The Balanced Scorecard Management System

“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…”

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.

Martello, M., Watson, J., Fischer, M., (2008). Implementing a balanced scorecard in a not-for-profit organization. Journal of Business & Economics Research. 6(9), 67-80. Retrieved from: http://journals.cluteonline.com/index.php/JBER/article/view/2471/2517

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.

A balanced scorecard is the comprehensive collection of ongoing activities and processes that organizations use to systematically coordinate and align resources and actions with mission, vision and strategy throughout an organization making it a strategic planning and management system. (Balanced Scorecard Institute, 1998-2010). The scorecard exposes financial, customer, employee learning and growth, and internal business process objectives crucial to attaining goals of the vision and mission statements. When establishing such objectives, an evaluation of the company’s vision statement, mission statement, and furthermore, core values is

The foundation of effective strategic planning framework is the inclusion of goals and objectives that capture shareholder value, customer value, process and internal operations, and learning & growth objectives for employees. All of these factors must be orchestrated around a compelling vision and mission for the business. An effective balanced scorecard can transform a diverse enterprise into a single, unified organization that strives to attain the most challenging goals and objectives together (Abernathy, 1997). For companies including We Do Your Proposal, the potential exists for delivering transformational value to customers through the use of a balanced scorecard strategy planning and management process. Balanced scorecards have been shown to continually improve the clarity of vision and probability of long-term success for even the most compel of enterprises that adopt them (Jennings, 2010).

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

In the modern business and organizational environment, particularly as a result of globalization, competition equates performance. 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. This tool also provides the organization with a tool that takes vision and moves it to strategy, and the conversely, strategy into tactics. BSA supports planning and unites the organization into a more singular vision and common goal. It also allows for both internal and external feedback so that performances and results continue to evolve and improve.

Many organizations are usefully viewed as a web of relationships between and among various stakeholder groups. An organization may be defined as a "nexus of contracts," where said "contracts" are relationships that are marked by contributions from the various stakeholders in return for inducements provided by the organization. Over the long haul, the success of an organization is a function of the extent to which the needs and requirements of its various stakeholders can be integrated and balanced, without sacrificing any one to the other. There is, in this arrangement, mutual influence and accountability.

Resulting from the constantly changing environment, the accounting information systems transform and renovate continuously, for instance, the development from traditional costing system to activity-based costing or the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) which is an up-to-date system that connects non-financial and financial performance measures to a company 's overall strategy (Kaplan and Norton 1996). The article aims at demonstrating the specific purposes for which managers use the Balanced Scorecard, instead of simply measuring the adoption rates or the degree of BSC usage. Therefore, BSC usage at the individual management level is emphasized by the author.

In the context of strategic corporate planning, Balance Scorecard framework is widely used for goals and objectives setting for the entire organization or department. These goals and objectives are made as team goals. The Balance Scorecard provides a framework to describe and communicate strategy in a consistent and insightful way (Kaplan & Norton. 200, Pg. 10). This works best in departments or entire organization where the people are fairly independent and striving to achieve a singular purpose. A strategic scorecard is a process of establishing multi-faceted measures of an organization or unit they typically includes: (a) finance; (b) customer; (c) internal business process and (d) leaning and growth.

As per Vince Kellen (2003) those uses include monitoring and controlling activities, driving organizational improvement, maximizing the effectiveness of the improvement effort, achieving alignment with organizational goal and objectives, rewarding and disciplining.

Management Case Study Creating and Implementing a Balanced Scorecard: The Case of the Ministry of Works - Bahrain

The Balanced Scorecard is the most popular approach used to measure performance. The balance scorecard was developed by Kaplan and Norton in 1992 to help the weak and vague performance management strategies (Kaplan & Norton, 1992). The balanced scorecard looks at measures and objectives of the organizational performance from four aspects: Financial, customer, internal processes, and learning and growth (12 Manage, 2009).