Abdul Latif Jameel Enterprises Brings its Balanced Scorecard to Life with Spider Impact

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11,000

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About Crystal Consulting Group

Crystal Consulting Group delivers comprehensive services across the United Arab Emirates, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman and Pakistan to make customers successful in implementing their strategies using Spider Impact.

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+971-50-5261369, +966-54-1656531

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crystalconsultinggroup.com

Abdul Latif Jameel Enterprises (ALJE), part of Abdul Latif Jameel group (ALJ), a collective of independent international, family-owned and diversified businesses, founded in 1945 by the late Abdul Latif Jameel. ALJ is comprised of diversified businesses with deep roots in the Middle East, North Africa, and Turkey (MENAT region). Strong networks and long-established relationships make ALJ a powerful partner, opening doors for those who want to do business in the region. ALJ’s businesses represent some of the world’s leading brands, earning their trust and building long-lasting and mutually beneficial relationships. ALJ’s commitment to anticipating and supporting its partners’ needs has driven its success.

From its modest beginnings 70 years ago as a small trading business and then a Toyota distributorship in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, ALJ has established an extensive operations infrastructure, built the largest vehicle distribution network in Saudi Arabia, and, along the way, accumulated comprehensive automotive expertise throughout the region.

ALJE’s expansion and diversification in businesses adjacent to core automotive distribution, includes oil and lubricants, insurance, crash repair solutions and automotive accessories as well as the ongoing expansion into the logistics, media & entertainment, technology and healthcare sectors. Applying its vast experience in the automotive sector, ALJE uses its expertise and operations infrastructure to diversify into new sectors that contribute to the ‘infrastructure of life’ in the Saudi Arabia.

Challenge

ALJ Enterprises division had a history of measuring performance of SBU’s based solely on financial position and performance. After management decided that it needed a way to understand how the company was performing beyond the financial perspective, they sought out a way to better measure all aspects of performance and discovered the balanced scorecard performance management methodology. Deciding that the balanced scorecard methodology was the suitable fit for ALJE, they connected with the Balanced Scorecard Institute.

ALJE consulted with the Balanced Scorecard Institute to develop and implement its Strategy via balanced scorecard methodology. Originally, ALJE implemented its balanced scorecard using Microsoft Office. Realizing the time-consuming nature of managing a balanced scorecard this way, Mr. Rizwan Nizous, General Manager, Strategy Management, ALJ Enterprises, and Mr. Mohamed Deyab, Head of Project Management, ALJ Enterprises, set out to streamline and improve ALJE’s balanced scorecard. According to Mr. Nizous, “Our management team wanted to visualize the data to make it easier to understand. We went to the Balanced Scorecard Institute for a recommendation, and they recommended Spider Impact”.

Mr. Nizous and Mr. Deyab were introduced to Spider Strategies—the developer of Spider Impact. As ALJE is based in Saudi Arabia, Spider Strategies introduced ALJE to Mr. Sarwat Ali Khan, Partner & Manager at Crystal Consulting Group—a Spider Strategies Middle East partner based in Dubai, UAE.

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Solution

Once the ALJE team was introduced to Crystal Consulting, things began to move quickly. The ALJE team laid out its requirements and expectations for Crystal Consulting. They wanted dashboards, strategy maps, and full visualization of data. And they didn’t want their team spending a large amount of time on manual updates. Crystal Consulting assured ALJE that Spider Impact was the right solution for its needs and provided a demonstration of how similar international companies use Spider Impact.

“Immediately after we implemented Spider Impact, we noticed a significant difference,” said Mr. Nizous. “There was less time spent on Spreadsheets and PowerPoints. We gained a dynamic view of dashboards and could easily see effective strategy maps. Right away we could see when things were changing with performance.”

In addition, ALJE has a database containing all projects and their summaries. Mr. Deyab notes that while ALJE uses a different system for project management, Spider Impact became important when reviewing project status at executive meetings. With management otherwise engaged for deep dives into projects and their statuses, “We developed a summary of projects within Spider Impact that are aligned to strategic objectives and KPIs.” says Mr. Deyab. “The summaries include the ability to upload notes from the project database using Spider Impact’s data automation capabilities, so there is no need to go into different systems to check statuses during performance reviews.”

ALJE also began using Spider Impact for its quarterly board meetings and monthly performance review meetings and ALJE could truly visualize the performance of the individual companies.

Therefore, Abdul Latif Jameel’s balanced scorecard focuses on measuring 3 main questions:

Do you understand the company’s goals?
Do you know how you help us fulfill our goals?
Does your manager meet with you weekly for updates and coaching?

Each Abdul Latif Jameel center has its own balanced scorecard. They are tiered all the way through the organization. Each center works with a series of dashboards that come out of the balanced scorecard. Customer surveys and Net Promoter scores are built into the scorecard—all to achieve operational excellence.

Two KPI gauges showing key performance indicators

Benefits

One clear benefit from the implementation is time savings. According to Mr. Nizous, “Time that used to be spent manually entering data into Spreadsheets and PowerPoints are now spent on analysis and decision-making.”

In addition, all Board and Performance meetings are now done with Spider Impact. As ALJE’s executive meetings require a lot of information sharing and collaboration to occur within a brief timeframe, with Spider Impact, they are able to cover all important points visually with dynamic dashboards and strategy maps. Now they can view historical data and year-over-year performance data with the click of a button. “The story-telling enabled by Spider Impact in our Board meetings is a game-changer,” said Mr. Nizous. “We received massive recognition from the Board.”

Finally, the work that ALJE has done with balanced scorecard automation is held up as a best practice within the group. ALJE will be expanding its use of Spider Impact across more of the corporation in 2021.

When asked about their continued experience with Crystal Consulting, both Mr. Nizous and Mr. Deyab commented, “Crystal Consulting is very professional and friendly. Whenever we have any issues they quickly provide a solution. We have a wonderful relationship with them and look forward to continuing it.”

Time that used to be spent manually entering data into Spreadsheets and PowerPoints are now spent on analysis and decision-making.

Rizwan Nizous General Manager, Strategy Management, ALJ Enterprises

With Spider Impact, Abdul Latif Jameel has become an organization that understands how they can work together to support the needs of others. Employees have started to quantify the value they provide the organization and understand how what they do drives growth, enabling true performance management at the individual level. Essentially, Spider Impact helps Abdul Latif Jameel “improve business metrics while improving lives.”

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