Robert Kaplan

Organizations may formulate an excellent strategy, but all too often it fades from memory as employees in different departments tackle day-to-day operations. Robert Kaplan shows participants how to make strategy execution continuous by integrating processes and functions – such as finance, HR, IT, operations and innovation – into a holistic strategy management system. Co-creator of the Balanced Scorecard, the world’s leading management tool for strategy execution, Kaplan shares success stories and discusses the one common element that is necessary for implementing strategy: exceptional visionary leadership. Without it, he says, even the most comprehensive management system cannot deliver breakthrough performance.

The pandemic has dramatically highlighted how much an organization’s long-term growth is linked to the survival of its supply chains. For too long, however, firms did not measure or turned a blind eye to the ways people and natural resources were being negatively affected along the chain. Such business practices are no longer tenable as customers are increasingly holding companies accountable for practices that may harm people and the planet. In this presentation, Harvard Business School professor Robert Kaplan outlines inclusive growth strategies that drive revenues while creating an ecosystem that benefits all stakeholders. He shows how a co-created ecosystem made up of everyone along the supply chain builds relationships and trust across organizational and sectoral boundaries and allows everyone to participate in the win. To measure results, Kaplan’s strategy map and Scorecard provide a mechanism for ongoing accountability and governance within the new ecosystem. Participants will come away with a new understanding of how to drive revenues while protecting the valued people and resources that sustain their business.

Managers are often surprised to learn that the bulk of their profits comes from a small percentage of customers. Harvard Business School Professor Emeritus Robert Kaplan, co-developer of activity-based costing (ABC), teaches participants how to use this powerful costing framework to understand the economics of their products, services and customers. Through time-driven ABC, companies have the ability to assign virtually all organizational spending to individual products and customers, enabling them to see for the first time where they are truly making and losing money. With this fact-based knowledge and analysis, Kaplan discusses the multiple ways companies can transform losses into profits quickly – leading to dramatic improvements within 6-12 months – without “firing customers.”

As the pandemic and 2008 financial crisis revealed, risk management processes that are siloed, fragmented and delegated can leave organizations vulnerable to huge, unforeseen losses. Much of this is due to individual and organizational biases that inhibit candid discussions about the possible risks of enterprise strategies. Harvard Business School professor Robert Kaplan’s risk management work is grounded in measurement systems and well-researched strategies that help companies identify, measure and mitigate risk in all areas of an organization. In this presentation, he teaches managers how to identify different types of risk, how to achieve an appropriate balance between innovation and risk, and how to make cost-effective investments that protect the company from the consequences of uncertain and unexpected events. While acknowledging the importance of existing compliance and internal controls, Kaplan urges managers to focus their attention on the risks inherently created by their strategies, as well as the risks that arise from external events that are out of their control.