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 …show more content…
More importantly, the BSC helps in motivating and educating the employees (Qin, Atkins and Yu 2013). This essay critically evaluates the use of the balanced scorecard (BSC) as a performance measurement tool.
It is widely accepted that Norton and Kaplan of the Harvard Business School created the BSC. However, there is a twist in the history of the BSC because some sources claim that Art Schneiderman created the very first BSC in 1987 (Qin, Atkins and Yu 2013). In 1990, Art Schneiderman took part in research that was spearheaded by Dr. Robert S. Kaplan and that is when he described his findings of the BSC. Subsequently, Dr. Norton and Dr. Kaplan included Art’s details in the article about the Balanced Scorecard in 1992. Despite the fact that there were many articles that were published in 1992, the article published by Dr. Norton and Dr. Kaplan was very successful and this led to the publication of another article on the BSC in 1993 (Kristensen, Andersen and Torp 2013). The balanced scorecard was described in the articles and the journals that were written by the two doctors. Later on, Norton and Kaplan conducted a study on the BSC and the study involved 12 companies. Accordingly, the BSC became Norton and Kaplan’s BSC and that is why they are recognized as the original creators of the BSC. The American Accounting Association awarded the BSC the prize of the “best theoretical contribution in 1997”. After the award, the BSC rose
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:
I think the balanced scorecard should be implemented to all of Citibank since it establishes a “sense of urgency”16 about competitive realities to all employees. But I would like to suggest some changes in it for 1997. Indeed, since everyone in the top management agree that James is an “outstanding manager”17 we should conclude that there is something wrong with the scorecard since if we strictly follow the
Performance evaluations are important parts of all employees and managers tools to ensure positive actions are rewarded while negative actions can be evaluated and fixed to decrease problems in the future. Performance evaluations benefit supervisors and employees by identifying how to bring out the employees best attributes for the company (Hamlett, nd.). Evaluations provide a look at how a worker is doing compared to earlier reviews of their skill, knowledge, initiative and participation in the company’s vision (Hamlett, nd.). Introducing performance review evaluations is important to most organization for the success of their organization and the advancement of its employees. Performance evaluations provide a way for managers and supervisors to manage the performance of an organization and the people who make of the human resources of the organization (McCarroll, nd.). When implementing a new system it is important to understand the process must be realistic, challenging, yet attainable for performance expectations and standards to be successful for employees and the organization (McCarroll, nd.). Balanced scorecards are utilized in performance evaluations to essentially provide a way for organizations to align their strategic plans with day to day operations (Balanced Scorecard Institute, 2015). Balanced scorecards look at traditional financial measures, which are past events and long-term investments like
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
Organisations, in order to increase performance, profitability, efficiency and to gain a competitive advantage, will benefit from a good strategic performance measurement system to ensure that lower-level managers are acting in a way that is consistent with top managers’ goals and whole organisation’s strategy. One the dominant system is the balanced scorecard framework (Hill, Jones & Schilling, 2015, p.376). The Balanced Scorecard (BSC) is defined as “a tool that translates an organisation’s mission, objectives and strategies into performance measures. It is used to implement strategy and to monitor and manage performance, and may form part of the organisation’s planning cycle” (Smith et al, 2015, p.621). The BSC allows managers to look at an organisation from four important perspectives, financial, customer, internal business, and employee learning and growth, which are critical for running the organisation and creating value (Smith et al, 2015, p.621).
The Balanced Scorecard has emerged in recent years as a performance measurement system in various organizations. This paper will discuss the origin and concept of the balanced scorecard and how it was first implemented. We will then review the criticisms on the balanced scorecard methodology as well as analyse the strengths and weaknesses of this performance measurement tool.
The balance score card is a tool of strategy performance management, which objective was to bring business activities into step with the strategy of organization and monitor its performance against strategic goals, was developed by Kaplan and Norton (1992). Over the past few decades, a large proportion of FTSE 100 companies have implemented the BSC (Hendricks, 2004). At present, hundreds of thousands of organizations in various domains, such as private and public, complied with this international trend (Kaplan, 2010).
The Balanced Scorecard (BSC) is one of ‘Performance Management System’ used widely around the world (Kaplan, 1993). This system is used to track the pivotal elements of a business, and allow managers to make decisions based on these measures to improve the company. Firstly, this essay will further introduce the BSC and then, its development throughout the years. Thirdly, the essay will suggest that the BSC is indeed effective as a ‘Performance Management System’ and that, lastly, it does help with the process of acquiring other companies.
The ‘Balanced Score Card’ is a strategic performance management system that allows an organization to translate its Vision, Mission, Values and Strategies by providing a new framework, one that tells the story of the organisation’s strategy through the
The Balanced Scorecard (BSC) is a performance measurement tool that originated in the business worlds. Performance measurement is a way to track performance over time to assess if goals are being met. Organizations measure their performance to monitor how they’re doing in achieving their overall mission and goals.
It was originated by Drs. Robert Kaplan (HBS) and David Norton as a performance measurement framework that added strategic non-financial performance measures to traditional financial metrics to give managers and executives a more 'balanced' view of organizational performance. The balanced scorecard has evolved from its early use as a simple performance measurement framework to a full strategic planning and management system. The “new” balanced scorecard transforms an organization’s strategic plan from an attractive but passive document into the "marching orders" for the organization on a daily basis. BSC provides feedback around both the internal business processes and external outcomes in order to continuously improve strategic performance and results. The BSC suggests that we view the organization from four perspectives, and to develop metrics, collect data and analyze it relative to each of these perspectives:
Balanced scorecards have been around since the 1990’s and was developed by Robert Kaplan and David Norton (Edwards (2011) and is used by many organizations of all types all over the world, non-profit, for-profit, governmental agencies, ect., in order to develop a strategic planning and improve strategies within their organizational structures. It pertains to many different aspects from financial aspects, employee retention, and customer satisfaction, internal and external perspectives, to employee morale, as well as accountability. A balanced scorecard will indicate weaknesses and strengths of all aspects within an organization such as finances, the business prospective, short and long term goals, customer satisfaction, knowledgeable concepts, as well as the organization’s mission and vision statements.
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
Organisations, in order to increase performance, profitability, efficiency and to gain a competitive advantage, will benefit from a good strategic performance measurement system to ensure that lower-level managers are acting in a way that is consistent with top managers’ goals and whole organisation’s strategy. One the dominant system is the balanced scorecard framework (Hill, Jones & Schilling, 2015, p.376). The Balanced Scorecard (BSC) defined as “a tool that translates an organisation’s mission, objectives and strategies into performance measures. It is used to implement strategy and to monitor and manage performance, and may form part of the
Whereas the SWOT analysis is an organizational vignette depicting where the company excels and falters, the balanced scorecard (BSC) details specific elements necessary to achieve identified goals and indicates how to achieve these goals. Blocher et al. (2016) described these elements as critical success factors and characterized the BSC as a benchmark or a model. This management tool is a blueprint of how the company will