The world doesn't need another long review of this book or the Balanced Scorecard concept but a little added perspective might be of value. BSC is most useful to organizations that need to jump start (or begin) their strategic planning efforts. The book lays out a practical and useful guide to do just that but many companies end up allowing BSC to become all consuming and not a means to an end. For this and other reasons, the majority of organizations don't follow through. The process described in this book is easy to read and absorb and consequently has a loyal following of adherents -- some of whom claim substantive results in their companies as a result. With the caveat that one size does not fit all, I would recommend this book as a component of your readings on business strategy and execution.

Balanced scorecards have become ubiquitous in modern business parlance. But to really understand their power and elegance requires an understanding of strategy mapping as depicted in Norton and Kaplan's other books. Because those other books were written later than this one, the deeper power of the scorecards really emerges in the follow-up to strategy mapping. Nonetheless, this is a cornerstone of any strategist's library, depicting the methodology that has become rightfully synonymous with measuring strategy. The real beauty of this approach does not lie only in its extraordinary identification of the key perspectives that must be measured to accomplish (or determine a need to revisit) strategy. Instead, the malleability of the scorecard as a means to measure all of the aspects of stakeholder delivery is really indispensable when approaching the complexity of modern organizations. With the advent of triple bottom lines and the demand to measure not just the results but their alleged leading indicators, balanced scorecards have become the standard for how to do so. No strategist or business leader's library should be without this book. It is as vital as is "The Wealth of Nations" to an economist.

Amie Devero, Author of Powered by Principle: Using Core Values to Build World-Class Organizations

This is a product that help me to alling the objetive of our organization to the lowest levels

The book is a classic that has revolutionalised the way executives view their organizations, be it a for profit or not-for-profit entity. The Balanced Scorecard, an approach to strategic management that was developed by Robert S Kaplan and David P Norton, is a concept for measuring a company's activities in terms of its vision and strategies, to provide managers with a comprehensive view of the performance of a business. The key new factor is focusing not only on financial results but also on the human issues that drive those outcomes, so that organizations focus on the future and act in their long-term best interest.

The traditional means of measuring success through financial performance focuses on achievement to date. It is backward looking and can be counter productive in terms of securing a successful financial future. According to Kaplan and Norton financial measures are inadequate for guiding and evaluating the drive that information age firms must make to create future value through investment in customers, suppliers, employees, processes, technology and innovation.

The Balanced Scorecard balances financial success with processes that will generate success in the future. The scorecard retains a financial perspective and achieves balance by introducing a customer perspective, an internal perspective and a learning and growth perspective. In addition, it introduces objectives and measures, identifying both critical success factors and critical measurements.

The Balanced Scorecard is a management system (not only a measurement system) that allows organizations to clarify their vision and strategy and translate them into action. It provides feedback around both the internal business processes and external outcomes in order to continuously improve strategic performance and results. When fully deployed, the Balanced Scorecard transforms strategic management from an academic exercise into the nerve centre of an enterprise.

The Balanced Scorecard methodology builds on some key concepts of previous management ideas such as Total Quality Management (TQM), including customer-defined quality, continuous improvement, employee empowerment, and measurement-based management and feedback.
The Balanced Scorecard suggests that we view the organisation from four perspectives, namely the financial perspective, customer perspective, internal business processes and learning and growth perspective. The approach requires managers to develop metrics, collect data and analyze it relative to each of these perspectives.

This outstanding book is recommended to managers at all levels of an organisation, as well as business management students and strategy consultants.

The order process was quick and easy,the information updates on status of delivery were accurate, the book arrived before ETA, and it was in excellent condition.

Thank you for a great transaction.

Now I just have to read it!!!
Regards

Breed Lewis

They invented it and there's no way to plan a BSC without knowing where it came from.

You don't notice that it's been 10 years since it was written.

The financial performance of an organization is essential for its success. Even non-profit organizations must deal in a sensible way with funds they receive.

In 1992, an article by Robert Kaplan and David Norton entitled "The Balanced Scorecard - Measures that Drive Performance" in the Harvard Business Review caused a lot of attention for their method, and led to their business bestseller, "The Balanced Scorecard: Translating Strategy into Action", published in 1996.

In this book Robert S. Kaplan and David P. Norton develop and describe the Balanced Score Card, a multidimensional approach to measuring corporate performance that incorporates both financial and non-financial factors.

The Balanced Score Card method of Kaplan and Norton is a strategic approach and performance management system that enables organizations to translate a company's vision and strategy into implementation, working from 4 perspectives:
1. financial perspective,
2. customer perspective,
3. business process perspective,
4. learning and growth perspective.

- Financial perspective: Kaplan and Norton do not disregard the traditional need for financial data. Timely and accurate funding data will always be a priority, and managers will do whatever necessary to provide it. In fact, often there is more than enough handling and processing of financial data. With the implementation of a corporate database, it is hoped that more of the processing can be centralized and automated. But the point is that the current emphasis on financials leads to the "unbalanced" situation with regard to other perspectives. There is perhaps a need to include additional financial-related data, such as risk assessment and cost-benefit data, in this category.

- Customer perspective: recent management philosophy has shown an increasing realization of the importance of customer focus and customer satisfaction in any business. These are leading indicators: if customers are not satisfied, they will eventually find other suppliers that will meet their needs. Poor performance from this perspective is thus a leading indicator of future decline, even though the current financial picture may look good. In developing metrics for satisfaction, customers should be analyzed in terms of kinds of customers and the kinds of processes for which we are providing a product or service to those customer groups.

- Business Process perspective refers to internal business processes. Metrics based on this perspective allow the managers to know how well their business is running, and whether its products and services conform to customer requirements (the mission). These metrics have to be carefully designed by those who know these processes most intimately. In addition to the strategic management process, two kinds of business processes may be identified: a) mission-oriented processes, and b) support processes. Mission-oriented processes are the special functions of government offices, and many unique problems are encountered in these processes. The support processes are more repetitive in nature, and hence easier to measure and benchmark using generic metrics.

- Learning and Growth perspective includes employee training and corporate cultural attitudes related to both individual and corporate self-improvement. In a knowledge-worker organization, people are the main resource. In the current climate of rapid technological change, it is becoming necessary for knowledge workers to be in a continuous learning mode. Government agencies often find themselves unable to hire new technical workers and at the same time is showing a decline in training of existing employees. Kaplan and Norton emphasize that 'learning' is more than 'training'; it also includes things like mentors and tutors within the organization, as well as that ease of communication among workers that allows them to readily get help on a problem when it is needed. It also includes technological tools such as an Intranet.

The integration of these four perspectives into a graphical appealing picture have made the Balanced Scorecard method a very successful methodology within the Value Based Management philosophy.

In addition to this book you may want to consider the following books on the subject:
- Robert S. Kaplan. Alignment: Using the Balanced Scorecard to Create Corporate Synergies.
- Paul R. Niven. Balanced ScoreCard Step-by-Step: Maximizing Performance and Maintaining Results.
- Paul R. Niven. Balanced ScoreCard Step-by-Step for Government and Nonprofit Agencies.
- Nils-Göran Olve. Performance Drivers: A Practical Guide to Using the Balanced Scorecard.
- Robert S. Kaplan. The Strategy-Focused Organization: How Balanced Scorecard Companies Thrive in the New Business Environment.
- Robert S. Kaplan. Strategy Maps: Converting Intangible Assets into Tangible Outcomes.
- Robert S. Kaplan. Putting the Balanced Scorecard to Work.
- Robert S. Kaplan. The Balanced Scorecard: Measures That Drive Performance.

This book has become a classic in the field of business management. The 'balanced scorecard' has surely been referenced enough to include it in the dictionary. Robert Kaplan is the Arthur Lowes Dickson Professor of Accounting at Harvard Business School. His co-author David Norton is the president of Renaissance Solutions, Inc.

This book tackles gracefully a quite common theme these days: how to turn your beautiful and inspired vision into its corresponding actions throughout your company.

Most companies act on short-term financial reward. In the Balanced Scorecard, actions and rewards are based on the additional aspects of employee learning and growth, internal business processes and customer knowledge. When these are all in alignment, the financial future is rosy.

This book reminded me of the aphorism, "What you measure is what you get." Once you learn what to measure, you experiment with different perfomance drivers.

Five Stars

The balanced scorecard approach is a very effective tool for top-down planning initiatives. The method will ensure that any business unit initiative is cross-checked with the broader corporate goals. The book provides an easy-to-understand yet detailed how-to guide to strategy planning.
Frank Loomans

The balanced scorecard approach is a very effective tool for top-down planning initiatives. The method will ensure that any business unit initiative is cross-checked with the broader corporate goals. The book provides an easy-to-understand yet detailed how-to guide to strategy planning.
Frank Loomans

This book has both, written by the man who brought the Balanced Scorecard to corporate America. If you are thinking of implementing the balanced scorecard as a way of relaying, measuring and refining your company strategy, read this book first!

I was looking forward to using what I learned from this book to implement balanced scorecard strategy with my small business clients. There is so little useful information, I didn't even finish reading the book. The last chapter and appendix are literally the only portions I found helpful. Look elsewhere.

I was looking forward to using what I learned from this book to implement balanced scorecard strategy with my small business clients. There is so little useful information, I didn't even finish reading the book. The last chapter and appendix are literally the only portions I found helpful. Look elsewhere.

I received the book in a timely manner and in outstanding condition.

First published in 1996, this management literature classic builds a bridge between traditional, short-term oriented management systems and a more balanced approach integrating new types of measurements into a comprehensive strategy. This book looks senior managers in the eye and asks, "Are you ready for the future?" Some executives respond to the challenge of change by tinkering, adding a few nonfinancial metrics to the "instrumentation cockpit" that tells them how their corporate ship is running. Others have spurned Balanced Scorecard because it requires CEOs to accept feedback from all levels of their organizations so they will know if their assumptions remain relevant amidst rapid change. To date, however, more than 300 major organizations have used this system to enhance their performance, and future prospects. Abraham Lincoln once said that the best thing about the future is that it comes only one day at a time. With apologies to Lincoln, we recommend this book to all senior executives and managers - because the future will be here sooner than you think.

The book rehashes the article for an extra couple hundred pages. I've got this book on the shelf, but when I want to talk about the Balanced Score Card concept, I go back to the article.

I'm running a small consulting company and my prior goal was to identify what Balanced Scorecard is and in what way can I suggest it to my existent clients.

I've started learning BSC from "Using the Balanced Scorecard as a Strategic Management System", a Harvard Business Review article by Kaplan and Norton.

The Balanced Scorecard: Translating Strategy into Action is a great book, but it's far away from scorecard success step-by-step.

I've searched with google for Balanced Scorecard and related topics, but there was just "Kaplan and Norton wrote..." or "Our consulting company..." articles. Also, I've found Strategy2Act software, that seems to be a good point to start developing BSc.

My opinion is that it's a great book for every independent consultant. But there are a lot of job to translate this conception into something useful for real company.

For my opinion the good idea to start with is "connect everyone with strategy". It sounds like easy to do, but effective way to start using BSc ideas in company strategy.

This book is a seminal work that has significantly affected the way businesses frame and execute strategy.

In a nutshell, the authors show you how to view your business strategy, drivers and key indicators in four dimensions - financial, external (customer satisfaction), internal (processes) and learning/growth. They then show you how to link these to your strategies and develop and execute plan for transforming them into action and results.

The good and the bad. First, the good - before Kaplan and Norton published this book there was no standardized method for framing and measuring what's important. This book rectifies that. Also, the ideas first introduced have been embraced and extended to the point that a book search of similar titles returns over 2600 hits, and a google search using 'balanced scorecard' as a keyword returns ten time that many. This is a clear indication of how influential this book is and remains eight years after publication. But those are simple statistics. What's important about this book is many of the other resources that have sprang from it assume that you are familiar with the concepts and approach in this book.

The bad - the writing style, as noted by others is ponderous. That does not diminish the concepts and approach. It is also showing its age, but only because of the body of work that this book has inspired, which has greatly extended and refined the basic ideas. You will still need to read this book to get the most out of the body of work that is based upon it. Also note that even Kaplan and Norton, the authors, have extended this work into strategy maps and a 'strategy-focused organization' paradigm.

Overall this book has - and will continue to - influence thinking. The ideas set forth are still evolving and have been embraced by some of the largest (and smallest) companies on the planet. If you are new to this material I recommend visiting Balanced Scorecard Institute (ASIN B00006CKQ2) for introductory information, and Balanced Scorecard Online (ASIN B00006DBZ5) for more detailed material.

If you want to rise to the top in your business and career you need to have a great system for managing results. The management cycle involves defining objectives, assigning responsibilities, developing performance standards, evaluating results, and developing improvements where necessary.

There may be many layers or hierarchies of organizational objectives, such as Corporate, Branch, Department, Team, and Individual. A good management system will capture all of the organizational objectives, and all will be linked to the overall business strategy. One helpful tool for capturing organizational objectives is the Balanced Scorecard. This system
uses measures in four major categories:

1. FINANCIAL PERFORMANCE

2. CUSTOMER SATISFACTION

3. INTERNAL BUSINESS PROCESSES

4. LEARNING AND GROWTH REQUIREMENTS

The actual measures selected are highly dependent upon the type of business and should be carefully developed to ensure proper
results are obtained. The goal is to select measures that best relate to the overall company strategy. As such, each scorecard will be unique. I have used a Balanced Scorecard and highly recommend them to help organize the complex assemblage of organizational objectives into a unitary whole. This fantastic book tells you everything you need to know. Highly recommended!

Kaplan and Norton are the visionaries behind the Balanced Scorecard (BSc), and this is their first book on the subject. BSc as Kaplan and Norton conceived of it was focused on measurement, specifically measuring variables that had some linkage to corporate financial results so that the direction of the organization could be determined prior to the occurrence of a bad quarter or two. THE MEASURES OF ANY MANAGEMENT CONCEPT ARE ITS ADOPTION AND ITS STAYING POWER, AND KAPLAN AND NORTON'S BSc IS AN OVERWHELMING SUCCESS.

BUT companies that enacted BSc's started to tie them to corporate strategies, making them strategic management tools and not just measurement tools. One of the advancements was to tie define measures that measured the success of strategic intent as defined by specific objectives and goals. Another was to create cause and effect maps of the objectives, called "strategy maps."

Measurement is, of course, still an important part of the BSc, but the process of determining what to measure begins higher up the strategic ladder. KAPLAN AND NORTON THEMSELVES CHRONICLE THE GROWTH OF BSc INTO A STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT TOOL IN THEIR SUBSEQUENT WORK.

So, this book is a bit outdated, though it is still a useful introduction. However, I recommend that you try:
* Strategy Maps: Converting Intangible Assets into Tangible Outcomes by Kaplan and Norton

* The Strategy-Focused Organization: How Balanced Scorecard Companies Thrive in the New Business Environment, also by Kaplan and Norton

* Balanced Scorecard Step-by-Step: Maximizing Performance and Maintaining Results by Paul R. Niven

And a good introductory article to the idea of strategy mapping is "Using the Balanced Scorecard as a Strategic Management System", a Harvard Business Review article by Kaplan and Norton that is also available on Amazon.

The book is somewhat helpful, but given the current conditions, it is no longer applicable. I would rather go for the new book Six Sigma Business Scorecard, which is a surprisingly good modification and has a new revolutionary theme to it.

The balanced scorecard can be thought of as the "strategic chart of accounts" for an organization. It captures both the financial and the nonfinancial elements of a company's strategy and discusses the cause-and-effect relationships that drive business results. It allows, for the first time, an organization to look ahead - using leading indicators - instead of only looking back using lagging indicators. The balanced scorecard puts strategy - the key driver of results today - at the center of the management process.
It's an essential book of management.

TOn one hand,this book is very informative, especially on the topic of business competition in the information age. On the other hand, the material is heavy and difficult to follow if you are new to the territory. In fact, this book is so jammed with information, though. I recommend wading through it twice,or pick up Guerrilla PR Wired by Michael Levine.The content is similar but more direct.

Kaplan and Norton's book has become an industry standard, and deservedly so - effective implementation of a BSC is highly effective for an organisation. The much-touted Six-Sigma program borrows VERY heavily from the ideas of Kaplan and Norton.

All of the other positive comments made by reviewers are valid, but my single criticism of this book is that it fails to adequately warn the reader of the tremendous technical issues that will arise when trying to actually source the data required. It's easy to put space for a statistic such as "customer satisfaction" into a scorecard, but actually determining that particular value implies an enormous amount of summarisation of data from sales, complaints, returns, CRM and so on. Doing all of this requires many things to be accomplished beforehand, such as the standardisation of business definitions (eg. does each department use the same definition of "customer"? Without this consistency the statistic becomes meaningless).

If you are seriously investigating BSC as a management tool, you will need to get informed about Data Warehousing and Business Intelligence first. Without a firm foundation of low-level information integration and management, BSC just becomes another fluffy management gimmick. This is a shame, because it doesn't have to be that way - BSC can be incredibly valuable and efficient if implemented effectively.

Anyone with an ounce of real practical business experience knows that all businesses have evaluation systems to measure the performance of business units. However, the classical BSC methodology of Kaplan and Norton is cumbersome and too much effort to implement and it has never (nor will it be) widely adopted.

In the financial services segment, practically no financial insitution uses the classical BSC methodology.

Do they evaluate the performance of their business units? Absolutely. But the evaluation methodology reflects the practical realities of the business, not on the academecians' view of the world.

I read this book when it was first published (1996) and recently re-read it. As Kaplan and Norton explain in their Preface, "the Balanced Scorecard evolved from an improved measurement system to an improved management system." The distinction is critically important to understanding this book as well as The Strategy-Focused Organization which they later wrote. Senior executives in various companies have used the Balanced Scorecard as the central organizing framework for important managerial processes such as individual and team goal setting, compensation, resource allocation, budgeting and planning, and strategic feedback and learning. When writing this book, it was the authors' hope that the observations they share would help more executives to launch and implement Balanced Scorecard programs in their organizations.

The material is organized within two Parts, preceded by the excellent Preface and then two introductory chapters: "Measurement and Management in the Information Age" and "Why Does Business Need a Balanced Scorecard?" Logically, Part One examines measurement of business strategy; Part Two examines management of business strategy. Having read all of the 12 chapters, each concluded with a Summary of key points, readers are then provided with an Appendix: "Building a Balanced Scorecard." That process consists of a series of specific "tasks": (1) selection of the appropriate organizational unit, (2) identification of the SBU/corporate linkages, (3) completion of the first round of interviews during which key executives are briefed on the Balanced Scorecard program, (4) evaluation by the program's "architect" and other members of design team of feedback from various interviews, (5) conducting a "first round" workshop for the top management team, (6) conducting meetings during which the "architect" works with several subgroups, (7) conducting a "second round" workshop for members of the top management team, their direct subordinates, and an appropriate number of middle managers, (8) formulating the implementation plan, (9) conducting the "third round" workshop, and finally (10) Finalizing the implementation plan. Kaplan and Norton guide their reader through each stage of the process, suggesting all manner of strategies and tactics for consideration without inhibiting their reader from determining what is most appropriate for her or his own organization.

Although decision-makers in larger organizations will derive substantial benefit from this book, it would be a mistake to assume that the Balanced Scorecard would not be appropriate to small-to-midsize organizations. On the contrary, it may be even more valuable to them because they have relatively fewer resources available; therefore, the consequences of a failed strategy have greater (in some instances fatal) impact. The two concepts of "balance" and "scorecard" are critically important. All organizations must formulate and then effectively manage those strategies which enable them to achieve an appropriate balance of various resources while taking full advantage of measurement devices by which to obtain relevant as well as accurate and timely data for their strategies' scoreboard. Kaplan and Norton obviously have all this in mind when suggesting, in the Appendix, "core" measures for finance (e.g. ROI/EVA), customer relationships (e.g. customer retention), and learning and growth (e.g. employee satisfaction). Those who share my high regard for this book are urged to read Kaplan and Norton's sequel to it, The Strategy-Focused Organization. It continues their rigorous excamination of what a Balanced Scoreboard can help all organizations to accomplish with effective management of a correct strategy.

Not only that, but it is written in a style that will make your want to scream! I'd quote sentences that make up entire paragraphs, but if you like this sort of writing, read James Joyce. I think these guys must also contract out as government rule writers, because governmental rules are the only printed materials I have ever seen that resemble the prolixity to be found here.

But prolixity does not indicate profundity. Once one fights through the Harvard-educated prose (Harvard should be ashamed!), this is a very simplistic set of ideas. Many different forces and fields of endeavor feed the bottom line, so one has to strategically pay attention to all of them to enhance the bottom line. There! One sentence! Not so difficult. But you won't believe it after having wasted your time with this one.

What ever you do, don't give this book to your employees. After wrestling through the first chapter, they are likely to call in sick.

Balanced Scorecard is an excellent book for prospective business managers because of some reasons. One of them is that the book clearly indicates the logical relationship between financial objectives and other non-financial objectives for the firms. Secondly, the book presents some very usable tools for translating strategy into action. For this aim, measurement tools for strategy are developed. These two priorities makes the book an important source in the field of strategic planning.

In this book, four dimensions of strategy thought are "Financial, Customer, Operations, and Learning and Development". Authors strongly believe that there should be a powerful connection among these four dimensions if organizations are to be successful in an environment in which stiff competition dominates. According to the authors, one of the most important cause of business failures is that some companies make an excess emphasis on financial objectives and so ignore the ways to realize these objectives. How to develop a system which makes an equal emphasis on four dimensions of strategy mentioned above is explained in the book. For managers who do not know but want to learn how to make a plan that will be functional and measurable, this book is a must.

The one of the most important contributions of this book is its approach to the Learning Process in strategic planning. According to the authors, strategy creating process is also a learning process and therefore should be exploited.

I strongly recommend.

This is one of those books, you can read and get "aha's" from start to finish. It's not the touchy-feely stuff non-quality believers think when they hear quality and measurements. The authors provide a step by step roadmap that is very well described and visually enhanced with some of the most outstanding charts I've seen. Between the well organized thought and flow of the book--the connections between strategy, tactics, CEO level, worker level, financial, customer, internal business processes, and organizational learning aspects are crystal clear. If you want to change your organization--or just improve what's important in your organization--this one is a must. And, it is not just a balanced measurement program--it leads to a balance management program--with everyone connected.

The measurement of the enterprise performances is today more and more important for business units and their management. To provide a real balanced growth of your enterprise I suggest to every kind of manager to read carefully this book. I'm sure you'll find a new way to design your business or to clarify where are you going to. Don't miss it.

Many organizations are in the process of implementing the `Balanced Scorecard', yet some are struggling. Either they fail to implement the measures, or the measures fail to have the expected impact.

Organizations execute four 'mission critical' activities, for a scorecard to succeed. Each is more difficult than might appear and must be performed by a different part of the organization.

1. Articulating the strategy: Top management must articulate and disseminate the strategy. More than measuring success, a performance system communicates a strategy. Without a strategy, the performance measures become an `anything goes' exercise. `Anything goes in theory' means that `everything stays in practice'.

2. Designing the measures: A core task team must design the measures to avoid uneconomic behavior. Poorly thought out measures create counter productive activity.

3. Operationalizing the measures: Once measures are defined, programmers operationalize and automate them.

Even revenue can be complicated in practice: When is it recorded, and what does it include. The task team may well find themselves getting what they asked for, and not what they wanted.

4. Getting the buy-in: Change management skills are needed to align the changes and create buy in. Dilbert cynically states that there are two steps to a great performance measurement system. 1) Gather information and 2) ignore it. For performance measurement to work, the system must be accepted, understood, and aligned to the reward.

The book, `The Balanced Scorecard' by Kaplan and Norton has become compulsory reading for middle management. It is very good, with the one weakness that it makes performance measurement look deceptively simple.

The Balanced Scorecard looks at the important issues of alignment, coordination, and effective implementation. Most business thinkers like to start with the big picture, and end there. As a result, most ideas for going in a new direction are quickly diluted by misunderstanding, falling back on old habits, and lethargy. Since Peter Drucker first popularized the idea of business strategy, there have been vastly more strategies conceived than there have been strategies successfully implemented as a result. Much attention has been paid to devising better strategies in the last four decades, and little to implementing strategies. The big pay-off is in the implementation, and The Balanced Scorecard is one of handful of books that provide important and valuable guidance to explain what needs to be done to successfully execute strategy. You must have more measures, and different measures than the accounting system provides. You also need to link measures and compensation to the key tasks that each person must perform. This book is simply the Rosetta Stone of communicating and managing strategy. The Balanced Scorecard is the beginning of the practical period of maturity in the field of business strategy. Read this book today to enjoy much more prosperity! I also recommend that you read The Fifth Discipline, The Fifth Discipline Handbook, and The Dance of Change to understand more about the context in which you are trying to make positive change. These four books are excellent companions for each other.

The book was introduced to me through a seminar at the American Management Association (AMA). Having had the occurrence to use the methods in both the public and private sector, it was extremely helpful in keeping my applications "basic", yet have the measures affect down and upline management decisions. Once introduced to the system, it's quite revealing what the scorecard reveals.

The only drawback, and it seems I am not alone in this, is the time commitment needed to read the book, and actually have the cognitive level to allow it to penetrate my flooded mind. You must read the book in segments; too much at once and you will lose half of what was read. Taking the time to read it will allow the strategic elements to reach you, and hopefully stay with you.

It's a must for business managers and those charged with critical decisions that affect the system as a whole.

Nothing can replace good old common sense and that concept is alive and well in this retrograde approach to business practices. If you are a "spin the strategy wheel" junkie waiting for the latest "flavor of the week" business paridigm then stay far, far away from this selection. I found that this book touts those principals that are sound, easily recognizable and understandable by all employees. While I am not in a managerial role...this book speaks volumes to those that are.

If I had a business student who wrote a paper as turgidly as this book is written, I'd flunk her. These folks come from Harvard? It reads like it was written in a business center in Burma, and then translated badly. I hope they talk better than they write!

Not only is it horribly written, but the ideas are truly regressive. It's the old top-down, command-style management, ways to ensure that employees are doing what management is telling them they need to. I can imagine this book being useful in East Germany in the early 60s; I can't imagine a forward-thinking corporation (or governemnt) in the year 2000 using this, except out of ignorance or desperation.

Go across the street to MIT's Peter Senge (or half a dozen basic business books for that matter) for much more useful approaches.

Speaking as someone involved in implementing a balanced score card, this book is invaluable. Having heard half the story before reading this book and performing an exhaustive analysis of corporate KPIs, this book made it substantially clearer how to determine those of strategic releveance and how to determine the relationships between the KPIs explicity.

Whilst a slightly dry read, it is essential to any business manager or consultant who is to be involved in implementing a Balanced Score Card.

Kaplan and Norton's book establishes the pathways to develop not only a superb strategic management system but an effective strategic communication system as well. In every business those two enterprises are co-dependant and are key to effective strategies being effectively realized. Those looking for the trendy business "idea d'jour" should look elsewhere; the BSC focuses on practical methods and measures to move strategy into sustainable operational actions. While the Balanced Scorecard may not transform your organization, it can give you the competitive advantage needed to prevail in your market. The book is very readable and gives a comprehensive overview of the processes involved.

OK, so strategy consultants suffer from the 'strategy-of-the-week' syndrome and forget to implement. Great managers know this and that's why they boot consultants out after a couple of months or so. However the Balanced Scorecard isn't a recipe for how to implement so much as a book-long brief for a large consultancy project. Treat with caution.

While written in typical textbook fashion (which makes it a very "dry" read), the simple insights presented in the book can foster the changes needed in business today. By focusing on a top-down approach to goal setting, the organization will move in the direction set by those at the top. This puts the ultimate success (or failure) on those key decision makers who initially set the goals for the organization.

If you (or the company you work for) are looking for a clear way to communicate action to the "troops" who get the job done, this may be your book. If you are a middle manager, be prepared to be frustrated in the clarity this book will provide you (trust me, I know of what I speak!) in seeing how your organization could do better.

To sum it up, dry and wordy but worth the time you'll spend reading it!

This book does not deliver on the expectations built by the initial Balanced Scorecard articles. It does very little to clarify and structure the concept and approach to building a Balanced Scorecard. There are a few interesting ideas but they get lost in a repetitive and hard to read text.

A much needed overview of why companies (and organizations) need a strategy linked to performance measures in a way that communciates the strategy throughout the organization. As much as I liked "The Balanced Scorecard" it is not as complete in the area of operations implimentation as I need when working with clients. I've found an excellent reference for operations managers to be "Operational Performance Measurement: Increasing Total Productivity" by Will Kaydos. Executives get the Scorecard, operations managers need different insight to make it work for them.

I read the initial Harvard Business Review article years ago and was excited about the concepts. Rushed out to buy the book when it was first available. What a disappointment! This book is little more than business 101: aligning objectives, strategies, tactics with employee work. Important? Yes. Unique? No.

Professor Kaplan has created a business atlas (better than a road map) to help executives understand how to use measurement to align strategy, planning and performance. The scorecard becomes a common vocabulary, eliminating communication stalls. The measures may be changed as conditions require and focus is provided. Unlike so many business models, THE BALANCED SCORECARD lives and adjusts with the organization. As co-author of THE 2,000 PERCENT SOLUTION, I am acutely aware of the harm done by processes that exist because of tradition (that is the way we do it here), the difficulty in communicating ideas and messages, the importance of measurement and the need to measure so many things to learn what causes change and if progress is being made. I appreciate and applaud Professor Kaplan for developing THE BALANCED SCORECARD and for knowing how to introduce it to executives to encourage acceptance and wide-spread use.

Having an idea is one thing. Getting that idea accomplished is another. THE BALANCED SCORECARD is wonderful for helping with the latter. It is the best explanation of how to communicate and implement a new direction that I have ever seen. But you need a great new idea to start with, and I strongly suggest you read THE 2,000 PERCENT SOLUTION for that purpose, since it is just as powerful on purposeful innovation as THE BALANCED SCORECARD is on implementation of innovation. The two books make a perfect pair for you to create much more success!

You will come away with a very clear cut understanding of what corporate strategic alignment is all about and why you must have it to succeed. Strategic alignment is an extremely powereful tool that is both intense and time consuming, but well worth the effort. The Balanced Scorecard methodology quickly points out whether your company's Purpose, Vision and Mission statements can truly hold water. As the authors warn, do not take implementation of this program lightly.

Kaplan has produced a classic work here, with a solid approach to using metrics in the long and short term management of an organization. This really is a must for corporate leaders. Complementing The Balanced Scorecard, I would also recommend The 2000 Percent Solution, a breakout strategy for really getting your company moving forward again.

AS THE VICE PRESIDENT OF A SMALL/MIDDLE SIZE DISTRIBUTOR, WE FOUND THIS BOOK GAVE US SOME GOOD IDEAS ON MEASUREMENT. OUR MANAGERS WERE ASKED TO READ IT ALSO. IF THIS IS THE LINE OF INFO THAT YOUR LOOKING AT, YOU SHOULD READ THE 2000 PERCENT SOLUTION WHICH HAS MANY NEW AND EFFECTIVE IDEAS

Since Peter Drucker first popularized the idea of business strategy, there have been vastly more strategies conceived than there have been strategies successfully implemented. Much attention has been paid to devising better strategies, and little to implementing strategies. The big pay-off is in the implementation, and THE BALANCED SCORECORE hits a home run in showing how to explain what needs to be done to successfully execute strategy. You must have more measures, and different measures than the accounting system provides. You also need to link measures to the key tasks that each person must perform. This book is simply the Rosetta Stone of communicating and managing strategy. THE BALANCED SCORECARD is the beginning of the practical period of maturity in the field of business strategy. Read this book today to enjoy much more prosperity!

Me parecio sinceramente competitiva, pues muestra de manera tangible los beneficios y condiciones de gestión automatizada y controlada, del Balanced Scorecard. Gracias a Kaplan por ser tan explícito.

This book presents a remedy for the common "affection" that occurs in all companies that want to establish a quality system: too many indicators. The idea is so simple , split this indiators in 4 major areas, in order to not lost focus on management. Prof. Kaplan show in this the best way to do this. It is a classic !