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Balanced Scorecard Design: Creating a Customer-centric Culture
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Once the objectives in the customer perspective are decided, you can then look at what operational capabilities are required for excelling in meeting those customer-centric objectives. Successful practitioners of the Balanced Scorecard will confirm that one of the most valuable benefits of the BSC approach is that it helps identify the “critical few” measures that need attention and focus. It is only with focus that there is power in the well-accepted expression, “you get what you measure.” If an organization is overwhelming people with measures, the value and impact of any particular measure is greatly limited. By starting with what is important to the customer and then focusing on the cause-and-effect chain to identify the critical operational objectives and measures, you end up with an emphasis on the operational measures that are critical to satisfying your customers most important desires. If you follow the cause-and-effect logic to select the objectives in the learning and growth perspective, you end up with a scorecard that emphasizes the objectives and measures that drive success in accomplishing the customer-oriented objectives.
The Strategy Map
The strategy map is a visual representation of the various cause-and-effect relationships that make up the strategy. It should clearly communicate the objectives in the customer perspective and the various supporting objectives that should enable those customer-focused objectives to be accomplished. When people throughout the organization better understand how their various roles contribute to creating the company’s unique value proposition to the customers, their work becomes more meaningful and the myriad of decisions that get made on a daily basis should be more in alignment with the overall strategies.
The measurements and initiatives that go along with the strategic objectives should both help reinforce the behavior and culture of the organization to maintain the focus on the needs and desires of your customers. As you accomplish that objective, your organization’s success in the marketplace should improve.
Conclusion
It’s easy to talk about being customer centered. Transforming your organization is much more difficult. If properly implemented, the BSC can be a valuable contributor in that process of change. In next month’s article, we’ll explore how strategic themes, identifying internal customers and cascading the scorecard can help with this process of creating a customer-centric organization.
About the AuthorBill Barberg is the President and Founder of Insightformation, Inc. Founded in 1991, Insightformation has been a pioneer in helping organizations leverage information and technology to gain insights and improve performance. In 2001, Insightformation was hired by Microsoft to create the Microsoft Balanced Scorecard Framework (BSCF). In 2002, they developed InsightVision, a software application based on the Microsoft BSCF. In August 2003, InsightVision was awarded a Grand Prize in the Microsoft Office Partner Solution Builder Contest. Contact Bill at 763-521-4599 x13 or .
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