The Balanced Scorecard: Translating Strategy into Action

TLDR: The Balanced Scorecard approach retains traditional financial measures which reflect past organizational acheivements, but adds three new measures of future performance found necessary in this information age with its focus on customer relationships and long-term capabilities: customer, internal business process and learning and growth.

Abstract: The rapid evolution of the Balanced Scorecard into a strategic managment system is reported on in this book. The Balanced Scorecard approach retains traditional financial measures which reflect past organizational acheivements, but adds three new measures of future performance found necessary in this information age with its focus on customer relationships and long-term capabilities: customer, internal business process, and learning and growth. With these four perspectives providing the framework for the Balanced Scorecard, organizations can now measure how they create value for customers, how they can enhance internal competencies, and how they must invest in people, systems and procedures to improve future performance. According to the authors, the Balanced Scorecard has evolved from an improved measurement system to a core management system. For the first time there is a systematic process to implement and obtain feedback about strategy. This is an excellent introduction to new management styles.