Skip to main content

Balanced scorecard for IS

Short answer

The Balanced Scorecard (BSC) translates strategy into measures across four perspectives: financial, customer, internal process, and learning and growth. For IS implementation, BSC links projects to business goals, tracks non‑financial indicators like user satisfaction and process improvement, provides early warnings, and aids prioritisation and communication.

What do you understand by balanced score card (BSC) approach? Discuss the importance of BSC for managing IS implementations.

The Balanced Scorecard (BSC) is a strategic management approach, by Kaplan and Norton, that translates an organization's vision and strategy into a set of measures in four balanced perspectives. It "balances" financial and non-financial, short-term and long-term, and internal and external measures.

The four perspectives

PerspectiveQuestionExample measure
FinancialHow do we look to shareholders?ROI, cost saving
CustomerHow do customers see us?Satisfaction, retention
Internal processWhat must we excel at?Cycle time, error rate
Learning and growthCan we improve and create value?Staff skills, training hours

Importance of BSC for managing IS implementation

  • Links IS to strategy: each project is judged on its contribution to business objectives.
  • Broader than cost and time: a project may finish on budget yet fail users; BSC also checks user satisfaction and process improvement.
  • Measurable targets: progress is tracked with indicators such as system uptime, user adoption and response time.
  • Communication: gives managers, users and developers a common view of goals.
  • Early warning: poor measures (low training, low satisfaction) show problems before failure.
  • Prioritisation: helps select and fund the right projects.
  • Continuous improvement: regular review leads to corrective action and learning.

✓ Answer checked by Claude Opus 5.5 (high effort)

Related questions

All Information System chapter 5 questions →