The Balanced Scorecard (BSC) concept was developed by Drs Kaplan and Norton in the early '90s to redress the 'imbalance' in traditinal reporting, which focuses almost exclusively on financial outcomes while neglecting the value-creating activities (e.g. operational indicators) that are key to ensuring these outcomes are achieved. Much like navigators that look at where the ship has gone, rather than where it is going, this implies managers lack the information they need to proactively diagnose and solve problems before they turn into negative financial results. Balanced Scorecard seeks to reblanace this in order to improve the execution of strategy. In the complex, data-intensive daily reality of most companies, it is the role of IT to make sure that this theory is operationalized - successfully and sustainably.
Certified by the Balanced Scorecard Collaborative Inc. and drawing on its exceptional user-friendliness, flexibility and functionality, STRAT&GO Business Scorecard (SBS) was designed to fulfill this role even in the early stages of a BSC project, by:
- Offering a structured approach to the process of prioritizing strategic goals/critical success factors
- Supporting the consensus-building and generation of Cause-Effect/Strategy Maps
- Creating flexible, user-defined Scorecards/Management dashboards providing 'at a glance' information on strategic goals, key performance indicators (KPIs) and critical areas
- Providing a central reference point with detailed documentation on strategic goals and objectives, targets and indicators
- Stimulating company-wide communication and participation using the Webcockpit and the integrated e-mail system
- Enabling continuous monitoring of BSC project status and critical milestones achieved by the project team
It is important not to 'put the cart before the horse' and turn Balanced Scorecard into an IT project. However, as the previous points demonstrate, the right software can play a crucial role in managing the complexity of this type of project involving many different individuals, opinions, locations and data.
While the Strategy map brings a structured approach to the difficult task of finding consensus on strategic priorities and their inter-dependencies, the parallel development of flexible, easy-to-change prototypes during the development process 'brings to life' the workgroups' ideas and creates a tangible focal point for discussion and fine-tuning. Finally, the web-enabled, client-independent access to the BSC-cockpits promotes communication and participation, and thus organizational acceptance, of the BSC project even in fragmented, decentralized environments.
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