Balanced scorecard (BSC) approach was developed in early 1990s by Harvard professor Mr. Robert S Kaplan along with Dr. David D Norton, an eminent consultant. It is a frame work for integrating measures derived from Strategy. A well developed BSC helps the organization in becoming "Strategy Focused".

Traditionally followed budgeting process for managing the business performance used to pose following shortcomings

• Overt focus on the short-term – Annual Business Plans

• Inclined largely towards the financial performance

• Tendency to control

In the survey conducted by the CFO magazine, it was found that while many organizations arrive at good strategies, 9 in 10 fail to execute them well, mainly on account of a right methodology to execute, measure and monitor progress. This is where BSC is found to help the organizations. BSC process develops a cause-effect relationship amongst the organization’s strategic objectives which are grouped into four perspectives, viz. financial, customer, internal business process and learning & growth. Based on this cascade, it helps building a set of measures for each objective and a set of actions which help in meeting these objectives and performance targets. Thus it ensures that the strategy execution is properly drilled down to ensure alignment across the organization and integrated efforts to accomplish the strategies.

Other collateral benefits of the BSC process are: gain consensus on strategy, communicate strategy throughout the organization, align departmental and personal goals, link strategic objectives to long term targets and annual budgets, identify and align strategic initiatives, and perform systematic strategy reviews.

Methodology: TQMS has over the years developed an expertise in conducting the BSC workshops for the companies, facilitating the process of developing the BSC and helping the companies in reviews and course corrections. The BSC assignment has following key steps :

• TQMS consultants interact with the senior leadership team (one-on-one) of the organization to assess the current status of the strategy execution process.

• Based on this data gathered TQMS arrives at the as-is situation and the key issues / problems being faced by the company in terms of strategy execution

• TQMS consultants conduct the workshop (typically 2-3 days) with the senior leadership team to arrive at the corporate strategy map (pen-picture of the cause effect relationships across various objectives), corporate BSC (set of measures to monitor progress against these objectives) and corporate strategic initiatives which help the organization in moving in the direction of the strategic intents / aspirations

• Senior leadership team with the help of middle management, collect the data and information in support of the BSC to get the first feel of the measurement plan and build detailed action plans for the strategic initiatives with timelines

• TQMS consultants conduct the second workshop wherein firstly the corporate strategy map, scorecard and initiatives are refined and firmed up based on the findings of the data collection stage. Thereafter, the BSCs and initiatives for various SBUs / Divisions / functions are developed

• TQMS consultants interact with the SBU / division / function heads to refine and firm up respective BSCs

• TQMS consultants participate in the periodic reviews of the BSC, facilitating systematic and comprehensive review and help in making course corrections if needed

Benefits: BSC process helps in communicating and driving the company strategies well across the organization, ensuring that the various parts of the organization work in unison to accomplish the strategies set up by the organization, ensuring balanced focus on the financial (lag) performance measures and non-financial (lead) performance measures and ensuring systematic and comprehensive reviews to help proper monitoring of the strategy execution. The entire assignment takes around 10-12 weeks to complete before the reviews start.