Balanced Scorecard Designer

Practical training and coaching for balanced scorecard

Balanced Scorecard trainings

• We are able to provide you with Balanced Scorecard training and coaching;
• Our trainings are focusing on practical aspects of Balanced Scorecard;
• Training includes some theoretical background and practical examples – you are learning by doing;
• Why train with us?
• We can run web-based trainings or trainings on client’s location.
• Interested in training? Use contact form to send request.

Training price

• Below we are offering promotional price that is subject to increase soon.
  
• Our basic price for web-based training is 70 EUR/hour;
• Our basic price for training in client’s-location is 160 EUR/hour;
• Taxes are not included in the specified price;
• Travel and accommodation expenses should be covered by client;
• There are volume discounts if you purchase more than 1 training course;

Available training courses

• Practical introduction to Balanced Scorecard training [3 hours]
• Successful design of Key Performance Indicators (KPI) – who should create them and how [3 hours]
• Guide to practical implementation of Balanced Scorecard in the whole organization [2 hours]
• Easier and more transparent strategy map with Balanced Scorecard [2 hours]
• Cascading balanced scorecard in your organization [2 hours]
• Risk management integrated in Balanced Scorecard [2 hours]
• Audit of balanced scorecard that you already run in your company [3-6 hours]

Request for training

Please, use contact form to send the request for training.

admin Official, Training balanced scorecard, coaching, kpi, traning

Futura, a custom aluminum extrusion company, realized that their employees were their greatest asset in a competitive marketplace, and the foundation of their success in customer service, operations and profitability.  They used the Balanced Scorecard approach to make employee retention and support a priority, implementing a suite of human resource tools and effecting a significant and measurable increase in employee loyalty and satisfaction rates.

Introduction

An international company based in Clearfield, Utah, Futuraspecializes in customized, start-to-finish aluminum extrusion services, including finishing, fabrication, machining and design.  With nearly 60 years in business, the company has built up a niche clientele in a wide range of industries, including home construction, electronics, transportation, retail and more.

The Challenge

Futura was a conscientious company that had already developed a set of financial and customer relationship metrics, and they had also achieved ISO accreditation (an internationally recognized quality designation offered by the International Organization for Standardization).  However, they knew that their most valuable assets were their employees, and that they needed to focus on their human resources infrastructure.  A competent, stable, committed workforce was the key to improved operations, better customer relationships and larger profits.

In fact, in 1995 Futura hired a new CEO, Susan. D. Johnson, because of her “employees first” philosophy. The company wanted to find a way to improve retention, satisfaction and advancement rates among workers, and ensure the loyalty and performance excellence of their workforce.

They needed to build a corporate culture that put employees first and ensured that the benefits of a supported, loyal workforce were measurable in all areas: as measurable improvements in employee retention and job satisfaction, financial growth, organizational efficiency and customer relationships.

The Solution

Starting in 1996, Futura used the Balanced Scorecard approach to create four aligned perspectives: the financial perspective, the customer perspective, the internal operations perspective and the learning, innovation and growth perspective. Goals were developed for each perspective, along with a series of measurements to help them determine how close they were to achieving each goal.

Because employee engagement was considered to be the basis upon which excellence in each perspective was built, the learning innovation and growth perspective was prioritized, with a host of new tools created to engage employees and measure improvements in the workforce.  These new measurement and engagement tools included:

• “Employee Friendly Initiatives at Futura” survey, a survey that listed more than 60 employee benefits and encouraged staff to identify benefits that were a priority.  Prioritized benefits, such as dependent and spouse scholarships, flex-time options and short-term loans, were then added to employees’ benefits packages.
• “Birthday Review,” an interview conducted with each staff member on their birthday to determine their employment satisfaction levels and identify gaps in their on-the-job support.
• “Leadership Survey,” an opportunity for employees to provide feedback on the levels of courtesy and support their superiors show them.
• “Certification and Training Matrix,” a certification program that encourages employees to improve their skills and cross-train, resulting in a more upwardly mobile and flexible workforce.  The matrix also helps clearly define the pathway to advancement for employees at all levels.
• “Annual Performance and Personal Development Review,” a thorough and holistic performance review process that evaluates past performance, sets future goals, explores how employees can enrich their personal and professional lives and allows them to provide input on how their superiors can better support them.

The Balanced Scorecard helped Futura to identify the right tools and determine meaningful ways of measuring their effectiveness.

The Result

Within three years of implementing a Balanced Scorecard approach,Futura has met—and in many cases exceeded—their human resource goals.

The Balanced Scorecard helped the company to put the focus on nurturing their human resources by implementing an engagement and retention strategy with a set of holistic tools, including surveys, performance reviews,attractive benefits that reflect the specific needs and priorities of Futura’s workforce, clear certification pathways and opportunities for employees to “manage up,” providing valuable feedback to their superiors and leaders.

This allowed the company to exceed their employee satisfaction goal of 3.2 out of a four on their annual Gallop employee survey.  Within three years, employees were returning average scores of 3.26.

Most importantly, Futura was able to increase staff retention significantly as a result of these efforts, resulting in a 33% reduction in turnover.  The company now boasts a retention rate that is far above the industry average.  Industry-wide, the turnover rate is approximately 50%; Futura’s is a fraction of that at 10.7%.

Trademarks mentioned in this article belongs to the respective owners.

admin Case Studies Aluminum, Case Studies, Manufacturer, scorecard

Southern Gardens Citrus (SGC), located in Clewiston, Florida, currently produces more than 50 percent of the private label, not-from-concentrate orange juice in America. A subsidiary of United States Sugar Corporation, it’s now the world’s largest supplier of 100 percent pure, not-from-concentrate orange juice to the private label industry and to major brands. The company owns more than 2.5 million orange trees, and processes their product in the state’s most modern facility.

Summary

In the mid-1990s, SGCwanted to break into the private-label market for not-from-concentrate orange juice.  To do so, they needed to tighten operations, reduce product costs and motivate employees to align their performance with the company’s core values.  The Balanced Scorecard approach allowed them to carefully monitor their operations, reduce product costs and deliver excellent customer service, resulting in a phenomenal leap from owning no market share to becoming the top supplier of private-label products.

The Challenge

In 1995, SGC was a small business of 150 employees.  With a new VP and General Manager taking the helm, it was the right time for the company to establish a strong corporate culture and move towards becoming a more dynamic and responsive organization.  The not-from-concentrate orange juice market was crowded with competitors, and SGC wanted to break into the market for private-label product and become a top-rated supplier.  To do so, the company needed to keep its product costs low and product quality high while providing service excellence.  They needed a framework that would allow them to carefully monitor organization-wide performance, motivate employees to support strategic goals, and uncoveroperational areas requiring improvement.

The Solution

SGC decided that the Balanced Scorecard approach would allow them to develop the best framework for motivating employeesto support the company’s core values by calibrating employee compensation to measurable achievement in these areas.  The Balanced Scorecard would also help them to set ambitious goals and carefully monitor their progress.

SGC developed a tandem Balanced Scorecard approach, with a corporate Scorecard for overall organizational alignment and strategic integrity, and a Bonus Scorecard, which linked employee bonuses to the support and fulfillment of the corporate strategy.  Five perspectives were captured in the Scorecards: financial, customer, internal, innovation and learning, and core values.  Each of these perspectives was aligned with the company’s strategic goals, each of which was set at a specific number or percentage increase or decrease:

• Increase sales of not-from-concentrate juice.
• Secure a greater portion of fruit supply on a long-term basis.
• Reduce the integrated cost of product
• Continuously improve processes and products, and lower costs.
• Continue to improve HR, technical, and operational skills as a competitive advantage.

SGC organized its employees into 10 operating teams tasked with taking ownership of the Balanced Scorecard elements relevant to their operational area.  Teams defined what should be measured in their area, and team managers connected with one another regularly to ensure that area efforts complemented and reinforced each other.

While clear strategic goals and a cross-functional team structure ensured organizational co-ordination and support, the Bonus Scorecard encouraged individual employees to align their efforts with the overall corporate goals by tying compensation into the achievement of those goals.  Employees in each organizational area were rewarded with one of three compensation levels according to how well they had met the goals for their area.  For instance, those in customer service were expected to measurably contribute to specific departmental targets for loading cycle times, customer satisfaction rates and the percentage of shipments that were shipped within specification.  Support for the company’s core values and the employee’s commitment to innovation and learning were also taken into account.

The Result

In the six years since implementing the Balanced Scorecard approach, SGC achieved outstanding results. Employees have risen to the challenge, with all major work units reporting the highest measurable levels of adherence to the company’s core values of safety, attitude, teamwork, productivity and quality.

Most impressively, the company has surged ahead as a competitive supplier.  Before the company implemented the Scorecard, they supplied none of the not-from-concentrate orange juice to the private label market, and ranked last among suppliers.  In the years following Scorecard implementation, SGC grew this area of their business, eventually supplying 60 percent of the private label market and becoming the acknowledged leader among bulk not-from-concentrate suppliers.  At the same time, the costs per pound for their juice product have declined steadily from the first year they implemented the Scorecard.  The company is now the lowest-cost supplier of not-from-concentrate orange juice in the industry.

Trademarks mentioned in this article belongs to the respective owners.

admin Case Studies Case Studies, food, Manufacturer

Exporting data from the BSC Designer project is an important function, widely used by our clients while maintaining the Balanced Scorecard concept within the company. The tool allows a wide range of easy to create and understandable reports, including several types of HTML – based reports (Export to HTML, HTML report for selected item, Overview report, Dashboard report for the whole project and for selected item, Strategy Map report), Microsoft Office Suite –based reports (Exporting data to MS PowerPoint and MS Excel). Those reports not only export data from the BSC Designer project (*.bsc file) but also build diagrams and charts, showing different aspects of data, presented in the project.

MS Excel report (“Export to Excel” function) with BSC Designer

This article is aimed to describe the most unusual and unique report, which in some way cannot even be called report, because it contains lots of digits, but no graphs or diagrams. MS Excel Report (or “Export to Excel” function) really has unique structure and the situations, it could be used successfully, might differ from the cases, the other reports (like HTML or MS PowerPoint) could be used. The purposes of Excel Report’s usage might be the following:

How to create MS PowerPoint Report with BSC Designer

Let’s create and explore the MS Excel report with BSC Designer to learn more about this powerful and unique function. A real example of creating MS PowerPoint report will be described and shown.

Launch BSC Designer (Standard or Pro version) and open one of the projects (the default one will be used in our case). Then change some of indicators maximal and minimal values – it will be needed to show the potential of Excel report. The next step to be recommended is filling the project with random values. This function also allows the report to show all its functionality by filing the project with values for the selected period of time. If you already had a chance to use time points in your project (if your project is already filled with values for different dates), it would be better for you to skip this step. Check out the article called “How to manage time points with BSC Designer” to learn more about the calendar function and time points management, it provides. To fill the project with random values, click on “Tools” button on the top menu and select “Fill with random values” sign. That is it, we have just filled our project with values for different time points within the selected period.

Now, when the project is filled up with the different values of the indicators and their parent categories, it could be presented in report. So it’s time to create the MS Excel report. Click on “Reports” button on the top menu and select “Export to MS Excel” sign. Please make sure you have MS Excel program (the part of the Microsoft Office suite) installed on your computer and registered, otherwise BSC Designer will not be able to export the information. After “Generate” button was clicked, MS Excel will be launched and the report, created by BSC Designer, will be opened. Congratulations! The report has just been created! Now every of its features will be shown and described. If you are not BSC Designer user yet and you are not able to create the report, you may download the full version of the report, described in this article.

The top field of MS Excel report with BSC Designer

The top field of the Excel report contains the basic information for the project. First of all it presents the project’s name (it is “Balanced Scorecard” in our case) and its description (in our case it is “The default project filled with random data created to show how to operate with BSC Designer software”). This information could be changed by the user manually while editing Excel file or, but also it could be changed in BSC Designer program, so this information will be exported correctly not only to MS Excel, but also to MS PowerPoint and HTML formats of reports. To change this information, open BSC Designer, click on “File” button on the top menu and select “Document Properties” sign. Then input the author’s name and type correct project’s name (for example, Financial Scorecard) instead of “Balanced Scorecard”. Press “OK” button to apply changes.

Then the report shows the performance values for the main categories and the whole project’s total performance. Please note, oppositely to other reports, showing performance values (Export to HTML, HTML report for selected item, Dashboard report for the whole project and for selected item, exporting to MS PowerPoint) MS Excel report does not ask user to select the reporting period – it shows the value only for the date, which is currently selected on the calendar (read more about the calendar function and time points management in the article: How to manage time points with BSC Designer).

Now let’s move to the “Help” field – it says: You can change the values in “weight” column, the value must be between 0 and 10; You can change the values in “Value” column; That is really one of the most important point of MS Excel report with BSC Designer – it actually could be used as an alternative tool to manage *.bsc projects. Changing the values and the weights, it will automatically recalculate the project’s performance. All the formulas to recalculate the performance already exist in the *.xls / *.xlsx file, created by BSC Designer. So the project might be operated with Excel even without using BSC Designer at all. Certainly, the functionality of using this configuration of Excel project is limited by values for indicators and weight management, but it could be enough in some cases. For example, this file could be shared with colleagues or other people involved (for example, outsourcers), who are not equipped with BSC Designer, but equipped with MS Office with MS Excel in it. Excel version of BSC Designer project, i.e. MS Excel report, does not support management of a time points and that is why the time dynamics cannot be displayed in it. We will show the example of changing values and weights directly in Excel (not BSC Designer) later, after the columns of data will be described.

The left part of the chart (the beginning)

Let’s start describing the chart, presenting one of the categories. All the columns, presented on the image are actually easy to understand: “Perspective” field shows the name of the category, “indicator” field shows the name of the indicators, “Description” field shows description for the categories and for the indicators. “Weight” column shows weight values for the elements: yellow color for the categories and green for the indicators; those values could be changed manually while editing MS Excel project, changes of weight values will cause the changes of their parent items (categories or subcategories) performance values: the more is the weight of the item (the range is from 0 to 10), the more important it appears to be for the parent category. For example, the category with the three indicators in it, having weight values of 1, 2 and 10: the changes of the first two indicators’ (weight = 1, weight = 2) values will have much less effect on the category’s performance, than any changes of the last indicator’s (weight = 10) value. “Value” column shows the values of the indicators and the calculated value of the categories. Changing the values of the indicators will affect the performance values of their parent categories and the whole project. The values, showing on this column are exact values, had been set in the BSC project (without linking to “Min” and “Max” values).

The right part of the chart (the end of it)

Continuing describing the informative chart for the category, we are moving to the right part of it. The picture presents 4 more columns. “Target Value” column shows the goal for the indicator – the ideal number, which is needed to be reached in order for company to achieve the strategic goal (or part of it), measured by the indicator. It could be minimal number for the indicator or the maximal, depending on the optimization direction (read more about optimization direction of the indicator in the article “How to manage indicators and performance values with BSC Designer”). “Target Description” column presents the information from the same field of BSC Designer Project, located on the bottom panel for every of the indicators – this information does not participate in the calculations. “Absolute Weight” column shows the coefficient of weight value of the item, referring to the whole project’s performance. The numbers here depend on both the indicator’s own weight and its parent category’s weight. This column shows technical measuring information, which is not presented in BSC Designer’s project, but it is presented here in Excel Report to give users a possibility to improve the file or to link it to some other database if needed; usually such procedure is performed by technical professionals of the company or outsourcers. One more column, presenting technical information is named “Absolute Performance”. This is an absolute value, which depends on absolute weight value of the item, its current value, minimal and maximal values and the direction of the optimization and the formula of the optimization (read more about customizing formulas for the indicators in the article “ How to build performance formula with BSC Designer ”). For example, with maximizing direction of the optimization and the standard formula of calculation, the formula of calculating Absolute Performance value will be the following: (Absolute Weight) * ( Value – Min ) / ( Max – Min ). The value, opposite to target one is also presented in the chart, it is located under unnamed column, left to “Absolute Performance” column, lettered “M” in our example. This value is minimal when the maximizing direction of optimization is selected and maximal for minimization direction of optimization.

Editing file in MS Excel

We have promised to describe how to manage values of the items and their weights in MS Excel without using BSC Designer. First of all, let’s change the weights values for the indicators of the category called “Education and Growth Perspective”. When the report was created, the weights of the indicators were the following: 2, 7, 1. Their parent category’s value with those settings was “58.13”, % and the whole project’s value was “64.92”, %. Now we will change the weight values for the indicators to 4, 6, 9 directly in MS Excel. After the new weights are input, MS Excel project recalculates the performance of the category into “69.55”, % and the performance of the whole project into: “67.20”, %. The same way we could change the values for the indicators – after new value will be added, MS Excel will recalculate the performance values of the categories and for the whole project.

Editing weights – before changing

Editing weights – after changing

Here you may download the full version of MS Excel report, which had been shown in this article to look through it or it might be even better to create your own report using BSC Designer right now!

Alternatives

As you see, MS Excel report is not just a report but a project, living is own life. BSC Designer does not just transfer its data to MS Excel but also provide users with an opportunity to change weights and values so the project’s value will be automatically recalculated. Certainly, such MS Excel project does not provide users with an important function – time points. That is why it is not going to be easy to see the dynamics of values in time, using only MS Excel. MS Excel report is unique when it comes to creating some huge database on Excel project’s base or integrating data from BSC Designer project to the existing database of the company. It sure needs lots of knowledge referring to database management and SQL computer language and only a high ranking specialist could perform this.

AKS-Labs also provides its customers with one more alternative to paid versions of the tool. The free one is called BSC Designer Light and, oppositely to MS Excel project, it allows to work with time points. This version is limited by functionality but it still could be more useful in some cases, such as: sharing the project’s data with colleagues or other people involved (for example, outsourcers), who are not equipped with paid version of BSC Designer; changing the basic aspects of project’s data and perform simple indicators and categories management (including time points management) functions without paid version of BSC Designer. There is no opportunity in BSC Designer Light to create such informative reports as HTML report, PowerPoint report, Dashboard report, available in BSC Designer Standard and BSC Designer Pro and there are more limitations of functionality (check out the full chart, presenting the difference between functionality of versions on this page).

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BSC Designer successfully comes along with implementation consulting services, provided by IRS Consulting, Lithuania based Management Consultancy, which implements effective Management Systems in the Baltics since 1991

Andrejus Kaleinikovas, Managing Partner of IRS Consulting, shared his opinion about BSC Designer usage with us:

We took the challenge of using BSC Designer at our Balanced Scorecard implementation project in Lithuania. As a tool relatively easy to operate and convenient for practical realization, it helped our customers to develop efficient scorecards and as a result improve their business performance. BSC Designer helped us to realize BSC implementation project for multi-site NGO in Lithuania.

BSC Designer gave us a solution reporting critical business indicators on local site level. BSC Designer is directly addressing the business needs and management challenges our customer is facing.

Furthermore, by integrating BSC Designer and ISO based management systems IRS Consulting will be able to link business performance indicators to processes. The main goal of our client is to reduce costs and commit local employees to come up with suggestions for improvement.

At our BSC implementation project small internal group developed a strategy map based on the data needed in order to make comparable reports and discuss managerial questions. For each success criteria some performance indicators were defined and the set up was launched. It became clear to us that the management information system needed to be much more flexible than a data warehouse and that is one of the reasons why we chose BSC Designer.

BSC Designer is a very flexible system which allows the top management to follow up on all the defined indicators continuously. It has web-based service and therefore easy to implement and deploy. In addition the balanced scorecard system makes it possible for the management to see all performances of the departments at a glance.

This BSC implementation process with BSC Designer had a very positive influence on the implementation gaining commitment from everyone and adding transparency to it. In order to make BSC project as successful to the regional managers as it is at a corporate level, our customer is currently considering also developing more strategic scorecards for central and local business development purposes, ensuring the alignment of all initiatives with the strategy of the organization.

We were surprised to find an effective Balanced Scorecard solution for this customer. The implementation was rather successful and BSC Designer looks to be a promising tool for the further Balanced Scorecard implementation projects.

Andrejus Kaleinikovas, Managing Partner of IRS Consulting

Expert_KPI Case Studies bsc designer, Case Studies, consulting

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10 questions to Balanced Scorecard Expert James Creelman, independent Balanced Scorecard consultant and author

1.    Please, summarize in few words what is your expertise and background with Balanced Scorecard.

I have been involved with the Balanced Scorecard since 1993. I am an author of many Balanced Scorecard books and advise clients throughout the world – several of which have achieved Hall of Fame status. Dr David Norton has called me “the foremost chronicler and historian of the Balanced Scorecard movement.”

2.    It is known that Balanced Scorecard is used by more than 50% of Fortune companies. Do you think this concept is for big companies only?

Absolutely not. The Balanced Scorecard is used successfully from companies of any size and in any industries or sectors. If you have a strategy you can successfully deploy the Balanced Scorecard.

3.    While BSC concept is popular now, what other business performance measurement concepts can you recommend for companies to consider?

There are several emerging versions of the Balanced Scorecard that are worth looking at: most notably in my opinion the Value Creation Map pioneered by the Advanced Performance Institute in the UK. The scorecard also works well alongside frameworks such as Malcolm Baldrige or EFQM.

4.    Please, share your opinion about key ideas that should be kept in mind for successful implementation of BSC?

The most important component of a Balanced Scorecard is the Strategy Map, followed by the strategic initiatives. They are then followed by KPIs/targets. Keep the Strategy Map simple; understand the difference between objectives and initiatives and recognize that cultural barriers will likely pose the greatest barrier to scorecard success.

5.    The BSC is a business performance measurement concept, but should only top managers and CEO use it? Or should it be used company-wide? Should BSC be implemented in all departments or for instance only in HR?

Firstly, the Balanced Scorecard is not a business performance measurement concept. It is a strategic performance management framework of which measurement is but one component. A scorecard can be used at most organizational levels from the corporate level down to departmental level. The important question is “what value had the scorecard at this level – how will it improve performance.” There are many examples of good function-level (HR, finance, etc) scorecards.

6.    While there are certain benefits of BSC, do you see there any limitations or possible problems? Some areas where BSC does not work properly or is inefficient.

Don’t expect too much of the scorecard – it will not answer all of your problems. And remember it is a strategy management framework not a system for managing operations – you need an operational dashboard for the latter, which is different to a Balanced Scorecard.

7.    The BSC concept is discussed widely. What do you think, if most companies understand the importance of BSC development? Are they willing to invest in BSC? Is it hard to get decisions makers to conclusion that it is necessary to use BSC?

Decision-makers will use the Balanced Scorecard if they can see the value. If not, why should they? What we need to do better is get the message across about the value. Remember, CEOs etc get bombarded with lots of ideas. The scorecard has to stand out from the crowd to be of interest. We have enough case studies etc now to make the argument.

8.    The practical implementation is always as important as theory itself. There are a lot of ways to implement BSC from simple Excel files to software, web-based services and full integration with company business system. What do you think is the best implementation strategy in terms of quality/price? What type of tools would you use to do implementation?

Start with office tools, etc. After a year or so, migrate to a scorecard automation tool.
Automation enables a company to get the best out of the scorecard – progress tracking and reporting, best practice sharing, etc.

9.    There are companies that already use BSC, we read about them in business magazines, we read their case-studies and success stories.  What advice would you give companies that just start considering the implementation of Balanced Scorecard concept?

Keep it simple. Understand the importance of strategy maps and that the maps should comprise objectives and not initiatives. Also people will only buy-in to the idea if they can see how it will make their job easier – if it’s just one more thing to do then they will resist: and rightly do. Also remember that the scorecard is not a measurement system – this is the biggest mistake that companies make and stop them securing the real benefits of the approach – which is around step-change, breakthrough performance improvement.

10.    Thank you very much for your answers. I think our readers would like to know more about your company and service you provide. If possible share also your detailed experience with Balanced Scorecard here.

Have written 20 management books/reports, eight of which are on the Balanced Scorecard. I hace three new scorecard books due for publication this year.
I run workshops and conduct consulting assignments for companies throughout the word: two companies that I have advised have received Balanced Scorecard Happ of Fame awards from Drs Kaplan and Norton.

I can be reached at james.creelman@googlemail.com

Find more interviews with BSC experts in our “Interviews” section

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Reports play significant role in Balanced Scorecard system maintenance. There are lots of ways to show the information, measured by the dashboard to the one who created the exact task and knows every detail of it, but what if it comes to the need of presenting information to the investor or the shareholder, who might not know all the detail of the process?

First of all, when it comes to presentation, the first tool that comes to mind of most of MS Windows OS users is certainly MS PowerPoint, the part of the Microsoft Office suite. PowerPoint is widely used by business people, educators, students, and trainers because of its availability, simplicity and usability.

The second thing is when the tool is determined, it needs to export the information to it and in most of cases, and just copying the data from the dashboard and pasting it to PowerPoint does not make lots of sense. It sure is much better when the dashboard has its own function to export the information to PowerPoint the way, it could already be presented.

That is why BSC Designer allows the function of exporting the information to MS PowerPoint (also called “PowerPoint report”). This function could be really helpful in the following cases:

• To report about the activity’s performance to senior managers;
• To keep the report files in achieves for internal or external inspections needs;
• To make clear and informative presentations of the activity’s performance to the top management, management company as well as to shareholders and investors.

How to create MS PowerPoint Report with BSC Designer

Now let’s try to create MS PowerPoint report to see what it contains. A real example of creating MS PowerPoint report will be described and shown.

Launch BSC Designer (Standard or Pro version) and open one of the projects (the default one will be used in our case). The next step to be recommended is filling the project with random values. This function allows the reports to show all its functionality by filing the project with values for the selected period of time. If you already had a chance to use time points in your project (if your project is already filled with values for different dates), it would be better for you to skip this step. Check out the article called “How to manage time points with BSC Designer” to learn more about the calendar function and time points management, it provides. To fill the project with random values, click on “Tools” button on the top menu and select “Fill with random values” sign. All right, we have just filled our project with values for different time points within the selected period.

Now, when the project is filled up with values of indicators for different dates, the dynamics appeared for the project, so it could be presented in report. Now let’s create the PowerPoint report. Click on “Reports” button on the top menu and select “Export to MS PowerPoint” sign. The new dialog window will appear; select the reporting time period (it will be “last week” in our case) and click on “Generate” button. Please make sure you have MS PowerPoint program (the part of the Microsoft Office suite) installed on your computer and registered, otherwise BSC Designer will not be able to export the information. After “Generate” button was clicked, MS PowerPoint will be launched and the report, created by BSC Designer, will be opened. Congratulations! The report has just been created! Now every important slide of it will be described in details.

What does MS PowerPoint Report contain

Now when the report is ready let’s see what it contains and where does the information come from. Please note, if the report, created by you is not alike the one, that is shown below, it means you have an old version of BSC Designer Program. In this case, it is recommended to download the latest version of the program directly from our site and reinstall the software. The download page could be found here. Now we will start with MS PowerPoint presentation slides.

The first slide shows the general information: the name of the project reporting, the reporting time period and the author’s name. The name of the project and the author’s name could be changed manually in PowerPoint, but also it could be changed in BSC Designer program, so this information will be exported correctly not only to MS PowerPoint, but also to MS Excel and HTML formats of reports. To change this information, open BSC Designer, click on “File” button on the top menu and select “Document Properties” sign. Then input the author’s name and type correct project’s name (for example, Financial Scorecard) instead of “Balanced Scorecard”. Press “OK” button to apply changes and recreate the report (“Reports” -> “Export to MS PowerPoint”), if needed, so it could present correct information.

The second slide of the MS PowerPoint report presents the overview for the project. It actually contains the same image, the Overview Report presents (read more about Overview Report in the article: Reports with BSC Designer: Overview and Dashboard). To be short, both the Overview Report and the second slide of the MS PowerPoint report show the map of the elements (categories, subcategories and indicators), the project contains, mentioning their names and descriptions. This chart does not contain any information concerning performance values (BSC Designer and even the describing report allows several other tools to present the performance values) but shows only the overview for the project to provide better orientation and understanding the reporting project. If you want to change the information presented in this slide (or in the Overview Report), change the names and the descriptions for categories and indicators, your project contains and recreate the report (“Reports” -> “Export to MS PowerPoint”).

The third slide starts the report of the main category (the whole project; it is named “Balanced Scorecard” by default). It contains the general information concerning the performance values presented in textual format, including:

• Start Value – the value, the category had at the beginning of the reporting period;
• End Value – the value, the category had at the end of the reporting period;
• Dynamics – the difference between the Start Value and the End Value (Dynamics = End Value – Start Value).

Also there is a chart presented on the slide, which shows the performance data overview for every of the elements, included in the reporting category.

There are no maximal and minimal values in this slide because all the categories in BSC Designer are calculated within minimal value of ”0” and maximal value of “100” and the measure unit for the them can only be “%”. That does not mean you cannot select measure units at all but the functions, allowing editing performance values’ details, are available for the indicators (read more about editing performance values for the indicators in the article “How to manage KPIs using BSC Designer’s functions”). The categories, on the other hand, are aimed to automatically calculate the performance of the indicators and subcategories they include and show this information in a form of a point in the range from 0 percent to 100 percent.

The next slide continues the report of the main category. It presents the time performance chart for the category within the reporting period. More information about the time chart could be found in the article “How to visualize data with BSC Designer: diagrams and charts”. Time chart clearly shows the dynamics of the category’s performance and looks much more presentable, then just digits.

As for the colors of borders, they could be green, yellow and red. “Good” performance values area is marked with green light, red area is for “bad” performance and yellow area shows that the performance is not “bad” already but is not yet “good”. Certainly both “bad” and “good” terms have their own performance percentage value. By default, green area are covers the graph within the interval of 80 – 100, %%, yellow color is for 21 – 79, %% and red colored area covers the graph within the interval of 0 – 20, %%. Those boarders could be changed by the user, find out how to do this in the paragraph named “Stop Lights” of the article “ How to visualize data with BSC Designer: signal icons ”.

This slide finishes the report for the main category with the second graph, presented for it – the gauge diagram. This slide is also aimed to present the information for the category’s performance value in a form of understandable image, to make it more clear and presentable. Definitely, Gauge diagram shows the percentage of performance value for any item of the tree (both the categories and the indicators). The hand shows current performance value (End Value of reporting period to be exact) comparing to “min” (the left starting point; it is 0 percent in our case) and “max” (the right finishing point; it is 100 percent in our case) values. Read more about Gauge diagram in the article: “Gauge diagram added! HTML reports updated!” The colors boarders of gauge diagram could be managed the same way as it was described above.

This slide is an overview for the part of report, presenting one of the indicators value. Just like the same slide for the category, this one contains Start Value, End Value and Dynamics. But the indicator’s slide also shows: Score (the value of the indicator, measured with its own measure units without referring to determined minimal and maximal values), “Min” and “Max” values (oppositely to categories, indicators might have any minimal and maximal values set by the user), “Parent” field (shows the category or subcategory, which is parent for the indicator), Measure unit (it could be %, Score or any other measure unit added and selected by the user), Optimization method (also called Optimization Direction: shows the direction, the indicator’s value aims to; read more about optimization directions for the indicators in the article “ How to manage indicators and performance values with BSC Designer ”) There are also time performance chart and gauge diagram slides, presented in MS PowerPoint report for indicators. We won’t describe them in detail, because they are almost the same as for the categories.

Here you may download the full version of MS PowerPoint report, which had been shown in this article to look through it or it might be even better to create your own report using BSC Designer right now!

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Balanced Scorecard on all organizational levels

Connect, Collaborate and Control with the Balanced Scorecard

Presentation that covers the most important questions about Balanced Scorecard and its implementation on all organizational levels.

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Presentation: Balanced Scorecard on all organizational levels

Why use the Balanced Scorecard?

• Opinions from Balanced Scorecard experts
• Use the Balanced Scorecard to improve business performance
• Implement Balanced Scorecard on all levels
• Collaborate and improve business performance

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