management team started introducing balanced scorecard to monitor and analyzed the root cause of those problems: that was a big challenge as Schmall wanted the tool to be VWB primary management tool, and this needed to restructure part of the organization chart to accommodate new leads and task force for this project. The task force main focus was to come up with a strategy map based on finance, internal process, customer, and potential and growth. On the other …show more content…

Some of the strategic map objectives were to satisfy customers’ expectations, improve company’s image, develop service-oriented culture among leaders, reduce cost, improve efficiency, develop sustainable and attractive innovative products, and achieve high-performance culture. Strategic map could convert intangible asset (employees) into financial results. It also translated the company strategy into a language that anyone within VWB can grasp. The strategic map and BSC could decode objectives into operational terms that enable employees to monitor their results. Schmall and Senn used it to identify the priority objectives, developed the right metrics, and set achievable targets for each metric in order to motivate people. Each objective has its owner who sets strategic initiatives, monitor metrics and achieve the best performance. Office of Strategy Management was established to roll strategy execution program throughout the company. Communicating BSC was the key success of the transformation program: training sessions, internal competition among workforces to generate new ideas that translate strategic concepts into shop floor actions. The aforementioned discussion showed the strengths of strategy map and BSC, but it still have weaknesses such as long time to train people on the tools and its applications, extra cost on restructuring the organization, training people and implementing the new management processes.

4. How can Schmall and his