BALANCED SCORECARD

THE MAJORITY of South African companies have great strategies. Yet the majority of them fall short of achieving their desired results. In South Africa we rank high on the thinking stakes, but low on the implementation scales.

What is it about execution that eludes us and creates this discrepancy? Moreover, what can we do about it?

Business leaders the world over have grappled with this challenge, but one of the systems that has come out on top is called the “Balanced Scorecard”. Many corporations are familiar with the idea of a scorecard; in fact, its legacy dates to the early 1900s when French companies used the “tableau de bord” – or dashboard.

The modern scorecard, however, was revitalised and developed in the early 1990s by Harvard Business Professor Robert S Kaplan. Since then it has been used by a host of big brand names, ranging from HSBC to Volkswagen. The Balanced Scorecard is a management system that drives businesses and organisations to clarify their vision and strategy and convert those into action.

The Scorecard method provides feedback around both the internal business

They have doubled their revenues and dramatically increased their net profit and gross margin. This year, ICT Works won a Standard Bank Top Women award for their achievements.

Scorecards translate a business vision into actionable chunks. Translating the big picture strategy into tangible concrete steps and metrics is key for any successful