“If you cannot measure it, you cannot improve it.” (Lord Kelvin)
The Balanced Scorecard, or BSC, is a strategy performance management tool that helps managers to put in balance four main perspectives (the customer’s perspective, the company’s internal perspective, as well as innovation and improvement). Also, it encourages them to focus on complex cause and effect relationships and on developing a systemic aligned strategy.
Who sustains this? The Emirates National Oil Company (ENOC), a wholly-owned company of the Government of Dubai, which develops downstream and upstream activities in the oil and gas sector. Saeed Khoory, Chief Executive Officer at ENOC, asserts that “ENOC’s name will become synonymous with industry best practices across multiple industries and markets.” How is this going to happen? Through the right performance management approach.
When Kaplan and Norton’s second book, The Strategy Focused Organization was published, the Harvard Business Review hailed the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) as one of the most significant contributions to management practice in the last 75 years. However, despite its well-publicized successes, many organizations that adopt a scorecard still fail to achieve the rewards they expect.
Why using Strategy Maps alongside Balanced Scorecard? If your balanced scorecard does not use a strategy map, then your scorecard will remain an operational tool, rather than one of strategy communication and execution. A strategy map sits in front of its balanced scorecard. It is very important to understand that each balanced scorecard has a strategy map. Rather than, each strategy map has a scorecard behind it.
“Supersector leader” in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index in 2012 and 2011, and 124 design awards in 2012. How is that possible? By having implemented a realistic performance management approach. Philips Electronics understood the importance of using performance management tools to effectively and efficiently monitor their targets, so as to reach their objectives.
