Balanced scorecard. Ridgecrest Corporation manufactures corrugated cardboard boxes. It competes and plans to grow by selling high-quality boxes at a low price and by delivering them to customers quickly after receiving customers’ orders. There are many other manufacturers who produce similar boxes. Ridgecrest believes that continuously improving its manufacturing processes and having satisfied employees are critical to implementing its strategy in 2012.

Required

1. Is Ridgecrest’s 2012 strategy one of product differentiation or cost leadership? Explain briefly.

2. Kearney Corporation, a competitor of Ridgecrest, manufactures corrugated boxes with more designs and color combinations than Ridgecrest at a higher price. Kearney’s boxes are of high quality but require more time to produce and so have longer delivery times. Draw a simple customer preference map as in Exhibit 13-1 for Ridgecrest and Kearney using the attributes of price, delivery time, quality, and design.

3. Draw a strategy map as in Exhibit 13-2 with two strategic objectives you would expect to see under each balanced scorecard perspective.

4. For each strategic objective indicate a measure you would expect to see in Ridgecrest’s balanced scorecard for 2012.