Outline Of A Balanced Scorecard

According to the study Zelman et al (2003) showed that the Balanced Scorecard was introduced in all areas of a particular industry, particularly with regard to health care such as hospitals, health care systems, health insurers and long-term care. In addition, the balanced scorecard is not only introduced in certain areas even been in use for strategic management at the enterprise level but in use for the evaluation of health programs, the quality of care projects and improvements as well as performance measurement across the organization.

The balanced scorecard is a strategic planning and management system is used to help align activities of the vision and strategy of the organization, and apply it to the overall

The balanced scorecard is a strategic planning and management system that was developed by Dr. Robert S. Kaplan and Dr. David P. Norton in the early 1990's. Their goal was to provide organizations with a clear understanding of what to measure in order to improve performance and results (Balanced Scorecard Institute 2014). The balanced scorecard is a framework that allows an organization to measure performance and compare it to the organization’s strategic objectives and goals (Kinney and Raiborn 2013, 10).

Introduction- To be competitive, organizations must be both strategic and tactical to the nth degree, must be proactive rather than reactive, and must find a way to measure this easily and accurately. One way to accomplish this is through a Balanced Scorecard approach; a tool often viewed as one of the best tools that helps organizations translate strategy into performance. In general the BSA (Balanced Scorecard Approach) allows for a clear strategic and tactical directions for the organization, retains financial measurements in a summation along with their links to performance, and highlights an important and robust measurement system that links and integrates customers, stakeholders, processes, resources, and performance into single measurement strategy.

The Balanced Scorecard Institute reports that in the 1950’s General Electric was the first to use the Balanced Scorecard approach, but it was not until the 1990’s when Dr. Robert Kaplan a Harvard Business School professor and Dr. David Norton officially titled it the Balanced Scorecard. Once used as only a measurement tool for organizations, it is now a complete strategic planning and management system (Balanced Scorecard Institute, n.d.). Originally, businesses looked at the financial reports to distinguish whether it was a quality company or not. Kaplan and Norton however believed the financial reports only showed past history and an organization must also track how it is performing currently and look at ways to constantly improve future performance. Kaplan and Norton established there are four business segments or perspectives to measure and make improvements on. The four segments

Performance management systems are often designed to enable organizations to plan, measure and control their performance, so that decisions, resources and activities can be better aligned with business strategies to achieve desired results and create shareholder value. The Balanced Scorecard is a performance tool using financial and nonfinancial measures. It provides an organization with ways to develop and evaluate strategic objectives and goals. For the past two decades, the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) has been proposed as an integrated framework for the implementation of

The balanced scorecard can act as different roles in a company. When acting as a measurement of performance, BSC follows two steps. Firstly, it draws objectives and measures from the company’s overall strategy. In other worlds, it converts the vague strategy into detailed actions. Then, by using these objectives and measures as a benchmark, the performance are evaluated from four different aspects including the financial, customer, internal-business-process and learning and growth perspective (Kaplan and Norton, 1996). The financial perspective concentrates on financial health of a company, it is the most direct way for executives to measure organization performance. Usually, the good performance of the other three perspectives of the scorecard will lead to good results of financial performance as the four perspectives are interrelated. In terms of

The leading organizations use performance measurement with the aim of gaining insights to their organizations and the efficiency of their people, programs and processes. The organizations do not only collect and analyze data but they also use performance management to transform various strategies into actions and to improve their operational processes (Northcott and Ma 'amora Taulapapa 2012). Accordingly, performance management is used to manage the organizations. The Balanced Scorecard (BSC) is a prominent performance management system in the contemporary world and it was developed by Dr. David Norton and Dr. Robert Kaplan at Harvard business school. Compared to other systems of measuring performance, the BSC considers various

A theory and management approach of the Balanced Scorecard was first “proposed in the Harvard Business Review by Robert S. Kaplan & David P. Norton (1995)” (Knapp, 2001). In the book called ‘The Balances Scorecard’ Kaplan and Norton (1996) translated organization’s mission and strategy into comprehensive set of performance measures. That

Balanced Scorecard is a strategic performance management framework that helps organizations to align strategies with both financial and non-financial measures to monitor progress, measure performance, prioritize and reveal improvement opportunities (Henderson, Gary & Mittl). BSC is generally implemented at the corporate level, but it is useful for all levels of the organization. It should not only act as an information system for corporate management, but form a basis for encouraging behavioral change in the organization in order to conform to the vision and

The Balanced Scorecard holds the monetary point of view since financial measures are important in considering the measurable economic costs of actions already taken (Kaplan & Norton, 1996c). Financial performance measures help the organization to assess the ability of the organization in formulating strategies, implementing them and execution of those strategies that helps the company to achieve its objectives. (Kaplan & Norton, 1992a). Financial objectives of an organization relate to profitability are measured by return on capital employed or economic value added, operating income (Kaplan & Norton,

A Balanced Scorecard gives managers and executives a more “balanced” view of organizational performance. Today, the balanced scorecard has evolved into a full strategic planning and management system from the earlier primitive performance measurement system. This novel system is able to change a company’s strategic plan from a passive document into direct orders for the company on a daily basis. It is not only able to provide a measurement for performance and productivity, but also helps to identify what affairs should be executed and measured. A good balanced scorecard is clear-cut and doesn’t have ambiguous underpinnings like its forerunners; it enables companies to clarify their vision and strategy and transform them into action. It also offers opinion and feedback around both internal and external activities so as to consistently improve strategic performance and results. When a balanced scorecard is fully adopted by a company, it

To bridge the gap between strategy and action, organizations use the Balanced Scorecard, BSC. This tool aligns business activities to the organization’s strategy and vision thereby boosting the internal and external communications as well as monitoring its performance against strategic objectives by incorporating financial and non-financial elements from various perspectives into a single framework. Therefore, the BSC is essential in steering an organization to focus on its most relevant areas that push the organization to success by clarifying performance in relation to the business strategy. An organization can thus use BSC to achieve customer satisfaction through innovation thereby strengthening its financial position, achieve a competitive advantage and retain clients.

A balanced scorecard can be thought of as a strategic management tool, which the management of various organizations can use to monitor how the activities of employees affect the related operations. The origin of the concept can be traced back to the 1990s when Robert Kaplan and David Norton developed and published the idea in Harvard review journal. It can transform a company’s mission and vision into objectives, which can be quantified and measured. Therefore, it can quantify financial performance, the performance of business processes in the market, innovation performance, and employee performance among others. This tool can further be defined by two characteristics. Firstly, it focuses on organizations ' main agenda. Secondly, it uses a small number of data to measure various processes. This paper seeks to determine the ideal inputs for the four major elements of the Balanced Scorecard.

Definition of what comprised a Balanced Scorecard was sparse and focused on the high level structure of the device. Simple ‘causality’ between the four perspectives was illustrated but not used for specific purpose. Kaplan and Norton’s original paper’s focus was on the selection and reporting of a limited number of measures in each of the four perspectives (Kaplan and Norton, 1992). The paper suggested use of attitudinal questions relating to the vision and goals of the organisation to help in the selection of measures to be used, and also encouraged the consideration of ‘typical’ areas of interest in this process. Kaplan and Norton’s original work makes no specific observations concerning how the Balanced Scorecard might improve the performance of organisations; the implication is that the provision of