Balanced Scorecard and e-government "The survivors of each species are not necessarily the strongest. And even necessarily the most intelligent. They are the ones most sensitive to changes."
In the early 90's Robert Kaplan and David Norton tried to solve a problem that plagued some large companies' anywhere in the world on the application of measures to improve performance. The dynamics of work were changing rapidly, factors such as globalization, the knowledge of the customer, the progressive growth of so-called "intangibles" were all rapidly converging to a stable change of life, the way the work itself was carried out. The Strategy was considered an instrument of effective protection under this scenario in flux. In any case, the facts suggested that approximately 90% of the organizations were unable to validate their strategies.
Kaplan and Norton made a sensational discovery: systems of performance measurement used by most companies were not able to provide the necessary information to make themselves competitive in the context of a knowledge economy. The largest number of these measures remained essentially unchanged compared to those developed by Giants first industrial at the turn of the twentieth century. Such systems are characterized by the fact that an almost exclusive place confidence in the applicability of the financial measures, were poorly prepared to the challenges faced by modern organizations. Kaplan and Norton believe that organizations should groped for introducing the concept of "balance" within their systems of measurement. Specifically, the historical accuracy and completeness of the financial measures of performance must be balanced with other "core elements", in order to consider a wider range of performance and ability of strategic operations. Their approach was radical and yet extremely simple defined La Balanced Scorecard mise in risalto l'applicabilità di misure in quattro aree distinte e tuttavia correlate: la conoscenza del cliente, i processi interni, la formazione e la crescita del personale, l'aspetto finanziario.
Grandi aziende in tutto il mondo hanno inserito a pieno titolo la Balanced Scorecard al loro interno sin dal momento della sua introduzione, negli anni '90. Stime recenti segnalano che almeno il 50% delle organizzazioni comprese in una delle liste delle imprese più ammirate d'America (pubblicate dalla rivista Fortune) usano il sistema di Balanced Scorecard. Aziende di profitto hanno utilizzato il sistema al fine di produrre soluzioni finanziarie migliori, allineare i dipendenti alla strategia, far dipendere la decisione di distribuire resources from the business goals.
However, the system of performance measurement was implemented with greater delay by government agencies and nonprofit organizations from the private sector. Among several plausible explanations in this regard, it is certainly included the reluctance on the part of public sector representatives, to experiment with instruments designed to target the private sector and the view that the efforts in favor of the application of measures This might obscure the actual orientation to the mission of the organization involved. It is on these grounds, and other similar act that should change. We
argue that public organizations and those nonprofit differ so much from their colleagues in the private sector, to be considered foreign to their design approach to performance measurement, provided by the Balanced Scorecard? While we think an appropriate response, we look at this quote: "The remaining challenges are many and complex, but taken as a whole could be characterized by two interrelated challenges, and certainly not common, namely the feasibility of implementing certain measures, and the ability to adapt to a world that is rapidly changing circumstances. Organisations are facing increasing competition, diversity of the constituent elements of the process, objectively higher expectations by the public sector, cost increases, declining support resources, technology changing rapidly, not least the management procedures of the work significantly different from each other. Survival in such an environment and the consequent feasibility of certain measures depends on the demonstration of a real capacity to adapt. "
The text refers directly to non-profit organizations: the challenges that they face are revealed , as clearly stated in the summons, substantially similar to those incurred by private firms. effective image may briefly suggest that the current organization have adopted the Balanced Scorecard as a "beacon illuminating" that can guide them through the "dark woods" imposed by changing circumstances. It can therefore be a reasonable justification to believe that even the non-profit organizations by addressing challenges in fact identical to those in the private sector, will derive benefits of the same magnitude, if not greater.
In any case, examples of application of the Balanced Scorecard are now many in the world and the concept began to emerge in Italy in the private and public organizations.
Three main factors have led to increasing the relevance of the concept of Balanced Scorecard, since its introduction into the world of work then:
- The scandals related to issues of accountability and transparency of processes, by all organizations;
- financial measures and their significant limitations;
- the inability of most organizations to effectively implement their strategies.
examine them briefly below.
- The first factor is the continued rise in the number of scandals that occurred relating to the responsibility and management of work in organizational contexts.
Although most of these disasters affecting the world of profit, even the non-profit sectors are not immune. Concerned citizens, inspection bodies and regulatory authorities become spokesperson di una richiesta di maggior trasparenza della performance organizzativa nella sua sostanza.
- La seconda componente determinante l'aumento di importanza della BSC si esplicita nella fiducia quasi esclusiva che, in tema di performance, siamo soliti riporre nelle misure finanziarie, poiché tale, ossia appunto finanziaria, è tradizionalmente la natura dei provvedimenti adottati dalle organizzazioni; la nostra dipendenza dall'applicazione delle misure finanziarie della performance è stata , in ogni caso, considerevolmente criticata negli ultimi anni. Perché? Le critiche in questione suggeriscono che le misure finanziarie non sono compatibili con l'ambiente attuale, difettano nell'efficacia di previsione di determinati problemi, consolidano personal interests at the expense of general ones, may sacrifice the long-term thinking and not relevant to many levels of the organization.
-The third and final key issue in the scope of enterprises is the implementation of the strategy carried out successfully. There are four fundamental obstacles to the success of such an operation and cover most of the organizations: One is the vision, another calls into question the people, the third is related to resources, the latest management in the broadest sense.
The system imposes a discipline on the implementation of the strategy and launch a challenge to business leaders to publicly or privately of the need to transform their strategies into objectives, measures, targets and initiatives with a view to the four perspectives of so-called "balance": the satisfaction of the customer / citizen, internal processes, learning and growth, the financial aspect.
summary, even "historic" ... ...:
in the 60's the planning and performance budgeting system has been used in the U.S.. Their application was followed by that of the system of zero-based budget, management by objectives, total quality initiatives. Then an act of a government decree and the results were translated into law, which in turn required to set up entities in the federation to implement a certification system based on the measurement of performance and understanding of the development of goals and objectives to be achieved through a progression of stages in the measurement system itself.
At the central level and local level, the Office of certification standards (gasba) supported the use of a "service completion"
The nonprofit sector has experienced the measurement of performance indicators by taking financial certification and metric systems related to those involved in a number of areas. Many nonprofit organizations have waged a battle against the concept of measuring performance, probably due to a widespread reluctance to invest in organizational capacity in general. Many institutions fear that every dollar spent on initiatives such measures of the performance represents a sum not subject to capital useful for fulfilling their mission. Many people now argue that a wise and experienced solid infrastructure is a prerequisite in the pursuit by the non-profit objectives associated with the mission.
The BSC has been widely accepted in the non-profit world (more than half of the Fortune thousand companies have adopted the system). The differences between the "profit model" and used by public and nonprofit underline the fact that while the strategy is conceptually at the heart of the Scorecard, the objectives of the mission involved however, the leading position in the overall picture. The customer satisfaction stands out among the objectives of the utmost importance in the processes of public institutions and Scorecard for non-profits. Financial objectives are critical to every organization and frequently serve as the set limits, or otherwise encourage the action of the companies that pursue them. Prospects for the internal processes, methods of learning and employee development processes are evident in public and private BSC. Many organizations rely on a set of indicators associated with financial and otherwise, have on their implementation and a thorough periodic inspection, carried out monthly or quarterly. In ogni caso, tale raccolta di indicatori ad hoc non contribuisce , se non in scarsa misura, a fornire loro una guida per apprendere e conseguentemente eseguire le loro strategie. Ciò che separa la Scorecard da altri sistemi è l'attenzione riservata da quest'ultima al rapporto di causa-effetto.
Gli obiettivi e le misure scelte per la BSC dovrebbero interessare le quattro prospettive precedentemente esaminate, per giungere all'elaborazione di un piano aziendale strategico valido. Il sistema di BSC fornisce molti vantaggi, tra i quali: la produzione di risultati, la dimostrazione pratica del processo di certificazione, la creazione di un centro di interesse sulla strategia, la diffusione di informazioni, l'autodifesa, i cambiamenti di direzione aziendale, l'ispirazione di fiducia.
