Maloney Corporation manufactures plastic water bottles. It plans to grow by producing high-quality ...

a.   Maloney's strategy is one of cost leadership because there are a number of other manufacturers who produce similar water bottles. To succeed, Maloney will have to achieve lower costs relative to competitors through productivity and efficiency improvements, elimination of waste, and tight cost controls.

b.   The company's balanced scorecard should describe the product differentiation strategy. Key elements should include:

Financial perspective: operating income growth from productivity gains and revenue growth from the ability to lower prices
Customer perspective: growth in market share, new customers, customer responsiveness, and customer satisfaction
Internal business process perspective: yield, time to complete customer jobs, order delivery time; cost per order;
Learning and growth perspective: employee education and skill levels, and employee satisfaction, investment in information technology