The Balanced Scorecard: Translating Strategy into Action Author: Visit Amazon's Robert S. Kaplan Page | Language: English | ISBN:
0875846513 | Format: PDF
The Balanced Scorecard: Translating Strategy into Action Description
From Publishers Weekly
As running a corporate?or government or not-for-profit?enterprise becomes increasingly complicated, more sophisticated approaches are needed to implement strategy and measure performance. Purely financial evaluations of performance, for example, no longer suffice in a world where intangible assets?relationships and capabilities?increasingly determine the prospects for success. Kaplan, a Harvard Business School professor of accounting, and Norton, president of Renaissance Solutions, make a key contribution by describing and illustrating the balanced scorecard, a multidimensional approach to measuring corporate performance that incorporates both financial and non-financial factors. The concept of a balanced scorecard originated in a study group of 12 companies that met throughout 1990; since then, the authors have worked with several companies, including FMC Corporation, Brown & Root Energy Services, Mobil and CIGNA, to create scorecards and use them as a systematic means to implement new organizational strategy. Though still in the preliminary stages of development, balanced scorecards could represent the emergence of a new era of management sophistication, in which both the hard and soft variables of work life are taken into account in a rigorous, testable fashion. Kaplan and Norton provide an excellent, though dry, introduction to a new methodology of management.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Kaplan (accounting, Harvard) and Norton, president of Renaissance Solutions Inc., created the "balanced scorecard" to assist businesses in moving from ideas to action, achieving long-term goals, and obtaining feedback about strategy. The balanced scorecard consists of four sections: clarifying and translating vision and strategy; communicating and linking strategic objectives and measures; planning, setting targets, and aligning strategic initiatives; and enhancing strategic feedback and learning. Because the writing is technically oriented and somewhat detailed, this work is geared toward scholars and high-level business planners. However, its clear organization makes reading and understanding the concepts much easier. Recommended for upper-level and graduate business students and senior practitioners in the strategic-planning field.?Randy Abbott, Univ. of Evansville Libs., Ind.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
See all Editorial Reviews
- Hardcover: 336 pages
- Publisher: Harvard Business Review Press; 1 edition (September 1, 1996)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 9780875846514
- ISBN-13: 978-0875846514
- ASIN: 0875846513
- Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.4 x 1.2 inches
- Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
I read this book when it was first published (1996) and recently re-read it. As Kaplan and Norton explain in their Preface, "the Balanced Scorecard evolved from an improved measurement system to an improved management system." The distinction is critically important to understanding this book as well as The Strategy-Focused Organization which they later wrote. Senior executives in various companies have used the Balanced Scorecard as the central organizing framework for important managerial processes such as individual and team goal setting, compensation, resource allocation, budgeting and planning, and strategic feedback and learning. When writing this book, it was the authors' hope that the observations they share would help more executives to launch and implement Balanced Scorecard programs in their organizations.
The material is organized within two Parts, preceded by the excellent Preface and then two introductory chapters: "Measurement and Management in the Information Age" and "Why Does Business Need a Balanced Scorecard?" Logically, Part One examines measurement of business strategy; Part Two examines management of business strategy. Having read all of the 12 chapters, each concluded with a Summary of key points, readers are then provided with an Appendix: "Building a Balanced Scorecard.
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