Business Analysis Toolkit

Balanced scorecards have been around for many years. It is considered a great tool in summarizing and implementing overriding goals and objectives of businesses that stem from their strategic planning processes. Balanced scorecards define the strategies and the corresponding qualitative and quantitative measures that determine whether the business is attaining general and specific objectives. For the BSC or balanced scorecard to perform these important functions, organizations have to conduct continuing BSC business research.

Developing effective business scorecards is not as easy as one might assume. In the first place, formulating goals and implementing strategies themselves require thorough knowledge on the various factors that form the business environment. Thus, research aimed at determining what goals and strategies should be pursued, considering the internal and external situations that the businesses find themselves in, should logically be the first step taken towards formulating and finalizing such goals and strategies.

Depending on the nature and scope of business operations, conducting business research aimed at providing top management with accurate data necessary in the drafting of goals and applicable strategies should in itself be guided by a set of relevant balanced scorecards. Balanced scorecard research, in this case, should contain specific objectives, activities, resources, and methods leading to the desired outputs, timeframes, and persons or offices responsible for the accomplishment of research. Only by defining research parameters and identifying responsibilities can business research, especially one intended to support business direction settings, be expected to accomplish its purpose.

Business research, for whatever purpose it is being conducted, will most likely end up more comprehensive than originally designed, especially when the business climate and company conditions are subject to not so infrequent changes. Aside from this, any research-induced changes in the processes of a certain company have to take into account the internal environment. Thus, business research balanced scorecards end up looking into other issues that are seen relevant only in the course of pursuing the research. Actually, this is not a bad thing since business is not just about markets or financial projections. It also concerns people, employees to be exact. Business research scorecards must have a place for them, to assess their attitudes and how they will respond to some changes in the workplace, as a result of new policies stemming from researches.

How does one build BSC business research? If one is building a balanced scorecard for the purpose of conducting specific research, the contents of the balanced scorecards will largely depend on the nature of business the organization is engaged in as well as its goals. A manufacturing company contemplating product diversification will certainly want to know about the possible response of the market to the product, consumers’ preferences, the impact of competition on market viability, the financial and technical capability of the company to successfully overcome the competition, the availability of supplies, manpower skills and adaptability, distribution, and the like. All these areas have relevance to planned diversification, and consequently can be expected to be dealt with extensively in the building of research balanced scorecards.

Aside from providing the mechanisms that will effectively bring about desired research results, the balanced scorecards will also have to lay down detailed workable measurement instruments. On the other hand, balanced scorecard business research will focus more on providing new ways of improving the performance of existing organizational structures and processes, ensuring that they are always aligned with stated goals and objectives and responsive to external conditions. This means installing systems where the research function is integrated in all levels of the organization.

—

If you are interested in BSC Business Research, check this web-site to learn more about bsc business research.