1. The Balanced Scorecard
Chapter 9

2. Achieving Success in the Information Era
To achieve success in the information era, companies need more than prudent investment in physical assets and excellent management of financial assets and liabilities
Companies mobilize and create value from their intangible assets as well as their physical and financial ones

3. Intangible Assets An organization’s intangible assets include:
Loyal and profitable customer relationships
High-quality processes
Innovative products and services
Employee skills and motivation
Databases and information systems

4. Measuring Intangible Assets
Difficulties in placing a reliable financial value on intangible assets have prevented them from being recognized on a company’s balance sheet
These assets are critical for success
Managers have searched for a system that would help them measure and manage the performance of their intangible, knowledge-based assets

5. The Balanced Scorecard
The Balanced Scorecard (BSC) provides a system for measuring and managing all aspects of a company’s performance
The scorecard balances traditional financial measures of success, such as profits and return on capital, with non-financial measures of the drivers of future financial performance
The Balanced Scorecard measures organizational performance across different perspectives

6. Perspectives
Four different but linked perspectives are derived from the organization’s strategy
Financial:
Customer
Internal
Learning & Growth

7. Balanced Measurements
The BSC enables companies to:
Track financial results
Monitor how they are building the capabilities for future growth and profitability
With customers
With their internal processes
With their employees and systems

8. Connecting the Four Perspectives
A strategy map provides a visual representation of the linkages in the four perspectives of the BSC
Financial Perspective
Return on Investment
Customer Perspective
Customer Loyalty
On-Time Delivery
Internal Perspective
Process Quality
Cycle Time
Learning & Growth Perspective
Employees’ Process Improvement Skills

9. Connections
Return on investment (ROI) is a widely recognized measure of financial success
Repeated and expanded sales from existing customers, the result of a high degree of loyalty among existing customers, could be one driver of this financial measure

10. Connections
Analysis of customer preferences may reveal that on-time delivery (OTD) of orders is highly valued by customers
The company must excel at internal processes to achieve exceptional OTD

11. Connections
Short cycle times and high-quality production processes are two drivers of on-time delivery
The company must have skilled production workers, well-trained in process improvement techniques
A measure of employees’ skill and capabilities in process improvement is used in the Learning & Growth perspective

12. Strategy and the BSC
A BSC tells the story of the business unit's strategy
A BSC identifies and makes explicit the hypotheses about the cause and effect relationships between:
Outcome measures in the Financial and Customer perspectives
Performance drivers of those outcomes in the Internal and Learning & Growth perspectives

13. Objectives
Concise statements that articulate what the organization hopes to accomplish
Action phrases
Tell the story of the strategy through the cause-and-effect relationships
Extensive (3-5 sentence) description of each objective

14. Objectives
Typical objectives found in each of the four BSC perspectives include:
Increase revenues through expanded sales to existing customers (Financial perspective)
Become service oriented (Customer perspective)
Achieve excellence in order fulfillment through continuous process improvements (Internal perspective)
Align employee incentives and rewards with the strategy (Learning & Growth perspective)

15. Measures
Provide specificity and reduce the ambiguity that is inherent in word statements
Specifying exactly how an objective is measured will give employees a clear focus for their improvement efforts
Once the objectives have been translated into measures, managers select targets for each measure

16. Targets and Initiatives
Targets establish the level of performance or rate of improvement required for a measure
Should be set to represent excellent performance
Should, if achieved, place the company as one of the best performers in its industry
Initiatives are the short-term programs and action plans that will help achieve the stretch targets established for its measures

17. Vision and Mission
Before determining the objectives and measures, an organization should already have a vision and mission statement
High-level statements that can then be translated into detailed objectives and measures

18. Vision
A concise statement that defines the mid to long-term ( year) goals of the organization
The vision should be external and market-oriented and should express, often in colorful or “visionary” terms, how the organization wants to be perceived by the world:

19. Vision
“The City of Charlotte will be a model of excellence that puts its citizens first. Skilled, motivated employees will be known for providing quality and value in all areas of service. We will be a platform for vital economic activity that gives Charlotte a competitive edge in the marketplace. We will partner with citizens and businesses to make Charlotte a community of choice for living, working and leisure activities”

20. Mission Statement
A concise, internally-focused statement of how the organization expects to compete and deliver value to customers
It often states the reason for the organization’s existence, the basic purpose towards which its activities are directed, and the values that guide employee’s activities:

21. Mission Statement
“The mission of the City of Charlotte is to ensure the delivery of quality public services that promote the safety, health and quality of life of its citizens. We will identify and respond to community needs and focus on the customer through:
Creating and maintaining effective partnerships
Attracting and retaining skilled motivated employees
Using strategic business planning”

22. Putting Vision in Action
The Vision and Mission set the general direction for the organization
They are intended to help shareholders, customers, and employees understand what the company is about and what it intends to achieve
Companies start to make the statements operational when they define a strategy of how the vision and mission will be achieved

23. What is Strategy?
Strategy is about selecting the set of activities in which an organization will excel to create a sustainable difference in the marketplace
“Differentiation arises from both the choice of activities and how they are performed” (Porter)

24. Building the Balanced Scorecard
The role for the BSC is to provide needed specificity that makes vision, mission and strategy statements meaningful and actionable for employees

25. Financial Perspective
The ultimate objective for profit-maximizing companies
Financial performance measures indicate whether the company's strategy, implementation, and execution are contributing to bottom-line improvement
A company’s financial performance can be improved in two ways:

26. Financial Perspective
Companies generate revenue growth by:
Selling new products
Selling to new customers
Selling in new markets
Increased productivity occurs by:
Lowering direct and indirect expenses
Utilizing their financial and physical assets more efficiently

27. Customer Perspective
Identify the targeted customer segments in which the business unit competes and the measures of the business unit's performance in these targeted segments
This perspective typically includes several common measures of the successful outcomes from a well-formulated and implemented strategy:
Customer satisfaction
Customer retention
Customer acquisition
Customer profitability
Market share
Account share

28. Customer Perspective
A strategy identifies specific segments targeted for growth and profitability
Companies must also identify the objectives and measures for the value proposition it offers customers

29. Customer Perspective
The value proposition is the unique mix of product, price, service, relationship, and image offered to the targeted customers
Defines the company’s strategy
Communicate what the company expects to do for its customers better or differently from its competitors
Value propositions used successfully by different companies include:
“Best buy” or lowest total cost
Product innovation and leadership
Complete customer solutions

30. Internal Perspective Means by which the organization will:
Produce and deliver the value proposition for customers
Achieve the productivity improvements for the financial objectives
The Internal perspective identifies the critical processes at which the organization must excel to achieve its customer, revenue growth, and profitability objectives

31. Internal Perspective
Organizations perform many different processes, which may be classified into four groupings:
Operating processes
Day-to-day processes by which companies produce their existing products and services and deliver them to customers
Customer management processes
Processes by which companies expand relationships with targeted customers

32. Internal Perspective Innovation processes
Processes by which companies develop new products, processes, and services,
Regulatory and social processes
Processes by which companies ensure that they meet or exceed regulations on business practices

33. Learning & Growth Perspective
Identifies objectives for the people, systems, and organizational alignment that create long-term growth and improvement
Define the employee capabilities, skills, technology, and organizational alignment that will contribute to improving performance in the measures selected in the first three perspectives
Identify investments needed to improve the skills of employees, enhance information technology and systems, and align people to the company’s objectives

34. Learning & Growth Perspective
Identifies how executives mobilize their intangible assets to drive improvement in the internal processes most important for implementing their strategy
Examines each of the processes they selected in the Internal perspective

35. Learning & Growth Perspective
Determine the factors that enable that process to be performed in an outstanding manner so that it can contribute to the success of the company’s strategy:
Employee capabilities, knowledge, and skills
Information systems and databases
Employee culture, alignment, and knowledge-sharing

36. KPI Scorecards
Some organizations identify key performance indicators (KPIs) and classify them into the four BSC perspectives
KPIs typically are common measures, such as customer satisfaction, quality, cost, employee satisfaction, and morale
Companies may expand their compensation system to reward executives for a broader set of performance than simply short-term financial results based on KPIs

37. BSC in Nonprofits and Government Organizations
The BSC is especially well-suited for nonprofit and government organizations (NPGOs)
Their success has to be measured by their effectiveness in providing benefits to constituents
Since nonfinancial measures can assess performance with constituents, the BSC provides the natural performance management system for NPGOs

38. NPGOs and Strategy
Many NPGOs encountered difficulties in developing their initial BSC, finding that they didn’t have a clear strategy
Many NPGOs place their mission objective at the top of their scorecard and strategy map
Cannot use the standard BSC architecture where financial objectives are the ultimate, high-level outcomes to be achieved

39. Using BSC to Implement Strategy
BSC was originally developed to improve performance measurement, but organizations learned that measurement has consequences far beyond reporting on the past
The BSC concept evolved during the 1990’s from a performance measurement system to a new strategic management system

40. 5 Principles for Becoming Strategy-Focused
Organizations achieved their strategic alignment and focus in different ways, at different paces, and in different sequences, but they generally followed a common set of five principles:
Translate the Strategy to Operational Terms
Align the Organization to the Strategy
Make Strategy Everyone’s Job
Make Strategy a Continual Process
Mobilize Leadership for Change

41. Pitfalls Design factors can lead to problems when applying the BSC
Too few measures in the scorecard to provide:
A complete picture of the company’s strategy
A balance between desired outcomes and the performance drivers of those outcomes
Too many measures:
Attention is diffused, and insufficient attention is given to those few measures that make the greatest impact
The drivers in the Internal and Learning & Growth perspectives don't link to the desired outcomes in the Financial and Customer perspective

42. Pitfalls
The biggest threat is a poor organizational process for developing and implementing the scorecard:
Senior management is not committed, and the BSC project is delegated to middle management
One senior manager builds the scorecard alone
Senior executives feel that only they need to know and understand the strategy, and BSC responsibilities don't filter down
The BSC is treated as a one-time event that requires the perfect scorecard for implementation
The BSC is treated as a systems project rather than as a management project

43. BSC Summary BSC integrates measures based on strategy
Retains financial measures of past performance
Introduces the drivers of future financial performance
The drivers are derived from an explicit and rigorous translation of the organization's strategy into tangible objectives and measures

44. BSC Summary
The benefits from BSC are realized as the organization integrates its new measurement system into management processes that:
Communicate the strategy to all employees and organizational units
Align employees’ individual objectives and incentives to successful strategy implementation
Integrate the strategy with ongoing management processes