Kaplan and Norton's Balanced Scorecard

The balanced scorecard provides a relevant range of financial and non-financial information that supports effective business management.

There are four sections/perspectives.

• Financial Performance
• Customers
• Internal Business Processes
• Learning & Growth

Perspective	What?	How?
Financial Performance	Looking at the overall financial performance of a business, such as it’s profit, the income statement and balance sheet.	Comparing the financial data with previous financial data.
Customers	How the customers see the business.	Look at customer satisfaction, reviews, surveys, customer loyalty.
Internal Business Processes	Do we provide what our stakeholders want – customers & employees. What do we do well?	Labour Productivity, Capacity Utilisation, Employee Retention and Quality.
Learning & Growth	How can we improve and learn?	Targets, leadership, kaizen, and R&D.

Positive

The balanced scorecard includes more information than the triple bottom line, such as how the customers see the business and the business’ internal business processes. It also includes information on learning and growth. As a result, the balanced scorecard provides the business with a wide amount of information to be judged on.

Negative

Whilst he balanced scorecard shows a wide range of information, it doesn’t paint the whole picture of the business. Not all financial figures are included, and some parts may be inaccurate as they may be hard to measure or find data for. As a result, for the scorecard to be successful, it should be used as part of the whole business strategy.