What is a Balanced Scorecard?
The Balanced Scorecard is a strategic planning and management system that organizations use to align business activities with the vision and strategy of the organization, improve internal and external communications, and monitor organizational performance against strategic goals.
Developed by Robert S. Kaplan and David P. Norton in the early 1990s, the balanced scorecard provides a more comprehensive view of business performance beyond traditional financial measures.
The Balanced Scorecard suggests that we view the organization from four perspectives, and to develop metrics, collect data and analyze it relative to each of these perspectives:
1. The Learning and Growth Perspective
This perspective includes employee training and corporate cultural attitudes related to both individual and corporate self-improvement. In a knowledge-worker organization, people — the only repository of knowledge — are the main resource. In the current climate of rapid technological change, it is becoming necessary for knowledge workers to be in a continuous learning mode.
Metrics can be put into place to guide managers in focusing training funds where they can help the most. In any case, learning and growth constitute the essential foundation for success of any knowledge-worker organization.
2. The Business Process Perspective
This perspective refers to internal business processes. Metrics based on this perspective allow the managers to know how well their business is running, and whether its products and services conform to customer requirements (the mission).
These metrics have to be carefully designed by those who know these processes most intimately; with our unique missions, these are not something that can be developed by outside consultants.
3. The Customer Perspective
Recent management philosophy has shown an increasing realization of the importance of customer focus and customer satisfaction in any business. These are leading indicators: if customers are not satisfied, they will eventually find other suppliers that will meet their needs.
Poor performance from this perspective is thus a leading indicator of future decline, even though the current financial picture may look good. In developing metrics for satisfaction, customers should be analyzed in terms of kinds of customers and the kinds of processes for which we are providing a product or service to those customer groups.
4. The Financial Perspective
Kaplan and Norton do not disregard the traditional need for financial data. Timely and accurate funding data will always be a priority, and managers will do whatever necessary to provide it. In fact, often there is more than enough handling and processing of financial data. With the implementation of a corporate database, it is hoped that more of the processing can be centralized and automated.
But the point is that the current emphasis on financials leads to the "unbalanced" situation with regard to other perspectives. There is perhaps a need to include additional financial-related data, such as risk assessment and cost-benefit data, in this category.
Balanced Scorecard is not just a measurement system but a management system that helps organizations translate their strategic objectives into a coherent set of performance measures. Not only does the scorecard provide performance measurements, but it also helps planners identify what should be done and measured.
It enables executives to truly execute their strategies. This system has been widely adopted by various types of organizations worldwide as a means of making their strategies more tangible and ensuring that their strategic goals are continuously met.