Scorecard and Benchmarking

Question 1

what is a balanced scorecard?

Answer 1

a management tool that is designed to articulate, execute and monitor strategy using a mixture of financial and non financial measures

Question 2

what are the 4 perspectives and descrive them.

Answer 2

customer - how do customers see us
internal business processes - what must we excel at?
learning and growth - can we continue to improve
financial - how shareholders perceive us

Question 3

benefits of the BSC

Answer 3

• gives structure to strategy
• easy to communicate
• signs departments and divisions
• easy to relate objectives
• focuses on key measure
• backed by actions and initiatives

Question 4

limitations and criticisms of the bsc

Answer 4

• validity of the cause and effect assumption
• no time dimension for individual perspectives
• links to strategy often tedious

Question 5

what are the difficulties with benchmarking

Answer 5

• lack of context
• measurement issues
• finding valid comparisons is difficult
• benchmarks look backwards not forwards
• managing time
• identifying the right benchmarks and sources