THE BALANCED SCORECARD: Translating Strategy into Action

by Robert S. Kaplan & David P. Norton

In complex and fast-changing environments, it's hard to align people behind a clear, coherent business strategy. The Balanced Scorecard (BSC) is a famous management system to translate high-level, long-term strategy into actionable plans, metrics, and day-to-day operational activities. This helps business leaders to improve strategic alignment and performance management of all types of organiations, including profit, non-profit, governmental, business units, or even departments within an organization.

In this summary, you'll learn:

• What is the Balanced Scorecard (BSC), and how it addresses all strategic aspects of a business from 4 perspectives: Financials, Customers, Internal Business Processes, and Learning & Growth.

• How to create your BSC, apply it in 4 steps, and use it to address common problems and challenges in strategy implementation and management.

• How to differentiate between lag measures (that reflect the outcomes of past efforts/initiatives) and lead measures (that drive or predict future successes), and break down long-term strategic objectives into a lag/lead measures and targeted initiatives.

Who should read this:
• Business leaders, managers, and entrepreneurs who wish to better align business activities with organizational vision and strategy.
• Strategic planners, consultants and advisors who work with organizations for strategic planning, execution and performance management.