Discussion

Reply 1: A balance card is strategic performance measurement that includes all the relevant financial and non-financial performance information with sub-categories of customer, financial, internal business process and learning and growth perspectives. The customer aspects focus on how our customers are perceiving the company and the product. The financial aspects answer questions like how we look to our owners or stakeholders. The internal business process involves all day-to-day business activities to become more efficient. The learning and growth perspective is the overall performance of the company which is affected by all the other factors and reflects the positive growth and value. 
 
A balanced scorecard combines all the information to develop and strategize to improve long-term goals both financial and non-financial measures. The mission according to the southwest airlines follows- performance, people and planet. 
The balanced scorecard includes- 
Customer perspective- 

Daily reservations
Customer satisfaction

Financial perspective- 

Profit growth
Revenue growth

Internal business process perspective- 

Fleet increase
Sustainable operating efficiency

Learning and growth perspective- 

New processes
Flight completion record

 
Reference:
Garrison, R.H., Noreen, E.W., & Brewer, P.C. (2021) Managerial Accounting 17th
Edition. McGraw-Hill Education.
https://www.destinyjackson.org/blogs/articles-essays/balanced-scorecard-southwest-airlines

Reply 2: Balanced scorecard is a strategic planning and management framework that can identify and improve internal business functions and external outcomes (Tarver, 2021). Balanced scorecard starts with a vision and strategy for marketplace success and then expands on the performance measures to achieve the desired goals (Garrison, 2021). Balanced scorecard links a vision to strategic objectives, measures, targets, and initiatives. Balance scorecard calls for organizations to create a set of internal metrics that could help them assess their business performance in 4 areas: financial, customer, internal business process, learning and growth.

A manager could balanced scorecard to create a performance metric for Southwest Airlines to improve its business operation

Financial: Has Southwest Airline increased sales and profits through the recent years? Has Southwest Airline maintained or decreased the current costs of operation?
Business Process: How easy is it for customers to book flight with Southwest? Could customers book through third party sites?
Customer: What do customers say about Southwest on social medias (Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, etc)? Does Southwest lose or gain new customers each year?
Learning and Growth: What is the retention rate of high performing workers? Does the average employee improve his skill through a year of working? What can Southwest learn from other competitors like American Airlines, Delta, etc?

References,
Garrison, R. (2021). Managerial accounting (17th ed.). McGraw-Hill.
Tarver, Evan. (2021). Balance Scorecard. Retrieved October 12, 2021 from https://www.investopedia.com/terms/b/balancedscorecard.asp

Reply 3: A corporate social responsibility (CSR) report is an internal- and external-facing document companies use to communicate CSR efforts and their impact on the environment and community. An organization’s CRS efforts can fall into four categories: environmental, ethical, philanthropic, and economic. For this discussion I have taken the example of Cisco. Cisco is the worldwide leader in technology that powers the Internet. Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) at Cisco supports the company’s mission to power an inclusive future that benefits its employees, communities, and the planet. The company focuses on building technology that empowers everyone by building programs like Cisco Networking academy. It focuses on environmental sustainability, builds trust and responsibility, leading a conscious culture, circular economy, and supply chain. Their CSR report from FY20 showed how they surpassed their goals of employee engagement as they received 81% participation (Cisco, 2021). Nearly 83% of their global electricity came from renewable sources and they ranked No. 1 in the Gartner Supply Chain Top 25 for 2020 report. In FY 20 nearly 2.3M students participated in the Cisco Network Academy (Cisco, 2021). The results of this report show how the organization achieved the goals it set through the non-financial measures. CSR reports are important as it is a way for an organization to communicate its mission, efforts, and outcomes to external and internal stakeholders. In addition to employees, decision-makers, and shareholders, these include customers, the local community, and society at large. If a company has been bold and successful in its CSR efforts, the release of its CSR report is as much a communication tool as it is a marketing and public relations event.

Reference:

Cisco. (2021). Cisco 2020 Environment Technical Review. Retrieved October 14, 2021, from https://www.cisco.com/c/dam/m/en_us/about/csr/esg-hub/_pdf/2020_Environment_Technical_Review.pdf

Reply 4:    Amdocs (2021) is the leading solution provider for around 350 Communications and Media clients across the globe in 85 countries . Gender Diversity is one of performance measure included in the report which is part of Learning and Growth Performance considered as part of social corporate responsibility. Amdocs has nearly 31 percent of women from all the employees which little over the industry benchmark of 30 percent and they are trying to target to increase it to 37 percent in next three years (Amdocs, 2021). However, number of employees in the Lead Position and Management position are comparatively less than 30 percent which can be cause of concern for future. On Social and Economic Front, contributions amounted to more than 800K and donated over 2,000 laptops to people in need in 2020 alone (Amdocs, 2021). Another climate impact comes from Offices having continuous electricity consuming machines like Laptops, Data centers contributing to greenhouse gas emissions which is managed through Greenhouse Gas Protocol Corporate Standard. Amdocs (2021) was able to improve the efficiency of our electricity consumption and transportation methods and reduced electricity consumption by 9% in 2020. Companies prepare such CSR or Sustainability Reports to share with external stakeholders like customers, employees, suppliers, communities, and environmental and human rights advocates who are interested in the voluntary actions of the company (Garrison et al., 2021). The leading organization that is Global Reporting Initiative has created framework with universal standards for measuring social and environmental impact of any organization (Kaplan & Norton, 2015). GRI Standards require companies and their owners to disclose the strategic priorities, plan, and achievements with respect to corporate social performance. These standards make sure company should not just focus on financial impact of its strategy, but also question decisions from board of directors in managing risks, evaluating social, environmental, and economic performance, and reporting results to external stakeholders (Garrison et al., 2021).

References:
Garrison, R., Noreen, E., & Brewer, P. (2021). Managerial accounting (17th ed.). McGraw-Hill
Kaplan, S. R., & Norton, P. D. (2015, December). Balanced Scorecard Success: The Kaplan-Norton Collection. Harvard Business Review Press. Retrieved October 13, 2021 from https://learning.oreilly.com/library/view/balanced-scorecard-success/9781633691803/
Amdocs. (2021, June). Corporate social responsibility (csr). Retrieved October 13, 2021 from https://www.amdocs.com/sites/default/files/2021-08/csr-report-2021-2.pdf