Utilising performance measurement to drive operational excellence in a post‐merger environment

Pharmacia’s Corporate Services organisation (which consists of Global Real Estate, Facilities Management, and various other internal service functions) recently commenced an initiative aimed at driving operational excellence throughout all functional areas and geographic sites. Apart from greatly improving both financial and operational results, this initiative also led to the collapse of existing functional and geographic ‘silos’. By breaking down these ‘silos’ (which developed partially as a result of Pharmacia’s recent merger activity), Corporate Services has begun to achieve breakthrough results. These results are largely attributable to the application of a comprehensive, management‐sponsored undertaking, referred to as the Continuous Improvement (CI) Initiative. The CI Initiative has helped to minimise disparity, drive process optimisation and ensure enterprise‐wide alignment with organisational objectives. This paper outlines the various tools, processes and resources that Corporate Services’ management used in design and execution of the CI Initiative. Most notably, the paper describes the use of ‘scorecards’ to communicate and drive performance in a balanced context. Further, the paper provides numerous real‐life examples of how these scorecards are leveraged in the identification and prioritisation of process improvement opportunities.