Balanced Scorecard: A Strategic Management Tool

Soderberg, Kalagnanam, Sheehan, and Vaidyanathan (2011) presented the balance scorecard as a strategic planning procedural tool used by organizations to balance financial concerns, customer concerns, process concerns, and innovation concerns with the main purpose of developing appropriate strategy in favor of a more favorable market position (p. 689-690). Similarly, Lawrence and Webber (2008) illustrated

The Balanced Scorecard (BSC) is a powerful diagnostic tool which provides managers with a vision and strategy of the organization to completely value the performance of the organization(Roussas & Mccaskill 2015). BSC integrates financial measures with several crucial factors to create a long or short term plan(Huang 2009). This system emphasizes ‘leading and lagging indicators, internal performance perspectives, and quantitative and qualitative objectives’(Roussas & Mccaskill 2015). BSC works by four perspectives:

A balanced scorecard is a method company’s use to measure their performance. It includes objectives, strategies, and tactics. This paper will contain two strategic objectives for each of the four balanced scorecard areas (shareholder value or financial perspective, customer value perspective, process or internal perspective, and learning and growth perspective) for H & R Block. It will also have two strategies for every objective, one tactic for each strategy, and two methods to monitor and control the overall strategic plan for H&R Block.

“The balanced scorecard should translate a business unit’s mission and strategy into tangible objectives and measures. The measures represent a balance between external measures for shareholders and customers and internal measures of critical business processes, innovation and learning and growth. The measures are balance between outcome measures, the results of past efforts, and the measures that drive future performance. And the scorecard is balanced between objective, easily quantified outcome measures and subjective, somewhat judgmental, performance…”

Children’s Resale Shop is a store for parents to purchase and sell quality children’s items. Just like any other organization Children’s Stop Resale Shop needs to have a vision, mission, and values in determining the strategic direction of the business. Developing the vision is important to know what direction the business is heading in. Laying out the guiding principles and values will assist in guiding the business in the correct directions. Children’s Stop Resale Shop will assist the community in becoming a better place by setting good examples.

A Balanced Scorecard is, “A set of four measures directly linked to a company’s strategy: financial performance, customer knowledge, internal business processes, and learning and growth” (Pearce & Robinson, 2009, p. 202). Healthy Place needs to develop a balanced scorecard in order to assist in defining the company’s mission, values, vision, and SWOTT analysis. Herein, the four perspectives, financial performance, customer knowledge, internal business processes, and learning and growth will be discussed as they relate to the Healthy Place mission, values, vision, and SWOTT analysis.

Another perspective of balanced scorecard is learn and growth. For healthcare industries, health providers must have sufficient knowledge within their specialty to provide safe and efficient services to patients. The primary objective for patients care is the quality of interventions and procedures provided to reach desirable outcomes. In addition, training and development for staff is required to ensure safe and effective work environment. Lastly, the workforce should be evaluated to address any deficiencies and morale of employees.

In 1992, Kaplan and Norton introduced a revamped management system that focusses on not only the financial measures of a company, but also the operational measures. This system comes after a realisation that no single measure can provide a vivid performance target on the critical areas of a business. The system provides managers the platform to view the business from four vital perspectives; Customer, internal, innovation and learning, and financial perspectives.

A Balanced Scorecard can be defined as a “performance management tool which began as a concept for measuring whether the smaller-scale operational activities of a company are aligned with its larger-scale objectives in terms of vision and strategy” (Wikipedia 2009, ¶ 1). Scents & Things will need to develop a balanced scorecard that will assist in meeting and help define the company’s values, mission, vision, and SWOT analysis. The balance scorecard is made up of four perspectives; financial, customer, learning and growing, and internal process. This paper will define each of the four perspectives objectives, performance measures, targets, and initiatives. The paper will also show how the perspectives relate

Performance management has been defined as a continuous process of identifying, measuring, and developing the performance of individuals and teams and aligning performance with the strategic goals of the organisation (Aguinis, 2009). Organisations can either use strategic or operational performance management. Most organisational performance management systems are strategic in nature. They are aligned to the business strategy and support the achievement of its strategic goals (Armstrong, 2015). Armstrong (2015) suggests that a strategic approach to performance management takes a broad and long-term view of where the business is going and manages performance in ways which ensure a strategic thrust is maintained. An example of a strategic performance management system is the Balanced Scorecard. A Balanced Scorecard is a strategic planning system that is used to align an organisation’s business activities to its vision and strategy (Roussel, 2013). Once the strategies are aligned they are organised and measured using the four measures of the Balanced Scorecard. These four measures are the customer measure which measures customer satisfaction, the financial measure which measures financial requirements and performance, the internal business process measure which measures critical-to-customer process requirements and measures, and the knowledge, education and growth measure which focuses on how employees are educated, how knowledge is gained and captures and how it is used to

One of the most popular measures is the balanced scorecard (BSC). The BSC “strikes a balance between financial and nonfinancial measures (Horngren, Sundem, Stratton, 2008, p. 401)” and is used by about 50% of the top 1,000 United States firms. To develop this system, Guillermo needs to decide what the responsibility centers are and how performance is measured and acknowledged. He will also need to define the key performance indicators; financials, customers, internal processes, and employee growth and learning.

When an organization implements any management control tool, the cost/benefit balance is vital. The decision to deploy a scorecard system requires the same analysis. The costs of implementing a new tool are relatively easy to appraise, but often, there's a lack of reliable information about the benefits. This article explores the extent to which organizations have realized significant benefits from using a scorecard system. (We use the term "scorecard system" to include both the scorecard as a control tool and the process, or technique, of integrating the scorecard system into the overall performance-achievement cycle of the firm.)

This report focuses on the application on one such framework, the balance score card, designed to enhance strategic performance in an organization. .Originally developed and recognised as a performance measurement tool but since incoporation of many ideas, the scorecard is now linked increasingly with strategy execution. Till today

The value proposition for Worldclass to continue the balanced scorecard is that with strategic timing of reviews and quality indicator data, the improvement of the management review processes could be achieved, which would lead to increased profits and improved financial performance. The management team would be better informed and able to comprehend their team’s results and which actions had caused them. Managers contribute to obtaining the measure and can make suggestions to adjust the scorecard for improvement of the balanced set of measures linked to strategic objectives. The increased performance would be indicative of the success of the strengthening and reinforced relativeness of the four perspectives: financial, customer, process, and learning and growth. Some examples would be increased cash flow for financial, increased customer satisfaction from inquiries, increased distribution efficiency for process, and the company’s ability to longer retain its employees for the learning and growth perspective. The firm would be able to generate lead measures and extend more

The balanced scorecard will be linked to incentive plans. The balanced scorecard is a set of financial and non-financial measures relating to the company’s mission, strategies, and critical success factors. It usually has four perspectives: the customer perspective - how do customers see us; the internal business perspective - what must we excel at; the innovation and learning perspective - can we continue to improve and create value; the financial perspective - how do we look to shareholders. These four perspectives generate performance measures to assess the progress of a company’s vision and strategy. Implementing incentive plans, like bonus plan, company can better align employee’s performance with its long-term goal. To be more specific, employees and management will devote more their energy and times to their work, so as to facilitate the performance in the above four perspectives. Sales person will promote company’s products based on customers’ preferences. Internal business person will work more efficiently, R&D department person will develop new products. Management will stay focused on the entire business process and ensure that the actual current operating performance is in line with shareholders’ interests. Thus the goal of balanced scorecard, maintaining an alignment among an organization’s vision, strategy, programs, measurements, and rewards, will be achieved.