Components Of Bsc Analysis

Balanced scorecards are supposed to provide a company with an accurate method of measuring the effectiveness of management processes. When things are not going as expected, it is usually because the installed BSC is not as efficient as once thought. To correct deficiencies, BSC analysis should be conducted.

A competent balanced scorecard will be self-correcting, meaning that any result not in accordance with expectations are easily detected and corrected in due course. This presumed quality of a balanced scorecard must be the first to be put under analysis when companies are trying to determine what might be the problem. The flow of communications between and among the different management levels holds the organizations and ensures that all activities are aligned with the common goal. This presumes the establishment of a system where departments and sections have clearly defined functions, assigned responsibilities, authorities, and activities that have relevance to accomplishment of overall company goals and objectives, as well as to the key areas of management finance, internal process, customer, and learning and development.

Most problems stem from lack of communications but once these are determined and fixed, any disparity between expected and actual outputs must come from other areas. The way the BSC itself is formulated should be analyzed. The usefulness of plans, for example, is logically influenced by data and information from which they are based. Thus, in the analysis of the efficacy of plans, the first thing that must be done is to validate whether the basis is accurate or not. There is also the fact that a general company plan is broken down into smaller plans of departments, sections, and individuals' and ordinarily, they are interrelated with one another. When an individual lags behind, the others suffer as well. This means that junking the plan as no good simply because outputs are not met is the easy way out and it deprives the organization of the chance to dig deeper.

The most logical way to go is to analyze the value of implementation strategies, related activities, and lastly, implementer's performance. Were the implementation strategies for, let us say, the sales plan effective? Were the planned activities accomplished according to timeframes, budgets, outputs, and the like? Did the people assigned to the tasks perform well? Was coordination between departments involved in tasks good? Did the mechanisms supposedly in place detect and correct implementation issues? Were there metrics to gauge the effectiveness of strategies, performance, coordination, desirability of outputs, and use of resources effective? Balanced scorecards are supposed to provide for all these things.

Once these questions are answered, it is easy to see the causes of poor performance and make the necessary adjustments. Evidently, a plan can be good since one only has to show that it can contribute to the attainment of general goals and objectives but still accomplish nothing much. This is because balanced scorecards must be comprehensive establishing reliable and specific measures for all kinds of activities as well as processes.

Form time to time, companies will find reasons to conduct BSC analysis. And this should not only be limited to times when the need is apparent. The business climate is increasingly becoming changeable and there should be no harm done in instituting changes to established scorecards when the situation demands it.