Balanced Scorecard Evolution: A Dynamic Approach to Strategy Execution

Preface

SHORTLY BEFORE WRITING THESE WORDS, I looked up at the bookshelves lining my office and took in the artful panorama of colors, designs, and intriguing titles. My gaze soon fixed upon the row dedicated to the Balanced Scorecard and strategy execution, and as I reflected on the many titles, it wasn't long before I realized that anyone picking up this new book would quickly arrive at two questions:

1. Why does the world need another Balanced Scorecard book?
2. How is this one different?

LOOKING BACK AND LOOKING AHEAD

To answer those questions let's take a brief tour of the Balanced Scorecard's history. The tool began, humbly enough, as a system for organizations to improve their ability to measure effectively. For centuries the primary measurement of business had been financial. The Balanced Scorecard, while acknowledging the importance of financial yardsticks, represented a breakthrough by supplementing financial metrics with the drivers of future financial success in three distinct, yet related, perspectives of performance: customer, internal process, and learning and growth. The Balanced Scorecard also requires that performance measures used by an organization be derived from its unique strategy. Only then could strategy execution be tracked with rigor and discipline. This first-generation Balanced Scorecard, devoted almost exclusively to improved measurement, was immensely successful and popular, helping organizations around the globe better assess the execution of strategy ...