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Vol 31 - No 06 - September 2005 Balanced Scorecard To paraphrase John Ruskin, “nothing is so cheap and nasty that somebody, somewhere cannot make it cheaper and nastier”. It is easy to believe that this was a common theme in industry for much of the twentieth century. In fact, of course, there were many enterprises that would be considered ‘world class’, even by today’s comparisons. More recently, the influence of Deming, Toyota and quality improvement initiatives sought to promote the cost-effective delivery of products with no reduction in quality. More recently still, customer relationship management has recognised that customers are the chief beneficiaries of goods and services and will make discriminating choices. It was not until 1992 that Kaplan and Norton, in the Harvard Business Review, proposed that concentration on one business driver was inappropriate. A balance is required between the requirements of an enterprise to satisfy financial performance, customer satisfaction, effective internal processes and the development, learning and growth of the business and its employees. Thus, was born the Balanced Scorecard. The articles in this issue of Control cover a wide view of the subject. It is interesting to see that the Balanced Scorecard is being adopted by an increasing range of business and organisational types and it may seem a little surprising to find a local authority among the contributors but, on reflection, they have more reason than many organisations to adopt this approach. Local government has been driven, in the past few years, by centrally set performance targets. These can seem remote from the day-to-day business of delivering services to residents. The Balanced Scorecard, with its own internally generated key performance indicators, allows the government’s targets to be put into context. This, in turn, integrates the pursuit of government measures with customer service objectives and impacts directly on the culture of the organisation. A leading exponent of the Balanced Scorecard as a key organisational driver is Suffolk Coastal District Council and their website is an interesting and informative port of call. We all complain about the level of council tax but, take for granted most of the services provided by our local authority. Here is a case where the council’s budget has been reduced by a million pounds a year and the strategy for managing the organisation is one with roots in the world of commerce. Would other enterprises benefit from such fresh thinking? Related Topics:
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