Balanced Scorecard

Balanced Scorecard

Balanced scorecard (BSC) is an approach to performance measurement.  It is a strategy performance management tool.  A balanced scorecard is a set of performance measures constructed for four dimensions of performance. The four dimensions are:

• Financial: encourages the identification of a few relevant high-level financial measures. In particular, designers were encouraged to choose measures that helped inform the answer to the question "How do we look to shareholders?"
• Customer: encourages the identification of measures that answer the question "How do customers see us?"
• Internal business processes: encourages the identification of measures that answer the question "What must we excel at?"
• Learning and growth: encourages the identification of measures that answer the question "How can we continue to improve, create value and innovate?"

The balanced scorecard is ultimately about choosing measures and targets. The various design methods proposed are intended to help in the identification of these measures and targets, usually by a process of abstraction that narrows the search space for a measure.