The balanced scorecard as originally developed by Kaplan and Norton (1992, 1996) is frequently used as the basis for measurement. Their aim was to counter the tendency of companies to concentrate on short-term financial reporting. They take the view that ‘what you measure is what you get’, and they emphasize that ‘no single measure can provide a clear performance target or focus attention on the critical areas of the business. Managers want a balanced presentation of both financial and operational measures’. Their original concept of the scorecard required managers to answer four basic questions, which means looking at the business from four related perspectives, as shown in Figure 2.2.
Some organizations have replaced the innovation and learning perspective with a broader people or human capital element.
Kaplan and Norton emphasize that the balanced scorecard approach ‘puts strategy and vision, not control at the centre’. They suggest that while it defines goals, it assumes that people will adopt whatever behaviours and take whatever actions are required to achieve those goals: ‘Senior managers may know what the end result should be, but they cannot tell employees exactly how to achieve that result, if only because the conditions in which employees operate are constantly changing.’
They suggest that the balanced scorecard can help to align employees’ individual performance with the overall strategy: ‘Scorecard users generally engage in three activities: communicating and educating, setting goals, and linking rewards to performance measures’. They comment that:
Some organizations have replaced the innovation and learning perspective with a broader people or human capital element.
Kaplan and Norton emphasize that the balanced scorecard approach ‘puts strategy and vision, not control at the centre’. They suggest that while it defines goals, it assumes that people will adopt whatever behaviours and take whatever actions are required to achieve those goals: ‘Senior managers may know what the end result should be, but they cannot tell employees exactly how to achieve that result, if only because the conditions in which employees operate are constantly changing.’
They suggest that the balanced scorecard can help to align employees’ individual performance with the overall strategy: ‘Scorecard users generally engage in three activities: communicating and educating, setting goals, and linking rewards to performance measures’. They comment that:
Research by Deloitte & Touche and Personnel Today (2002) found that 32 per cent of large UK companies are using the balanced scorecard methodology, although the methods adopted vary. At Lloyds TSB the balanced scorecard blends a mix of financial metrics and non-financial indicators to provide a single integrated measure of performance that focuses on key indicators, from which a true reflection of organization performance can be accomplished. The scorecard thus enables the organization to focus on a small number of critical measures that create value for the organization.
Norwich Union Insurance describes its balanced scorecard as a ‘mechanism for implementing our strategy and measuring performance against our objectives and critical success factors to achieve the strategy’. The scorecard is cascaded throughout the organization to measure the operational activities that are contributing to the overall company strategy. The balanced scorecard changes from year to year. Most recently, it set out to achieve three goals: positive benefit, staff impacts and financial performance – in short, service, morale and profits. Previously, the emphasis was predominantly on profit, in order to deliver the promises made to the City and shareholders, but the company feels that more focus is now needed on service and morale.
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