Budgeting Basics and Beyond

22.7. The Balanced Scorecard

A problem with just assessing performance with financial measures like earnings, ROI, and residual income is that the financial measures are "backward looking." In other words, today's financial measures tell you about the accomplishments and failures of the past. An approach to performance measurement that also focuses on what managers are doing today to create future shareholder value is the Balanced Scorecard.

Essentially, a Balanced Scorecard (BSC) is a set of performance measures constructed for four dimensions of performance. As indicated in Exhibit 22.6, the dimensions are financial, customer, internal processes, and learning and growth. Having financial measures is critical even if they are backward looking. After all, they have a great affect on the evaluation of the company by shareholders and creditors. Customer measures examine the company's success in meeting customer expectations. Internal process measures examine the company's success in improving critical business processes. And learning and growth measures examine the company's success in improving its ability to adapt, innovate, and grow. The customer, internal processes, and learning and growth measures are generally thought to be predictive of future success (i.e., they are not backward looking).

A variety of potential measures for each dimension of a BSC are indicated in Exhibit 22.6. After reviewing these measures, note how "balance" is achieved:

• Performance is assessed across ...