Recent Problems in the Eastern Cape Education Department - Case Study Example

? Case Study Analysis: Eastern Cape Education Department Table of Contents Introduction 3 Answer Appropriate Corporate Strategy 4 Answer 2: Implementation of the Above Mentioned Strategies 6 Answer 3: Types of Strategic Control and their Implementation 8 Conclusion 10 Reference list 11 Introduction The case study deals with the recent problems in the Eastern Cape education department. The national government has assessed the operations of the state of education and has found out a series of problems within the department. The national government was concerned about various problems which were: a) terminating the provisional educators’ contract, b) suspending the scholar transport, c) problems related to the non delivery of text books and other stationeries, c) inferior management of the school nutrition programme, d) vacuum in strategic leadership, e) poor management process, f) poor implementation of financial management structure, g) lack of evaluation and monitoring, h) poor culture, organizational structure and i) fraud in the operational activities throughout the supply chain. These problems were needed to be solved as soon as possible. This requires implementation of a turnaround strategy by the national government, which can end the wrong directional functions of the department. The first portion of the report will provide recommendation to the minister to rectify the present situation in the Eastern Cape education department. The second portion of the study will provide recommendations to the ministers so that they can successfully implement the strategies that are required for rectifying the present situation in the Eastern Cape education department. The third part of the study will reflect the different types of strategic control methods which can be used by the Eastern Cape Education Department to improve the performance of the organization. Answer 1: Appropriate Corporate Strategy All the above mentioned problems took place due to the improper functioning of the organization. It was found on assessing the operational activities of the Eastern Cape education Department that the principals were given high salaries and extra or additional fund was transferred to the schools. Moreover, other problems like fraud throughout the supply chain, improper functioning of the financial management systems, lack of proper management systems, poor work culture and organizations structure, etc were also because of the improper functioning of the educational department. If the educational department had performed its activities in an efficient way, then there would have been no scope of flaws in the functioning of the educational institutions. It is very essential that the national government implements a performance management tool to measure as well as control the overall performance of the educational department. It is advised to the national government to implement balanced scorecard which will help to measure the individual performance of the employees (i.e. teachers, principles, other staff etc) as well as the overall performance of the organization. This portion of the study will deal with the recommendation of performance management of the Eastern Cape education department. The performance of the Eastern Cape Education Department will be measured based on four main perspectives. They are financial perspectives, customer’s perspectives, internal business processes and the learning growth perspectives. The balanced score card will help in evaluating the performance of the education department associated with the financial and other non financial factors (Kaplan and Norton, 1992). It will help in aligning the operational activities along with the goals of the educational department. The balanced score card will improve the internal as well as the external communication and also monitor the whole performance. The balanced score card will provide new strategies for implementing an appropriate performance management process (Kaplan, 2001). The balanced score card was found by Dr. Robert Kaplan and Dr. David Norton in order to measure the performances within an organization and add various strategic non-financial factors associated with the performance measures, to the financial metrics. This gives a balanced view of the entire organization to the managers. It will not only help in measuring the performance of the education department, but will also help them in finding out the flaws based on the four perspectives and then decide that actually what should be done to resolve the detected flaws. Financial Perspective The financial perspective will help to measure the performance of the education department based on the financial factors like the asset utilization, revenue growth, return on investment, etc. (Niven, 2005). It will help in determining the profit of the organization along with the maintenance of transparency throughout the business activities. Customers Perspective The performance gap of the education department related to the satisfaction of the students, their profitability in gaining knowledge and other facilities from the educational institutions, etc will also be measured by the implementation of the balanced score card model (Kaplan and Norton, 1996; Mowen, Hansen and Heitger, 2008). The balanced score card will help the education department to plan for an appropriate student centric strategy. Internal Business Processes The balanced score card will help in identifying the performance gap of the education department associated with its key value chain. Here, the balanced score card will focus on various issues for achieving the objectives of all the participants in the value chain. Learning and growth perspectives The balanced score card provides various guidelines related to the investing decisions made by an organization in this perspective. Here, the balanced score card will determine various factors like the employees’ capability, the information system within an organization and other developing factors. The learning and growth perspective of the balanced score card is directly linked to the organizational structure. It will help in the measurement of the performance gap related to the specifications of the business strategies. The Eastern Cape education department can utilize these learning concepts for encouraging control over various non financial factors. The top management of the education department should make one common vision statement so for increasing the collective capability. All the staff will be sharing one common value, which will increase cooperation between them. It will also help in increasing the commitment level of the staff. This strategy will help in reducing the performance gap. Answer 2: Implementation of the Above Mentioned Strategies The education department needs to set objectives based on each perspective before taking the initiatives for the implementation of the above mentioned strategies. Financial Perspectives Objectives: Growth in the profitability. The education department can achieve this objective by providing innovative and quality service to the students which will satisfy them. The Eastern Cape educational department should make use of latest technologies in order to provide adequate knowledge to the students. Attempts should be made to increase the overall profitability of the education department. It should implement an effective promotional strategy to make its website more attractive, which will help in bringing in more students and increase the profitability of the organization. Customers’ Perspectives Objectives: a) Increase the level of satisfaction of the students, b) Increase in the number of students. The above mentioned objectives can be achieved by recognizing the needs or requirements of the students (White, 2013). The Eastern Cape education department should differentiate its services in order to achieve competitive advantage. The department should aim at increasing the loyalty of the students to a remarkable extent. It should provide excellent coursework to the students which will match with their expectations and views. Differentiation of the service will help in the active learning of the students in the multi cultural context. The educational department should have a universally accepted definition, which will define high quality service used consistently for throughout most of the aspects of the service learning. This will help in achieving both the objectives of the educational department based on the customer’s perspective. Internal Business Process Objectives: a) improving the quality of service and b) reducing the flaws in the management systems. The Eastern Cape education department should plan for improving the services by increasing the number of course works, increasing the field of studies etc. It should find out the flaws in the management systems and take steps for reducing such flaws and improving the quality of services. Learning and Growth Perspectives Objectives: a) Increasing the skills and knowledge of the teachers and other staff in the education department and b) providing satisfaction to the students. The educational department can achieve the above mentioned objectives by conducting various training programs to train the teachers and other staff and improve their skills and knowledge. It should plan for providing good salary to the teachers and other staff in order to motivate them which will improve their performances. It should follow a performance appraisal system for measuring the performances of the staff. Answer 3: Types of Strategic Control and their Implementation Different types of strategic control are: Premise control Each and every strategy is made on the basis of various planning processes. Premise control helps in checking methodically that the premises based on which the strategies are grounded are valid or not. If it is found that the premise is no longer valid then the strategy is needed to be changed by an organization. Special Alert Control It is the rapid and rigorous reassessment of the strategies of an organization due to the sudden or unforeseen occurring of an incident. Implementation Control The implementation of a planned strategy involves a number of steps and actions which need long period of time. The top management needs to mobilize the resources, employ and reassign experienced staff, etc. Implementation control is that type of strategic control which must take place as the events unfold. It can be divided into two types: a) strategic thrusts and b) milestone reviews. The strategic thrust provides information related to the determination of the overall strategy required for shaping up the objectives of an organization. The milestone review monitors the improvement or progress of the implemented strategies at different intervals. Strategic Surveillance It is a strategic control technique designed for observing a broad range of events or activities within as well as outside the organization which can have an impact on the tract of the organization’s strategy. The Eastern Cape education department should make use of all the four types of strategic control techniques for assessing the strategies and controlling them. It should utilize the strategic control techniques in such a manner that it will involve tracking the strategies when they are being implemented. The strategic control techniques must be able to detect that the changes taking place are in the correct direction or not. Conclusion The Easter Cape education department should make use of balanced score card model for measuring the individual performance of the staff as well as the performance of the organization (as a whole) (Stewart and Hubin, 2001). The implementation of the balanced score card model based on the four perspectives requires setting up of an objective for each and every perspective. There are a number of initiatives that are required to be taken for achieving the objectives like improving the services, implementing an effective promotional strategy, increasing the number of students, increasing the level of satisfaction of the students etc. Appropriate strategic control techniques should be used by the educational department for the purpose of assessing the strategies (whether they are in the correct direction or not) and controlling them. All the above mentioned steps will help in reducing the existing problems of the education department. Reference list Kaplan, R. S. and Norton, D.P., 1996. The balanced scorecard: Translating strategy into action. California: Harvard Business Press. Kaplan, R.S. and Norton, D.P., 1992. The balanced scorecard: Translating strategy into action. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press. Kaplan, R.S., 2001. The strategy focused organizations. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press. Mowen, M.M., Hansen, D.R. and Heitger, D.L., 2008. Cornerstones of managerial accounting. Connecticut: Cengage Learning. Niven, P.R., 2005. Balanced scorecard diagnostics: Maintaining maximum performance. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons. Stewart, A.C. and Hubin, J.C., 2001. The balanced scorecard: beyond reports and rankings. Planning for Higher Education, 29(2), pp. 37-42. White, M.C., 2013. McDonald's executive says 'service is broken'. NBC News. [online] Available at: [Accessed 6 July 2013]. Read More