The balanced scorecard of Norton and Kaplan is the most adequate technology for creating an enterprise management procedure. The system became the "hit of the season" for management. From the article you will learn about the essence of such a system, its main directions, and you will also find an example.

What you will find in the article:

Many domestic and Western companies use Balanced Scorecards (BSC) as a real technology. BSC was proposed in the first half of the 1990s by Robert Kaplan and David Norton. Later, the system gained serious popularity.

Key features:

• the system includes indicators related to all strategically important aspects of activity (finance, clients, business processes, learning and growth);
• all components must be interconnected by cause-and-effect relationships;
• data should be related to the strategic objectives of the company;
• the resulting indicators should be related to the factors that determine the success of the business, the so-called key success factors (KSF);
• all of them should be related to financial performance.

Directions of the balanced scorecard

The value of this system lies in the fact that it is not limited only to financial indicators for assessing performance and the degree of achievement of strategic goals. Keeping the focus on improving financial performance, the system allows you to evaluate the efficiency of the company in the market, the optimality of the company's internal processes and the state of human resources.

There are four main areas:

1. What are the financial goals in relation to achieving the vision?
2. In what indicators of work with clients you need to succeed in order to achieve the desired ?
3. What internal processes need to be excelled in order to satisfy customers and achieve the desired financial results?
4. What needs to be done to develop internal resources in order to excel in processes, satisfy customers and achieve the desired financial results?

The first direction of BSC includes traditional financial indicators. The owner will always be primarily interested in data on financial return on investment. Therefore, a balanced system should begin (in the classification) and end (in the final assessment) with financial indicators.

The second direction describes the external environment of the enterprise, its relationship with customers. The main focuses here are:

• the ability of the enterprise to satisfy the client;
• the company's ability to retain a customer;
• the ability to acquire a new client;
• customer profitability;
• market size;
• market share in the target segment.

The third direction characterizes the internal processes of the enterprise, in particular:

• innovation process;
• product development;
• production preparation;
• supply of basic resources;
• manufacturing;
• sales;
• after-sales service.

The fourth direction allows you to describe the ability of the enterprise to learn and grow, which focuses on the following factors:

• people with their abilities, skills and motivation;
• information systems that allow the delivery of critical information in real time;
• organizational procedures that ensure interaction between the participants in the process and determine the decision-making system.

The constructive logic of BSC is that non-financial indicators are "leading" - a timely response to their negative change helps prevent the deterioration of financial indicators and does not allow the company to deviate from the main goal, which is of a financial nature.

There is a completely natural rationale for this: if you analyze the work of a company only with the help of financial indicators, when negative trends appear, it is too late to change anything. At the same time, it should be emphasized that BSC is not a system by which a strategy is developed. It is the tool by which the strategy is put into practice.

BSC allows you to link into a single system (Fig. 2) the totality of all factors on which business management is built.

Rice. 2. Relationship between mission, strategy, KFU and KPI

Let us give a brief description of each of the directions of BSC.

Financial direction

The financial direction contains goals and indicators that serve as the main guideline for coordinating all areas of the company's activities. The main goal of business is to increase the value of the company. Therefore, the main KPI of the financial direction can be economic value added indicator EVA .

Ease of use of the EVA concept. for cost management lies in the ability to decompose this indicator into factors to a level that can be influenced (Fig. 3).

When building a management system based on the value criterion, the company's management, with the help of BSC, builds a system of goals aimed at increasing the value based on the factors that form EVA. For example, to increase the value of a company, it is necessary to increase return on capital employed and a decrease in the weighted average cost of capital, in order to increase the return on capital employed, an increase in the profitability of sales and capital turnover is necessary, etc.

Based on these factors, a system of financial direction goals is formed, an example of which is shown in fig. 4. In this fragment, we observe some kind of coincidence with the cost profile from the previous paragraph.

The priority of financial goals at different stages of development may vary. During the growth stage, the business will mostly "spend money", i.e. invest in growing sales in certain market segments, consumer groups and regions.

For a business that is in a stable state, investments are still needed, but the return on these investments will already be positive. In this period, the main goal is to strengthen the influence on the markets, increase the market share and increase the annual profitability.

Companies that enter the mature stage of their existence want to get a return on their investments made during the first two stages. Here, the main goal is to rationalize the use of the money earned, perhaps by investing it in other activities.

What is the financial goal in a period when the owner and management of the company feel (not so much intuitively as quantitatively) a decrease in sales growth rates and, in general, a deterioration in the market situation. In this case, two options are possible: either “get the most out of the business”, or .

Important: financial indicators alone are not enough. They describe past events. Base your conclusions and control decisions only on these data - the same as driving a car, looking in the rearview mirror.

It is good if the management of the company can clearly formulate the strategy of its business and the concept of its development. However, this is only half the story. Since the set goals are achieved thanks to the directed actions of all employees, a certain system of personnel motivation, methods and means of measuring the degree of approach to the desired result are needed, i.e., a mechanism for consistently communicating the company's strategic goals to each employee and involving him in the relevant business processes. A promising implementation of this mechanism is Balanced Scorecard (BSC), which is translated by various sources into Russian as "balanced scorecard", "balanced scorecard" or "balanced scorecards".

When we try to pull out one thing, it turns out that it is connected to everything else.
Muir's Law

Need in effective management practices with its industrial empires appeared in the rapidly growing North American corporations at the beginning of the last century. Thus, the prototype of the widely known and used today index of return on investment (ROI) was used by DuPont back in the 20s. Most of the accounting operations developed at that time, with more or less changes, are still practiced today.

CEOs traditionally focus solely on financial performance. They encourage short-term planning and investment, focus on standard employee practices rather than employee initiative, and at the same time fail to provide information about product quality and customer service. In particular, the same ROI reflects only past actions, without showing any future trends and prospects.

Until about the middle of the 20th century, factories without any particular fears could organize the mass production of their products for an anonymous market, since it was far from being saturated. At the same time, the main attention was paid to increasing the efficiency of commodity production, which could be judged by financial results. With the saturation of the market (since the 70s in most developed countries), customers have become much more discriminating and forced companies to shift their focus to meeting their requirements. As a result, it was actually recognized that traditional accounting approaches no longer correspond to the radically changed business environment.

A promising system of a new generation of steel Balanced Scorecard- the result of many years of work, led by Robert Kaplan, professor at Harvard Business School, and David Norton(David Norton), founder and president of the company Balanced Scorecard Collaborative. For the first time, their research was based on the hypothesis that for the successful management of a modern enterprise, financial data alone is no longer enough and therefore a new, more “balanced” approach is required.

This principle implements balanced scorecard system, which takes into account four "perspectives" (Perspectives) of the organization: traditional financial (Financial) indicators and factors that directly or indirectly affect them, - success with clients(Customer) optimality of internal business processes(Internal Process) and general competence of the company's personnel in their field(Learning & Growth/Employees). Taken together, these perspectives give a holistic picture of the current strategy of the enterprise and its dynamics. If necessary, additional sets of our own design can be introduced and used, for example, "Ecology" and others.

Periodic measurements of the indicators taken into account provide feedback and appropriate regulation of the organization's actions. The degree of achievement of goals, the efficiency of business processes and the work of the entire company, its divisions and each employee is determined by the values ​​of the so-called "key performance indicators"(Key Performance Indicators, KPIs). If they are connected with the system of employee motivation, then it is expected that the latter will be interested in achieving the company's goals on a daily basis. Thus, Balanced Scorecard become a kind of "framework" (framework) for translating the strategy of the organization into a set of operational goals that determine the behavior of the company and, consequently, its financial well-being.

Many Western developers of corporate software presented on the Ukrainian market (Comshare, Crystal Decision, Hyperion, Oracle, PeopleSoft, SAP, SAS Institute) have in their arsenal tools for working with Balanced Scorecard. However, after purchasing and installing this type of software, enterprises receive nothing more than a development environment with associated tutorials and examples. Some time will inevitably be spent learning how to create and use scorecards, which will usually vary slightly from company to company.

The Business Navigator (description tree) and Overview scorecard (analytical data for a period of time) windows are open.

1--6: "Financial" perspective.
1 -- exchange value of shares;
2 -- overhead;
3 - income; 4 - income for the branch;
5 -- market share,%;
6 -- market share, $.
7--8: The "Customer" perspective.
7 -- customer loyalty;
8 -- repeated calls, %.
9: "Learning & Growth" perspective. Personnel trained in sales technology, %.

Of great, if not decisive, importance is the correct understanding and fluency in the terminology set by the developers. Balanced Scorecard at the base of your child. Moreover, the creation and specification of an enterprise strategy begins precisely with the formulation of concepts, the main of which are given in this section. These statements, which form the basis and meaning of the organization's activities, in accordance with the principles Balanced Scorecard should be set for an average period (3-5 years), with the assumption that during the specified time the conditions will change significantly both in the company itself and outside it.

Vision- a brief description of how the organization wants or intends to be perceived by the world around it. Formulated in 1-3 easy-to-understand and memorable sentences, for example: "Become a respected leader in financial services with a focus on ongoing customer relationships and customer satisfaction."

Mission- definition of desired performance results (usually from the perspective of finance, internal processes or customer service). The mission statement often sets financial goals for a specific period of time, such as: "Increase market share to 25% by 2003." or "Obtain superior market share by building effective retail sales policies."

Aspirations- a brief and clear formulation of the provisions, the achievement of which will ensure the successful implementation of a particular strategy. Each of the four main perspectives usually contains 3-6 primary aspirations. They should describe the desired outcomes as actions: "Increase market share through current customers" (Financial); "Become a service-oriented company" (Customer); "Achieve improved order fulfillment through improved customer dialogue processes" (Internal Processes); "Tie incentives and compensation of employees to the functions they perform" (Learning & Growth).

Strategy— a description of what the organization will attempt to accomplish, as articulated by the totality of the organization's aspirations. In terms of aspirations, the strategy is concise, holistic, and process-oriented (as opposed to a traditional company financial plan).

Strategic Plan- all elements considered together Balanced Scorecard. This form guarantees an unambiguous link between the organization's strategy and its day-to-day operations. It also ensures that the entire organization follows a single, defined point of view.

Initiative- a program of action designed to achieve aspirations or, at least, as close as possible to them. Initiatives are projects, individual actions or daily activities of company employees. They are more defined than aspirations, have established time limits, budget and responsible executors. It is important that initiatives be strategic in nature and not "run as usual" projects like "Acquire New Clients". Examples of formulating initiatives: "Develop a quality management program", "Implement an ERP system", "Update supplier relationship processes", etc.

Milestone- timing or events signaling that a stage is over and it is time to take the next measurement to determine its success or failure. Milestones can correspond to milestone completion dates, percentage of completed work, decision points, and so on. models - 30.06.02; to approve the model - 15.07.02.

Align - Align the Organization to the Strategy- bringing the considered parameters and components of the organization to the level determined by the strategy. An organization is said to have achieved strategic alignment if, taken as a whole, it is perceived as more than the mere sum of its divisions. This synergistic effect is observed when all employees are focused on the implementation of the initiatives prescribed by the strategic plan and the achievement of indicators. Balanced Scorecard established for the entire company, its main and auxiliary divisions and each employee.

Performance Indicators (Key Performance Indicators, KPIs)- indicators that the company considers necessary to monitor, and trends in their values ​​in the future. The indicator must necessarily include the dimension of the measured parameter ($, pieces, %, points, etc.). Example: "Annual sales, dollars." (Financial); "Assessment of customer satisfaction, points" (Customer); "Number of Service Desk Errors" (Internal Processes); "Personnel coverage with strategically important knowledge and skills, number of people or %" (Learning & Growth/Employees).

Typical for many companies sample project Balanced Scorecard shown in fig. 1 encompasses and illustratively shows the connections and relationships between the concepts described.

Application of Balanced Scorecard

If we consider the problem carefully enough,
then you will see yourself as part of the problem.
Ducharm's axiom

The balanced scorecard can be used in various industries: there are known examples of its application in banking, healthcare, government agencies, insurance, telecommunications, non-profit organizations, etc. The usefulness of the methodology is expressed in several opening opportunities that do not depend on the industry. The company develops and formulates its vision, disseminates and explains it to all its employees. Divisions, teams and individuals focus on common strategic priorities. Agreement is reached in the team of executive managers, as well as between them and the owners (shareholders) of the enterprise. The organization receives a structure for its own alignment according to the adopted strategy.

Development time Balanced Scorecard depends on the size of the company, its structure, industry and specialization. The initial period usually takes 2-3 months. However, once defined Balanced Scorecard do not remain unchanged for many years. They continue to develop and improve constantly as the company's strategy changes. In fact, strategy planning becomes a continuous, constantly improving process. In this case, the following typical metrics are most often used: "Turnover" and "Cash flow" (finance); "Distribution of segments", "Assessment of purchasing power" (clients); "Process Improvement Indicators", "Quality Index" (internal processes); "Index of surveys", "Degree of competence" (training). For other companies, typical metrics may be different.

Balanced Scorecard proved to be sufficiently flexible and universal methodology to be applied in different countries of the world. Consulting companies in all regions have adopted and adapted it according to the traditions in their markets without significant changes in the basis of building a scorecard. The methodology can be used with equal success by transnational corporations and small, new and rapidly changing businesses, as it solves the key problem of any organization, regardless of its size - bringing business processes and employees' actions to a single strategy.

On the other hand, there is a difficulty common to all countries and companies in the world: Balanced Scorecard requires a certain maturity of management and readiness of leaders. In particular, this implies the rejection of authoritarianism. Many companies will likely have to adjust to a new management style for some time before they can get the most out of the transition. The greatest resistance to this is usually provided by middle managers and heads of external services, who are accustomed to keeping their people "in control".

The technique works best when senior leaders are already looking for ways to more effectively guide the strategy of the organization or departments. Those who value vision, communication, innovation, participation and employee initiative will receive a natural and powerful management tool.

Top managers who manage the enterprise solely on financial indicators, who want subordinates to follow only their instructions, and adhere strictly to the approved general plans, will not consider Balanced Scorecard a tool that is compatible with their leadership style. They will not accept the principle of submission to a single strategy of the organization and will not follow it.

To the difficulties of transition to Balanced Scorecard it should also be noted that, as a rule, after the first stage of implementation, many desirable measurements have not yet been implemented (sometimes up to 40% of indicators are missing). Management's first reaction is predictable: if we can't measure what we want, let's want what we can measure. This is one of the most common mistakes. If carefully designed, scorecards provide information that is most important to that particular company. Management will be bad if the necessary parameters are not measured, just as if it is carried out only on the values ​​​​of parameters that are available, but not critical for the company's business.

The same goes for strategy. Strictly speaking, Balanced Scorecard is nothing more than a tool to support and facilitate its implementation. For organizations that already have a formulated and approved strategy, the methodology helps to implement it faster and more efficiently than using any other method known today. However, it happens that with the formal general approval of a single line of conduct during the implementation of the system, it turns out that each team member has his own, different from the others, interpretation of the enterprise strategy. Executives often disagree about who their target customers are, how to prioritize activities, what role innovations and services play in strategy, and so on. Balanced Scorecard implies a full explanation and documentation of what the strategy should be and what exactly needs to be done to achieve the goals.

But organizations should not delay developing and implementing Balanced Scorecard due to the fact that agreement on certain issues has not yet been reached. Based on the methodology, at the beginning, when it is easier to formulate particular goals and objectives, strategies for individual departments can be developed, forming the basis for building a global line of behavior for the company "from below".

Another interesting feature should be noted. Many leaders after the implementation Balanced Scorecard faced with an unexpected effect: their enterprise has become much more "transparent" - all the main indicators are in plain sight. Meanwhile, this does not mean that data security and secrecy regimes, which usually require a lot of effort and money to maintain, are fundamentally cancelled. On the one hand, enterprises want their employees to have access to a common strategy, understand and share it. Constant contact and understanding stimulate their creativity as employees see how they contribute to the overall success of the organization. On the other hand, there is a certain risk in this. Companies cannot rely on 100% of their workforce to fully share and support their vision, mission and strategy.

To avoid revealing important information, group policies and conditional indexing are sometimes used - most employees see allowed ratios, but not the absolute values ​​of all indicators. Many companies, however, believe that their competitiveness depends not so much on secrecy, but on the speed and effectiveness of their strategies compared to competitors. And they believe that it is the indicators that are common, understandable and used by all employees that give their enterprise the ability to quickly and effectively achieve the desired results. So the biggest secret is not the adopted strategy, but the organization of the appropriate processes and leadership style, leading, in the terminology of the creators of the methodology, to building a "strategy-focused organization" (Strategy-Focused Organization, SFO).

For business leaders who are interested in this technique, a natural question arises: where to start and what steps should be taken to implement the new system. In our opinion, before making a decision to switch to Balanced Scorecard, top managers must learn the principles of the methodology themselves and have a clear understanding of how to develop and use scorecards.

Training is conducted by invited experts or independently. The role of consultants at first can be reduced to a series of seminars or a course of lectures on theory and practical use. Balanced Scorecard. A good Russian-language manual is a freely available translation based on the fundamental book of the authors of the methodology " The Balanced Scorecard: Translating Strategy into Action". If the enterprise creates the basis for the future center of competence for the implementation of the methodology, then its specialists will need a tool for practical work with counting cards.

The choice is rich enough and is far from exhausted by the products of the above developers. Gartner Group's 275-page "Balanced Scorecard Software Report" includes descriptions of this type of software from 28 companies of varying degrees of notoriety. However, for the first practical acquaintance, the free version is also quite suitable, which supports the basic actions with Balanced Scorecard, such as the English Dialog Strategy package from Dialog Software (www.dialogsoftware.com). In addition, it also offers two paid versions that have additional features and are focused on professional use.

The executable installation file of the "Free" version (4.5 MB) also includes a presentation of the software's capabilities, a visual user's guide (both documents are in .pdf format), a detailed help system and a demo version of the finished project.

The regular capabilities of this product are quite enough to spend more than one hour with it, step by step formulating the vision, mission and strategy of the organization, and then detailing them into aspirations, entering the necessary measures and their numerical values ​​(Fig. 2).

It is also very likely that after an initial acquaintance with the program and methodology Balanced Scorecard the enterprise initiates the implementation process by acquiring one of the more powerful products of this class and inviting appropriate consultants.

Today, in order to succeed in a dynamic environment, companies need to be able to quickly adapt to changing market conditions and outperform their competitors in terms of quality, speed of service, breadth of product range and price of products.

Only prompt receipt of information about the company's activities will help the management to make a decision in a timely manner. At the same time, the operational actions of the company must be coordinated and aimed at achieving certain long-term goals, otherwise there is a risk of remaining in place. To do this, the company must be able to correctly identify its strategy and mobilize all resources to achieve its strategic goals.

A lot in the development of the company can depend on a correctly and clearly formulated strategy. It is important to understand that a well-designed strategy is only half the battle. It still needs to be successfully implemented.

What does the strategy look like? Formal representations of different companies about the strategy differ. Presentation options range from a single slide with five keywords to an impressive document full of various tables and titled "Long Term Planning".

Many believe that the content of the strategy plays a key role, and the form of presentation is secondary. Gradually, managers are abandoning this point of view, as they understand that strategies can only be successfully implemented when they are understood by the company's employees. By describing the strategy in a more or less ordered form, we increase the likelihood of its successful implementation.

One of the tools for presenting the strategy implementation process in an understandable form is a balanced scorecard (Balanced ScoreCard, BSC).

A balanced scorecard is a system of strategic management of a company based on measuring and evaluating its effectiveness on a set of optimally selected indicators that reflect all aspects of the organization's activities, both financial and non-financial. The name of the system reflects the balance that is maintained between short-term and long-term goals, financial and non-financial indicators, main and auxiliary parameters, as well as external and internal factors of activity.

Currently examples successful application balanced scorecard in practice not so much, because When implementing a Balanced ScoreCard, one has to face various problems. The most serious problems often concern incorrect interpretation of methodology or organizational issues. The labor intensity of developing a balanced scorecard and the lack of inexpensive and effective software products are also problems that one has to face in the practical implementation of BSC.

The effectiveness of a balanced scorecard depends on the quality of its implementation. The introduction of a balanced scorecard is carried out in four stages:

preparation for building BSC;

construction of BSC;

BSC cascading;

strategy implementation control.

Implementation of strategy implementation methodology today is continuously connected with automation. Implementing a Balanced ScoreCard, for example using Microsoft Excel, or without any information support at all, is possible only at the initial stages of BSC implementation or in small organizations. If a company is going to develop balanced scorecards for several structural divisions and periodically refine and adjust them, then it is impossible to do without using the advantages of information technology.

Currently, BSC developers have the following software products at their disposal: ARIS 7.0, Microsoft Office Business ScoreCard Manager 2005, Business Studio 2.0.

Let's consider in more detail the methodology for developing and implementing a balanced scorecard. To illustrate the main stages of building a Balanced ScoreCard, we will use the Business Studio 2.0 software product.

Preparing to build a balanced scorecard

At the stage of preparation for building a BSC, it is necessary to develop a strategy, identify perspectives and decide for which organizational units and levels a balanced scorecard should be developed.

It is important to always remember that BSC is a concept of implementing existing strategies, not developing fundamentally new strategies. You must first complete the development of the strategy, and then proceed to create a balanced scorecard.

When determining the departments for which the Balanced ScoreCard will be developed, the following should be taken into account: the more departments of the enterprise are strategically managed using one BSC, the better it is possible to cascade (decompose, transfer) important goals from the upper level to the lower ones.

One of the important activities in preparing for the development of a balanced scorecard is the choice of perspectives.

Any strategy development model can claim to be complete only if it contains answers to questions related to different areas of the company.

Setting just financial goals is not enough if it is not clear how these goals will be achieved. In the same way, it will not be entirely correct to set goals isolated from each other. In this case, the relationships between individual goals and their influence on each other remain unaffected. This implies the need to take into account all important aspects of the enterprise.

Consideration of various perspectives in the formation and implementation of the strategy is a characteristic feature of the concept of a balanced scorecard and its key element. The formulation of strategic goals, the selection of indicators and the development of strategic actions in several perspectives are designed to provide a comprehensive review of the company's activities.

Companies that formulate their strategy too one-sidedly do not necessarily veer toward finance alone. There are companies that are too focused on the client and forget about their financial goals. Some companies may be overly focused on their processes and do not pay attention to market aspects. Equal treatment of several perspectives avoids this imbalance.

Based on their empirical research, Robert Kaplan and David Norton proved that successful companies take into account at least four perspectives in their BSC (Fig. 1):

finance;

clients;

internal business processes;

education and development.

These four perspectives should provide answers to different questions, namely:

Finance Perspective: What vision of ourselves do we need to create with our shareholders in order to achieve financial success?

“Clients” perspective: What kind of self-image do we need to create with our customers in order to realize our vision of the future?

Internal Business Processes Perspective: What business processes do we need to excel in order to meet the needs of our shareholders and customers?

Learning and Development Perspective: How should we maintain the ability to change and improve in order to realize our vision of the future?

Simplicity and the presence of clear logical relationships between BSC perspectives make it possible to achieve an understanding of the processes taking place in the company at the level of all performers.

Building a balanced scorecard

At the first stage of building a Balanced ScoreCard, a balanced scorecard is developed for one organizational unit. It can be a company as a whole, a division or a department.

In this case, the construction of BSC is carried out by performing the following steps:

specification of strategic goals;

linking strategic goals with cause-and-effect chains - building a strategic map;

selection of indicators and determination of their target values;

development of strategic measures.

Specification of the strategic goals of the balanced scorecard

Rice. 2. Strategic goals of BSC

In general terms, a goal is a description of the desired state of something in the future. This state can be expressed in the words: "to supply customers with our products within a short period of time." You can specify the wording with the help of indicators and their target values: "delivery time less than 36 hours."

To build a strategic management system, it is necessary to decompose (break down, structure) the company's strategy into specific strategic goals that reflect various strategic aspects in detail. By integrating individual goals, cause-and-effect relationships between them can be established so that the full set of goals reflects the company's strategy.

Each strategic goal is associated with one of the prospects for the development of the organization (Fig. 2).

You should not define too many strategic goals for the highest level of the organization. A maximum of 25 targets will be enough. Too many goals in a scorecard indicates the inability of the organization to focus on the main thing, and also means that the formulated goals are not strategic for the organizational level at which the scorecard is being developed. The development of tactical and operational goals should be given attention in the systems of indicators of subdivisions of the lower levels of the organizational structure.

Building a strategic map of a balanced scorecard

Determining and documenting causal relationships between individual strategic goals is one of the main elements of BSC.

Established cause-and-effect relationships reflect the presence of dependencies between individual goals. Strategic goals are not independent and isolated from each other, on the contrary, they are closely related to each other and influence each other. The achievement of one goal serves the achievement of another, and so on, up to the main goal of the organization. Links between different goals are clearly visible due to the causal chain (Fig. 3). Those that do not contribute to the realization of the main goal are excluded from consideration.

The causal chain is a handy tool for bringing the BSC down to the lower organizational levels.

A strategic map is used to graphically display the relationship between strategic goals and prospects.

Rice. 3. Causal relationships of strategic goals

Choice of indicators of the degree of achievement of strategic goals

The BSC scores (boxes in Figure 3) are target meters. Indicators (Fig. 4) are a means of assessing progress towards the implementation of the strategic goal.

The use of indicators is intended to concretize the system of goals developed in the course of strategic planning and to make the developed goals measurable. Indicators can only be identified when there is clarity about the targets. Choosing the right metrics is a secondary issue, because even the best metrics won't help a company succeed if the goals are wrong. It is recommended that no more than two or three indicators be used for each of the strategic objectives.

Without targets, indicators designed to measure strategic goals are meaningless. Determination of target values ​​of management indicators causes difficulties not only in the development of BSC. The fundamental difficulty in determining the target value of a particular indicator is to find a realistically achievable level.

As a rule, a balanced scorecard is developed for a period corresponding to the long-term period of strategic planning (3-5 years). At the same time, long-term target values ​​are determined for delayed indicators (indicators that speak about the final goals of the corporate strategy). Since the implementation of the strategy is also carried out in the current year, target values ​​are also set for the medium term (1 year) period - for leading indicators (indicators that change over time over a short period of time). Thus, a balance of the system of indicators for long-term and short-term goals is achieved.

In the Business Studio 2.0 system, the content of short-term plans is detailed by periods (quarters, months, weeks, days) and expressed as planned values ​​of indicators. Indicators and their target values ​​(values ​​that are planned to be achieved) provide management with timely signals based on deviations of the actual state of affairs from the planned one, i.e. the actual quantitative results obtained are compared with the planned ones.

So, An indicator is a measure that shows the extent to which a goal has been achieved. However, it is also a tool for evaluating the effectiveness and efficiency of a business process. Indicators serve both to assess the effectiveness of processes and to assess the degree of achievement of the goal at the same time.

Rice. 4 BSC indicators

Strategic activities to achieve strategic goals

Achieving strategic goals involves the implementation of relevant strategic measures. “Strategic activities” is a general term for all activities, projects, programs and initiatives that are implemented to achieve strategic goals.

The distribution of the company's projects according to the goals of the balanced system creates clarity in understanding what contribution this or that project makes to the achievement of strategic goals. If projects do not make a significant contribution to the achievement of the strategic objectives, they should be reviewed to see how they contribute to the achievement of the basic objectives. If one or another strategic event does not make a significant contribution to the achievement of basic goals, then the need for its implementation is extremely doubtful.

Cascading Balanced Scorecard

Cascading leads to an improvement in the quality of strategic management in organizational units involved in building a balanced scorecard, since goals and strategic activities from higher units can be sequentially transferred to BSCs of lower organizational units - this is vertical integration of goals.

When cascading, the strategy specified in the corporate Balanced ScoreCard applies to all levels of management. The strategic goals, metrics, targets, and improvement actions are then fleshed out and tailored across departments and teams. Those. the corporate balanced scorecard should be linked to the BSC of subdivisions, departments and individual work plans of employees. Based on the BSC of their division, each department develops its own BSC, which must be consistent with the corporate BSC. Then, with the participation of the head of the department, each employee develops his own individual work plan. This plan focuses more on delivering real results in the workplace rather than tasks or improvement actions.

Thus, when cascading, a bridge is established between successive levels of the hierarchy, along which the corporate strategy sequentially descends.

Monitoring the implementation of the strategy

To improve the balanced scorecard, top management and those responsible must constantly review and evaluate the organization's performance.

Strategic objectives are characterized by a high degree of relevance to the company, and this relevance should be assessed at least annually. In doing so, it is necessary to evaluate:

Are the selected indicators suitable for assessing the degree of achievement of the developed goals?

How easy is it to calculate indicator values?

Has the structural subdivision reached the target values ​​of the developed indicators?

Have the target values ​​of indicators of higher units been achieved?

What contribution does the structural unit in question contribute to the achievement of the goals of the upper levels?

The evaluation of indicators is primarily to understand the possibility of calculating the actual value of the indicator based on the data of the reporting period. In addition, it is necessary to compare the plan-fact on the values ​​of the developed indicators with the clarification of the causes of deviations. Such an analysis is accompanied by either an adjustment of the target value of the indicator, or the development of corrective measures aimed at achieving the previously set target value.

The lower level BSC should always be evaluated to help achieve the higher level goals.

In addition, it is advisable to predict the target values ​​of indicators for a long period of time.

What does the company get as a result of the implementation of a balanced scorecard?

Let's sum up some intermediate results. What does the enterprise get as a result of the description of the strategy and its consistent implementation using the Balanced ScoreCard methodology? The first and most important is the concentration of efforts on strategically important areas for the company. The main goal of the company is determined, the means of achieving it (strategic goals) are outlined, the goals are cascaded by departments. The second result, respectively, is the presence of strategic goals for each division - that is, everyone understands what needs to be done. The third result is the possibility of a clear understanding of the effectiveness of actions. The presence of indicators for each goal to achieve it allows each participant in the process to understand their role in the implementation of the company's strategy. And, finally, the fourth result is the control and manageability of the process of implementing the strategy from the top down. The company, in the hands of its leaders, becomes an effective tool for achieving the goal.

Advantages of a computer over pencil and paper

All of the above is quite achievable without the use of any automation. Moreover, a number of successful enterprises used similar methods at the end of the 19th century, when computer technology was not as advanced as it is today. Another question is whether it is convenient to work with a pencil and paper, will automation at some stage increase the effectiveness of implementing the strategy? Of course, pencil and paper is only a symbol. The collection and some processing of indicators is quite feasible using at least the same Microsoft Excel. However, goals can change, the significance of some indicators after the test of time will be overestimated, some elements that we considered unimportant will begin to play a strong role ... The leader must be able to respond to changes and make changes to his plan as quickly as possible - after all, every step, done in the wrong direction takes us away from the goal.

As a rule, the main problem faced by enterprises that have decided to implement this strategy implementation methodology is not how to automate the creation of a tree of goals and indicators or the construction of a strategy map, but how to automatically constantly provide BSC with fresh data and keep it in working order. Without this, operational control over the implementation of the strategy is impossible. For example, you can use the mechanism for collecting indicator values ​​using mailings, implemented in the Business Studio 2.0 software product (Fig. 5). The means of collecting the values ​​of indicators that are not contained in the information system are Microsoft Excel files that are automatically sent to performers and then imported into the system.

For each individual responsible for entering the values ​​of indicators into the system, a dynamic letter is generated with instructions for filling out the reporting table. The Business Studio 2.0 system finds all indicators for a given individual and generates a Microsoft Excel file containing a table with indicators for which this individual is responsible for entering the values. This file is attached to the letter, and then these letters with files are sent to the electronic address (E-mail) of an individual stored in the system directory.

Rice. 5. Mechanism for collecting indicator values ​​using mailing lists

Next, individuals fill in the files with the actual values ​​of the indicators and place them in a specific folder on the file server or send them to the system administrator. The system automatically reads the files from the folder and uploads them to its database.

At this stage, the collection of indicator values ​​ends.

A balanced scorecard, like any other management tool, should be adjusted as the company develops and the external environment changes. The environment in which the enterprise operates is usually very dynamic, which leads to the adjustment of strategic goals. And this, in turn, requires constant updating of indicators for achieving these goals. However, in most cases this does not happen, which makes the balanced scorecard of performance unworkable at best, if not downright harmful.

The collected indicator values ​​should be made available to stakeholders for analysis. To do this, the system contains a set of pre-configured reports, which, if necessary, can be changed or supplemented with new ones. Planned and actual values ​​of individual indicators are presented in BSC reports in dynamics for several periods. The analysis period can be selected by the user in the Business Studio 2.0 system settings.

Fierce competition, in which modern enterprises live and operate, dictates the need to improve the efficiency of each aspect of the enterprise. Management is no exception. The manager needs tools for his work just like any other employee. The technique described by us is not as complicated as it is effective, and the availability of software tools for its implementation allows you to perform this work in real time.

Key performance indicators (KPI) of the warehouse complex

KPI is an abbreviation for the English Key Performance Indicator. Translated as "key performance indicator", in the practice of companies the combination "key performance indicator" is often used. BSC is an abbreviation of the English Balanced Scorecard, translated as "balanced score".

Management by goals (or management by deviations from goals) in the practice of Russian companies is becoming a standard tool for implementing strategic plans through the organization of effective operational work, which is guaranteed to lead to the achievement of planned indicators. In other words, for each business system, business process, business function, target benchmarks are set - standards, deviation from which is unacceptable. If such a deviation occurs, then a control action should be generated in the system that brings business processes to the established standards of functioning. The standards or goals of management in modern business conditions are set using the methodology of forming a balanced scorecard (BSC), and the values ​​of actual deviations from balanced scorecards are objective indicators of the state of the system (KPI).

Strategic and regulatory KPIs

KPIs can be strategic or regulatory in nature. Strategic KPIs should include such indicators, the achievement of which allows the company to gain important strategic advantages. At the warehouse system level, the strategic KPIs include the following:

the number of warehouses in the system (under the conditions of development of the warehouse network);

storage capacity (in commodity and/or monetary units);

throughput capacity of the warehouse (in commodity and/or monetary units);

cost of storage and warehouse handling;

operational reliability.

In practice, strategic KPIs are most often of a boundary nature, that is, they are limiting, target indicators that the warehouse system must steadily strive for in order to provide strategic advantages that are significant for the company.

Normative KPIs are key performance indicators that must be maintained in an unchanged state in the system, playing the role of a control standard. In the context of the warehouse activity, the normative KPIs will be such indicators as:

norms for the performance of technological operations (for example, the temporary standard for loading / unloading a vehicle);

indicators of the quality of operations performed (for example, commissioning);

the standard for the loss of goods/cargo due to the fault of the warehouse (theft, careless handling, personnel errors that caused material damage, etc.)

The strategic KPI, upon its achievement, can be transferred to the category of static, normative, and the normative KPI can become strategic, for example, if it is necessary to increase the throughput of the warehouse complex (operational standards may be tightened in terms of time intervals for execution or involved personnel).

A system map reflecting approaches to the formation of KPI for a warehouse system is shown below.

Formation of KPI warehouse system:

KPI by warehouse type

a) for own needs

1. production warehouse

2. distribution center

b) provision of services

1. plan for net profit

2. plan for operating profit (EBIT)

3. net CF plan

Significance of KPIs

a) strategic KPI

b) normative KPI

KPI calculation method

a) statistical on data generation

b) over the entire data set

KPI according to the method of technological processing of flows

a) manual

1. using a barcode

2. without using a barcode

b) mechanized

c) automated

Comprehensive KPI

a) operational

b) resource intensity

1. shipment

2. acceptance

3. storage

4. execution control

Simple KPI

a) effectiveness

1. shipment plan

2. acceptance plan

3. storage plan

4. quality standard (% of deviations reaching the consumer)

b) efficiency

1. processing cycle time

2. unit processing cost

3. cost of achieving development goals

4. resource-to-weight ratio

c) economy

1. cost plan

2. investment plan

The choice of the KPI system should correspond to the actual state of the technological architecture of the warehouse complex and at the same time set the vector of its development or qualitative change. Table 1 summarizes the main KPIs recommended in the practice of our company for use in mechanized and automated warehouses.

The balanced scorecard is a specialized management system with which a company can accurately formulate its plans for the future, develop a strategy and subsequently translate it into reality.

What is this system for?

With the help of such a system, feedback is achieved between various internal business processes, as well as external indicators, which is required in order to increase strategic effectiveness and ultimately achieve appropriate results. When the balanced scorecard is fully implemented, strategic planning from a standard theoretical exercise turns into one of the most important areas of the enterprise. Thus, the efficiency of the company's work increases and the stability of its work increases.

What does she represent?

According to the developers themselves, the balanced scorecard provides for the support of traditional financial indicators, but it should be understood that they reflect only the course of future events, and also provide an adequate description for companies from the times of industrial production, for which investing in any long-term programs or in improving relationships with consumers was not nearly as significant as it is today. At the same time, such indicators are completely irrelevant when it comes to the management of information technology companies that are trying to achieve future results by investing in the convenience of customers, employees, suppliers, innovation, technology and a wide variety of business processes.

It is for this reason that a balanced scorecard was proposed, with the help of which it would be possible to supplement financial indicators with information that allows displaying customer satisfaction, internal business processes, and the possibility of developing a company.

What are its features?

This technology provides the main factors of the company, including customer service, as well as financial and operational efficiency, in the form of a set of different characteristics. The company can record and subsequently analyze these characteristics in order to understand whether the strategic goals are actually achieved in the course of work. The fully implemented system presents a consistent consideration of the company's work at each of the levels. Ultimately, each individual employee of the company processes a personal BSC (balanced scorecard), while he tries to achieve his own personal goals. In this case, the employee is based on indicators related to corporate strategy.

Basics

BSC (Balanced Scorecard) provides for looking at the company from four perspectives, as well as developing quantitative parameters, collecting data and then analyzing them in accordance with each perspective.

Development and learning perspective

This perspective includes thorough training of specialists, as well as the cultivation of corporate culture, not only in personal terms, but also at the corporate level. In a company that employs truly educated people, employees eventually become the main resource.

In today's environment, in which there are rapid technological changes, knowledge workers must constantly improve. State organizations quite often do not have the opportunity to recruit new technically trained employees, and in parallel to this, they also reduce the training of existing employees. This is the most important sign of the leakage of intellectual power from the company, and this must be stopped without fail as soon as possible.

Certain metrics should eventually fully demonstrate to the management team exactly where to concentrate funds for detailed training of employees in order for them to bring the greatest possible benefit. In any case, development and training is the main foundation for the success of every truly progressive company.

Perspective in business processes

This perspective, as the name suggests, is directly related to internal business processes. From this strategy point of view, the balanced scorecard provides managers with an opportunity to determine how effectively the company is performing, as well as whether services and products meet the requirements of potential customers. Such indicators will need to be developed as carefully as possible only by those people who really accurately imagine business processes, that is, even the most professional outside consultants should not do such work.

Customer perspective

A balanced scorecard from a customer perspective takes into account the increasing importance of customer focus as well as customer satisfaction. The main parameter in this case is that if customers remain dissatisfied, then they will simply start looking for other suppliers.

Poor performance in this area is a clear sign that the company will decline in the future, even if the overall financial picture remains at a consistently high level at the moment. In order to develop satisfaction measures, it will be necessary to carefully analyze the types of processes and customers for whom certain types of services and products will need to be provided.

Financial Perspective

The people who developed the enterprise balanced scorecard did not deny that traditional financial data could also be used. Providing timely yet clear enough information will always remain important enough that managers should try their best to ensure this.

However, in the overwhelming majority of cases, the processing and maintenance of financial data is given much more attention than is really necessary. When implementing a corporate database, a lot of the work can and should be not only centralized, but also automated, while you must understand that a special bet on financial indicators leads to an unbalanced situation regarding other perspectives. It is for this reason that additional financial data may also need to be taken into account, including risk assessment and cost-benefit comparison data.

Management based on measurements

The Organization's Balanced Scorecard builds on key concepts developed in previous management practices such as Total Quality Management, including:

• quality defined by the client;
• continuous improvement;
• empowerment of certain employees;
• the most important is to be based on management measurements as well as on the use of feedback.

Dual Loop Feedback

In the traditional industrial field, everything was subject to such concepts as “no defects” and “quality control”. Serious in-line inspection and testing will need to be taken to ensure that customers are truly effective in protecting customers from substandard products.

The main problem with this approach is that the real cause of rejection can never be found, and there will always be some inefficiency in the rejection process. In particular, it was noted that certain minor deviations may appear at each individual production stage, the causes of which will need to be identified and recorded.

If these reasons can be fixed, then there is a way to reduce the number of defective products, and, accordingly, open up almost unlimited prospects for improving quality. For such progress, they are united by a balanced scorecard, an example of which can be seen in many modern companies that has a feedback loop.

Why is this needed?

The information will be further processed by managers in order to determine the causes of process deviations, in which errors often appear. And after that, appropriate measures are taken to change the set of these processes. Just like in a system of total control, the development of a balanced scorecard provides for feedback between various internal business processes and external results. But, in addition, it also provides an additional feedback loop that integrates the results of the business strategies used. Thus, the implementation of a balanced scorecard forms a two-loop feedback loop.

Result indicators

It is impossible to fix what is not measurable, which is why indicators should be developed based on the priorities of the strategic plan, which contains key factors for business development, as well as criteria for selecting the most interesting characteristics for managers. After that, the process of collecting information that describes these characteristics is carefully designed, and they are brought to a numerical form for storage, display and further analysis.

The decision makers in this case evaluate the outcomes of several measurable processes and strategies, and monitor the results in order to achieve the correct management of the company, as well as provide feedback.

Therefore, in this case, the value of the parameters lies in the fact that they are the basis that determines:

• Strategic feedback that demonstrates to decision makers the current status of the organization according to multiple perspectives.
• Diagnostic feedback to different processes in order to manage change.
• Temporal performance trends in accordance with the measure of performance control.
• Feedback between measurement technologies, as well as the choice of controlled parameters.
• Quantitative input parameters for various modeling and forecasting methods to be used in decision support systems.

Actual management

In this case, the main task of measuring is to enable managers to more clearly understand the work of their own company in accordance with several perspectives and, accordingly, make wiser and longer-term decisions.

Modern business directly depends on how the processes of measurement and analysis of performance are carried out. Measurements in this case are based on the company's strategy used and should provide critical information about key processes, output parameters and final results. The information required to evaluate and improve performance can vary widely, including information about:

• clients
• the effectiveness of the provision of services or the sale of products;
• market;
• operations;
• competitive comparisons;
• employees;
• suppliers;
• finance and spending.

Analysis, which includes the Norton and Kaplan Balanced Scorecard, uses information to determine projections, trends, causes, and effects that cannot be determined without its use. Data and analysis is a very important tool for achieving a wide variety of company goals, including also evaluating results, planning, improving operations, comparing the company's performance with competitors or with the best performance in this area.

In order for any problems in the company to be prevented or eliminated immediately after their occurrence, a system of timely and reliable indicators is needed, which will allow the most complete assessment of the effectiveness of the company as a whole. Such a system is the Balanced Scorecard (BSC 1). It allows you to significantly improve the quality of enterprise management, especially if the company has a multi-product business or several lines of activity. In the article, the experience of implementing BSC is considered on the example of IBS.

The usual way of evaluating the company's performance, based only on the analysis of the dynamics of financial indicators, in a highly competitive environment does not allow you to quickly respond to a changing market situation. In addition, there is a danger of excessive enthusiasm for profit growth, in which due attention will not be paid to other aspects of the company's activities: innovation, client policy, staff qualifications, etc. This can lead to large losses, a decrease in market share and, ultimately, collapse. companies.

To prevent this from happening, the company needs a BSC system.

Personal experience

Mikhail Belov, Financial Director, Deputy General Director for Operations at IBS (Moscow)

Our company is engaged in solving a wide range of business problems of clients related to the management of their companies: management consulting, implementation of ERP systems, development of custom information systems, network projects, computing platforms and many others. All these tasks are united by high intelligence and manufacturability. We have an irregular production cycle and a very high dynamics: fashion often changes, new products appear. To keep afloat, these dynamics must be monitored quickly, so we began to implement various analytical tools, including BSC.

BSC is based on the so-called "Key Performance Indicators", or KPIs ( Key Performance Indicator). The main difference between a balanced performance scorecard and an arbitrary set of indicators is that all KPIs included in a balanced system, firstly, are focused on the strategic goals of the enterprise and, secondly, are interconnected and grouped according to certain criteria.

A balanced system of performance indicators should cover all important areas of the enterprise. In the classic version of BSC, there are four of them: finance, customer service, internal business processes and personnel management. However, depending on the company and changing environmental conditions, the wording and number of areas considered in the BSC may change.

Reference

Balanced Scorecard (BSC) is a system of strategic management of a company based on the measurement and evaluation of key indicators that take into account all significant aspects of its activities (financial, production, marketing, etc.).

Concept Balanced Scorecard was developed by American economists - the director of the Norlan Norton Institute research center David Norton (David Norton) and Harvard Business School professor Robert Kaplan - and presented to the general public in 1992.

According to a survey of two hundred successful companies in more than 20 countries, conducted in 2001 by the British company Business Intelligence, 57% of the surveyed firms use balanced scorecard. And according to the Balanced Scorecard Collaborative (founded by D. Norton and R. Kaplan), at the end of 2002, more than half of the companies included in the list of the five hundred largest companies in the world, which is compiled by the authoritative Fortune magazine (in particular, AT & T, Dell, Compaq, Motorola, Siemens) have implemented this system.

In our country, there are no statistics on the use of BSC by enterprises, but many "advanced" companies are already implementing this system 2 .

Personal experience

Mikhail Belov

We have formulated the BSC scorecard taking into account the specifics of our company's activities. Four areas of activity were identified: marketing and sales, personnel and organizational development, project execution (since we do not have a production, but a project business) and finance. This classification is based on the fact that earlier a matrix organizational system was introduced in IBS, in which there are both industry (responsible for sales by industry) and executive (technological) divisions that are responsible for the implementation of projects and the promotion of specific products.

Since finances are the main influence on the work of any company, all indicators must be somehow related to the financial result - either directly or through a chain of intermediate coefficients (Fig. 1). Thus, the balanced scorecard allows for a comprehensive analysis of the relationships within the company, timely monitoring of both positive and negative changes in various areas of management and influencing them. But in order for this tool to "work", a phased construction of the system is necessary.

Stages of building a BSC

Strategic planning

Strategic planning is the responsibility of top managers of the company and is a necessary condition for the successful operation of the company. This step is often the most difficult.

The development of the company's global strategy begins with an analysis of the institutional environment, market development trends, competitors, as well as several scenarios for the company's work for the next three years (the most acceptable period for Russian practice). Most often, the so-called "SWOT analysis 3" is used for this, that is, an analysis of the company's strengths and weaknesses, as well as threats and opportunities associated with both internal processes in the company and the external environment. Such an analysis is carried out mainly on the basis of expert assessments of the company's top managers or consultants.

Based on the results obtained, in addition to the global strategy, the mission of the company is formed. The strategy and mission of the company are adjusted depending on changes in the external environment, as a rule, once a year.

Definition of functional goals and critical success factors

The strategic goals of the company must be broken down into functional goals, which in turn are grouped by areas and levels of management, that is, by the company as a whole, by individual divisions, and sometimes by specific projects (products).

All functional goals must satisfy the following conditions:

1. Necessity and sufficiency: goals must be formulated for all areas of the company.
2. Time binding: a time frame for achieving the goal should be set (for example, reducing management costs by 5% during the year).
3. Time Consistency: a clear order of achievement of goals should be established so that it does not turn out that the budgeting automation program will be implemented later than the system for the daily formation of the management balance sheet.
4. Consistency across the control hierarchy: the target indicators of subordinate units should not contradict the target indicators of management units and the company as a whole.
5. Measurability: all functional goals should be quantified (for example, increase the profitability of sales by 20%, increase the share of regular customers by 10%, increase the number of employees who have completed training courses to 70% of the total number of employees of the company, etc.).

After the functional goals are formed, it is necessary to determine the critical success factors (CSF) for each of them (Fig. 2 a and b). KSF are the factors on which the achievement of functional goals depends (for example, the profitability of sales depends on the levels of profitability, turnover and costs). It should be noted that some firms form KFU immediately after developing a strategy, or after describing functional goals, go directly to the definition of KPI (for example, in IBS, there is no KFU level in the BSC system).

Definition of KPI

To control the company's activities based on critical success factors, it is necessary to determine KPI (Fig. 2c). They can be either absolute (revenue) or relative (profitability). But for many indicators, it is not so much the absolute value that is important, but their dynamics (for example, for the volume of overdue receivables).

As a rule, managers who are assigned this or that direction are engaged in the definition of specific KPIs. To clearly divide the areas of responsibility of managers at all levels for certain performance indicators, the financial structure of the company must be transparent. For example, a financial director should be responsible for the level of financial KPIs, a commercial director should be responsible for sales indicators, etc. In other words, a specialist who is responsible for the value of the coefficient should be able to influence its value.

Personal experience

Mikhail Belov

The transition from developing a company strategy to forming a BSC was a classic for us: we held a series of brainstorming sessions with a team of top managers, and I coordinated the entire process. "Brainstorms" were held 5-7 times within three months. We determined which indicators would be most useful to us, what goals they should reflect. This is very creative work.

As a KPI, it is advisable to use the most independent of each other parameters, since it is their combination that will best describe the system as a whole. It must be borne in mind that among the KPIs there should not be set parameters. For example, it makes no sense to use the wage fund as a KPI, since we ourselves set its size. But the ratio of sales to salary paid is already a KPI, with which you can determine whether our salespeople are working effectively.

Financial indicators (EVA 4 , free cash flow, the volume of receivables, its dynamics, etc.) can be considered separately for each project, division, per unit of resources spent (financial, human), etc.

After defining the KPI, the technical work remained: the development of procedures and information schemes with the help of which these indicators should be calculated, at what pace, based on what information. This was done by the analytical department of the company.

Formation of the BSC

After all KPIs are formed, they are combined into groups for the company as a whole and for departments. In some cases, scorecards for departments are not formed. Sometimes indicators are used not only for the company and divisions, but also for projects (see Table 1).

Personal experience

Mikhail Belov

In our company, management accounting is maintained by responsibility centers and by projects. Accordingly, KPIs can be determined for the company as a whole, departments and projects. Now we have the BSC system implemented only at the company level. For divisions, we calculate efficiency ratios without dividing them into aspects of activity: marketing, finance, etc. For example, EVA is determined for the company as a whole, while indicators related to sales performance are calculated for different projects.

In the future, we plan to discuss the question of whether to "lower" the indicators to the level of departments. This will most likely be done as many of our divisions are separate lines of business.

As a result of building BSC, a system of interrelated tables is formed, the cells of which reflect key performance indicators. Based on expert assessments or on the basis of existing experience, restrictions are set for a number of KPIs, going beyond which means inefficient operation of a department or enterprise (for example, profitability should be at least 15%, revenue should be at least 50 million rubles, stock of finished products in a warehouse should be from 2000 to 3000 pieces, etc.). For other coefficients, the boundary conditions are not set at the first stage of building the BSC, but later, taking into account the statistics and experience gained.

Each coefficient is calculated with a certain frequency. According to their values ​​(exceeding the norm, approaching a critical value, negative dynamics), the manager at any time can determine how his site works. This allows you to eliminate possible problems already at the stage of their occurrence.

Personal experience

Mikhail Belov

We fixed some KPIs right away. So, experts have determined the warehouse load rate or the period of goods circulation, from which we will proceed when assessing the work of the warehouse. But, for example, we will be able to determine the cost rate for pre-sale preparation only with the accumulation of certain experience.

As for the frequency of KPI calculation, as a rule, it is equal to a month, although for some indicators (turnover, product distribution) the period is shorter - a week or two, and for others it is longer - a quarter (for example, the share of repeat sales).

BSC automation and its implementation

BSC can be implemented both in special software products (for example, Oros Scorecard, Hyperion Performance Scorecard, Oracle Scorecard, etc.) and in Excel 5.

If a company has an effective system for collecting and processing information, then it will not be difficult to calculate KPI values ​​with the required frequency. It is only necessary to integrate the BSC automation system with the information systems existing at the enterprise. This will ensure automatic receipt of the data necessary for calculating KPIs from existing accounting, production and analytical systems. In addition, it will be possible to link strategic management with medium-term and operational management: it will be possible to track how certain KPIs change in the short term when a particular strategic decision is made.

Personal experience

Mikhail Belov

Our company implemented a well-developed information system based on SAP R / 3 with a large number of modules that covered finance, logistics, warehouse, personnel management, etc. Then we implemented an analytical product - SAP Business Information Warehouse (SAP BW) 6 , on the basis of which we managed to implement the BSC system. It seems to me that the presence of a specific system for the implementation of BSC is not important - it can be installed even in Excel. The fact is that BSC is a product that is individual for each company, and therefore its implementation will be absolutely individual 7 .

The user of the system can analyze the cause-and-effect relationship of indicators (that is, view all indicators related to the one under consideration), drill down the indicator in the necessary areas (company, division), evaluate its dynamics or calculate forecast values ​​(Fig. 3).

After compiling all the tables and integrating the BSC with the computer system, the system is finally tested and put into operation. At first, it makes sense to introduce only the main KPIs (revenue, profitability) into test operation in order to evaluate their quality after a certain period (1-3 months) (whether the indicators were chosen correctly to assess the efficiency of the enterprise) and, if necessary, make adjustments to the system definitions of KPI, their number and terms of formation. It is important that employees of all levels take part in this process.

After that, you can implement BSC completely and throughout the enterprise. However, do not forget that a balanced performance scorecard is not formed once and for all. Like other systems, it is flexible and can change over time, since it is quite difficult to immediately determine which parameters will most accurately describe the work of the company, and the very structure of the company’s work can change over time, KPI can be revised.

Personal experience

Mikhail Belov

It will be possible to assess how accurately we have chosen a set of indicators in a year or two. So far, we are making calculations and accumulating information to correct existing ones and introduce new KPI boundary values, which can only be determined empirically. At this stage, we have approximately 60 KPIs and this is only the first set that will increase or decrease and, of course, change. This is a normal process, and we are ready for it.

Success factors

For the successful implementation of BSC, several conditions must be met.

First, the system for collecting information on the activities of all departments should be well established. Secondly, the company's management must be ready to work constructively to create a strategy, discuss goals and develop a detailed work plan. Thirdly, it is desirable that at least one employee in the company has experience in building such management systems or is well versed in them. Otherwise, you need to contact consultants with such experience.

When introducing BSC, one must be prepared for the difficulties that arise during any restructuring of business processes, the main of which is the resistance of the staff.

Personal experience

Mikhail Belov

I believe that one of the main difficulties in building a BSC system is the human factor. A manager will never be a supporter of the introduction of new indicators, especially if everything is fine in his area of ​​work. Therefore, it is important to create not only a system of indicators, but also a system of business procedures that, on the one hand, will allow the use of this analytical system, and on the other, will force managers to use it. It's quite difficult. When an order or a law is not followed, the question arises who is to blame: the one who did not comply, or the one who wrote? It is not always possible to answer it unambiguously.

Usually, a negative reaction to the introduction of BSC is observed from the heads of departments and areas, who not only receive an additional management tool, but also become more controlled as a result of its implementation. To increase the interest of management, it is necessary to apply not only methods of administrative influence, but also to link material rewards with the achievement of the required KPI level.

1 There are various translations of the term "Balanced Scorecard" in Russian: balanced scorecard, balanced plan for achieving strategic results, balanced scorecard, balanced scorecard, etc. The author uses the term in the sense of "balanced performance scorecard". — Note. editions.

2 See, for example, about the experience of ROSNO in the article “Reorganization of the financial and economic service of the enterprise”, “Financial Director”, 2003, No. 2. — Note. editions.

3 SWOT is an abbreviation of English words: strengths- strengths weaknesses- weak sides, opportunities- opportunities and threats- dangers, threats. — Note. editions.

4 EVA ( economy value added) is a popular measure of company value, defined as earnings minus the cost of capital. For more details, see, for example, the article "Reorganization of the financial and economic service of the enterprise", "Financial Director", 2003, No. 2. - Note. editions.

5 It is best to implement work with BSC in Excel using OLAP cube technology or pivot tables. OLAP cube is a tool for analyzing multidimensional databases by grouping them into various analytical sections, allowing you to periodically update data and change their structure. — Note. editions.

6 SAP Business Information Warehouse is one of the SAP software products designed to solve the problems of multidimensional analysis of business data. — Note. editions.

7 See the list of companies implementing BIS in Table. 2.- Note. editions.