From cascading to translation - balancing alignment and ownership  - In many of the companies that have abolished traditional budgeting, the balanced scorecard has become a true cornerstone in the new management process, instead of a competitor to the traditional budget with the two often sending conflicting and confusing signals to bewildered managers.

•  "Rolling out" or "Rolling over"

Summary

This article examines the challenges of creating effective links between the Balanced Scorecard on the one hand and compensation and incentives on the other hand. Monetary incentives are, in principle, a powerful motivator for aligning employee efforts to Balanced Scorecard objectives. In fact, Robert Kaplan and David Norton, creators of the Balanced Scorecard, recommend the incentive-compensation link as a sub-component of the principle that calls for making strategy everyone’s everyday job. However, establishing a clear incentive-compensation link that actually works is one of the most challenging aspects of a Balanced Scorecard approach to enterprise performance management.

Summary

The article begins with what is the ultimate objective of a strategic performance management initiative like the Balanced Scorecard – ‘to make strategy everyone’s job.’ To do so, organizations need to align individual performance with the strategic objectives. In this endeavor,
personal Scorecards assume significance as a central tool.    

In an ideal scorecard cascade, personal scorecards serve as the final step in the process, starting from corporate, divisional, business unit, functional, and team to individual levels. The underlying belief is that cascading the scorecard to the deepest level of the organization fully aligns the individual’s objectives to the organization’s objectives.

Personal scorecards also introduce a high degree of transparency into organizational performance and also serve as the only appraisal system within the organization.

Summary

This interview features Lawrence Ganti, Corporate Director, Office of Strategy Management, for the Geneva, Switzerland based Serono, which reported 2005 revenues of more than $2.5 billion, making it the largest biotechnology company in Europe and among the leaders in the world. It has eight manufacturing plants and 4,900 employees spread across 45 countries. Serono’s groundbreaking work includes its treatments for infertility, growth hormone deficiency and multiple sclerosis. Serono was inducted into the prestigious Balanced Scorecard Collaborative Hall of Fame in 2006.

In this interview, drawing from his experience of facilitating the Balanced Scorecard program in Serono, Lawrence Ganti presents a practitioner’s viewpoint regarding various aspects of the Balanced Scorecard concept.

Summary

This article deals with some of the key ingredients to a successful Balanced Scorecard implementation.

Highlights

• Putting in place the right team is vital for Balanced Scorecard success.
• Your Scorecard team should be composed of senior executives who possess a deep understanding of the system, and are committed to its success.

Securing Executive Sponsorship for the Balanced Scorecard  - No change initiative can succeed without the active support of senior executives

•  The two management types you do not want to hire

Summary

The world over, demand for performance transparency, responsibility and accountability of organizations is increasing – issues that form the core of corporate governance. This article argues that legislative and regulative interventions are not adequate to improve the corporate governance standards. In fact, a major analysis reveals that lack of compliance with accounting/financial rules and regulations is only a minor cause of poor performance. The analysis finds that strategic failure, such as misjudging consumer demand or competition, is a greater cause – pointing to the fact that corporate governance and corporate performance management are closely linked.

Summary

The introduction of a Balanced Scorecard program is a major enterprise performance management initiative or change program, involving considerable time and money for the full design and rollout. Hence, it is important to develop a clear idea of the business benefits.

This calls for building a compelling business case. When business faces a question of survival, as one example in the article shows, this is probably made easier. Such cases are an exception and most scorecard initiatives are proposed in organizations that face a ‘business as usual’ situation. In such scenarios, the proponents need to develop a clear plan for championing the Balanced Scorecard program.