Balanced Scorecard and Supply Chain Perfomance. The Case of the Kenya Nut Company

Master's Thesis from the year 2015 in the subject Business economics - Supply, Production, Logistics, , course: masters in business administration, language: English, abstract: The study sought to determine the Balanced Scorecard measures on supply chain performance at Kenya Nut Company. The objectives of the study were to establish the extent to which the BSC measures have been used at KNC and the challenges faced in implementing the BSC. The research design involved a case study of employees at KNC. Data was collected using a questionnaire that was administered through a drop and pick method. Tables, graphs and regression analysis were used to present the findings. The study established that the BSC measures are greatly used to establish the supply chain performance at KNC. Some of the measures that are extensively used include percentage of sales margin, profit margin, range of products offered, accuracy of forecasted demand, level of partnerships with suppliers among others. It was also established that some critical measures have not been intergrated into the organization. These measures can greatly improve the performance of KNC and overcome its challenges of slow production growth, lack of customer awareness, poor information systems and high processing costs. This measures include return on supply chain assets, cost per operation hour, order lead time, product development life cycle.The study also established some of the challenges faced in implementing the BSC such as too much time in developing and updating the BSC, too many measures being used and difficulty in determining the measures. It was also clear that there was a very significant relationship between BSC measures and supply chain performance represented by R2 value of 0.73 which translates to 73% variance explained by the four independent variables of financial measures, customer satisfaction, internal business processes, learning and growth.Further research can be done on the same study but to a wider group of companies to establish whether the BSC measures are used. It has also been recommended that other organizations embrace the BSC measures to embrace the benefits such as product leadership, improved flexibility, and increased information capital among others. The challenges affecting KNC in implementing the BSC should be monitored so that KNC can fully adopt the BSC in its supply chain.