Balanced Scorecard

"Understanding the principles of measurement is not difficult, but the key is to ensure everyone is focused on measuring the right things at all levels."

What is it?

The Balanced Scorecard is a strategic planning and performance measurement system that encourages improvement in a range of key performance areas, rather than concentrating on a few aspects, usually financial outcome (profit) or operational performance.

A Balanced Scorecard is normally developed in four major quadrants, which could include:

  1. Financial Perspective- How are we doing financially?
  2. Customer Perspective- How do we appear to our customers?
  3. Internal Perspective- Which processes must we excel at?
  4. Development Perspective- How well are we developing the organisation for the future?

When to use it:

  • As a tool for developing strategy, setting objectives and defining a measurement framework.
  • When you wish all staff to understand what elements of their performance are critical to the success of the organisation.

The benefits:

  • Greater visibility of overall performance.
  • Provides a framework for deploying objectives and reviewing performance.
  • Improved prioritisation of improvement activity.
  • Clearer linkage between activity and measurement.
  • Greater buy-in to the relevant measures at all levels.

How TQMI can help:

We can help develop the scorecard and an implementation process that fits your own needs and situation. All businesses have different needs, and we can work with you to develop a scorecard that is easy to use, but effective in helping you to manage your business. We can provide hands-on support in the choice of measurement tools, and can provide software that enables your scorecard to link seamlessly with existing information technology.