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The Balanced Scorecard And How It Is Used For A Competitive Advantage Within The Business Industry

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Introduction
This report outlines the what the balanced scorecard is and how it is used as a tool used in the business industry. It outlines its historical development and analyses its usefulness and how it can be applied to key decisions.

The Balanced Scorecard
The balanced scorecard is a performance management tool that assists in the management of an organisation’s business strategy using traditional financial measurements combined with non-financial information (Candle 2008). Kaplan and Norton (1992), the creators of the concept, introduced the business scorecard as 4 main perspectives, customer, learning and growth, financial and internal business process. They breakdown the meaning behind each perspective is as follows: The customer …show more content…

By collecting and analysing the information found, organisations can keep track of their management system to create opportunities and improve on any shortcomings, making their business more efficient and effective.

Historical Development of the Balanced Scorecard
The balanced scorecard was brought into attention by Robert Kaplan and David Norton (Kaplan and Norton 1992). In 1990, the Naplan Norton institute sponsored a one year study, “Measuring Performance in the Organization of the Future” (Robertson 2005). This was organised due to concerns that quantitative financial tools were becoming less useful. David Norton was the study leader whilst Robert Kaplan was the academic consultant. Many companies, from varying industries, took part in this study in an effort to establish a more effective performance strategy tool. This led to the creation of the balanced scorecard and a Harvard Business Review article on the balanced scorecard in 1992 by Kaplan and Norton (Cobbold and Lawrie 2002). In 1996, a book was published by Kaplan and Norton where a modified version, the second generation, of the scorecard was introduced as it did not give a more distinct definition of what a balanced scorecard was and how to apply it (Ahmadgourabi, Efteghar and Poureisa 2013). Using strategy maps, cause-effect chains were added to provide more contextual reasoning behind decisions to make it

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