Ruhollah Ashrafian, MBA
Rahbaran System Rastak Consulting Company

After checking the BSC Designer Light version, I downloaded the BSC Designer PRO trial-version because of its additional features.
The graphical interface improves the interactive modeling of business processes. Especially the possibility to manipulate values and to see the results immediately makes BSC Designer a “creative” tool. The software has an excellent functionality for developing strategies, modeling the underlying processes and checking out the consequences of changes under specific conditions.
Applying BSC Designer to project data with known results allows a realistic estimation of the relationships between conditions given for processes in the past and achieved results. Based on such “success patterns” BSC Designer improves the modeling of expected results for future strategies depending on given conditions.

BSC Designer is an easy-to-use tool for planning and prototyping business strategies under respect of context dependent influences. Different scenarios can easily be prototyped by using BSC Designer’s category-indicator structure and its weighting mechanisms. Using BSC Designer as web-based service makes it possible to show all participants of a project the performances of business processes at a glance.

I hope to convince colleagues for using BSC Designer to improve our job by it and to implement the BSC approach in our company.

Dr. Udo Mattusch, Senior Developer at http://www.umanet.de (Cologne, Germany)

Signature text:
I confirm, that bscdesigner.com is permitted to put this information on the bscdesigner.com-web-site.

Dr. Udo Mattusch, Senior Developer at http://www.umanet.de (Cologne, Germany)

Ivan Lim, Blurmath Tuition Company, Singapore

Wilfredo Briceño
Director Consultor

Wbric-Rpérez, C.A. Consultores en Control de Gestión y Costos
WWW.WBRICRPEREZ.COM

In Wbric-Rpérez, C.A. we are always in the search of the most efficient technology to offer ours clients the maximum quality for their projects. After evaluating BSC Designer, we believe that it expires with the requisites that it is done by a marvelous tool of deployment and strategic control. The tool’s principal attributes are its easy handling and adaptability to any type of business. We use it in business of feeding, mass media and education.

Translated by BSC Designer staff.

Wilfredo Briceño
Director Consultor

Wbric-Rpérez, C.A. Consultores en Control de Gestión y Costos
WWW.WBRICRPEREZ.COM

Informatix Industry Services (IIS) is an IT Consulting Company providing quality products in software application technology. We are committed in delivering products and service that meet customer’s needs. We have embarked on an exercise of quality improvements strategy by implementing ISO 9001:2008 Quality Management System standard. IIS recruits highly skilled, experienced professionals with a wide range of technology platforms and knowledge of best practices

Application of BSC Designer:

• Measure project performance relative to the overall strategic plan.

Opinion about BSC Designer:

BSC Designer is simple and easy to use and provides an invaluable overarching view of the performance levels at any point in time. It gives management a snapshot of the organisation’s performance in pursuit of the strategic goals thereby allowing management to make informed decisions regarding corrective, mitigation, or evasive actions.

I am reminded of a story from the beginning of the 20th century where the reality of the plane use has changed with faster engines, higher altitudes and a conversion to the closed rather than open pilot’s seat, but the pilots continued to do the same thing they have been used to doing – relying on the topography to orient themselves. In fact, if they were not sure where they were, they would swoop down to look at the names of the train stations and thus orient themselves. In order to break them off this habit and to get them to rely on their controls, in exasperation the commanding officers literally commanded the soldiers to travel to the various train stations and change up the signage if they heard an airplane approaching. The exercise worked.  The pilots finally got the message, they cannot rely on the signs on the ground to navigate, they have to rely on the controls in the airplane. This mental shift has done more for the development of the aviation than much of the technological change that came before and after that shift.

This has become so fundamental to flying that before a pilot can get a license to fly bigger planes, they have to pass a controls exam and have a number of controls only flight miles. Sometimes the pilots still make mistakes, either because they do not trust their controls or the controls malfunction. Quite a few deadly crashes are attributed to either of these problems. However, we continue to fly relying on controls and work on improving the controls and making them more redundant and this propels aviation forward.

Business world has not made and is not really ready to make a similar leap. No matter how much the speed of business has increased, no matter how much higher our businesses can fly, no matter how closed off the cockpits of our business are from the outside we still orient ourselves by getting down to the land, slowing down, looking out of the window and trying to read the signs. Needless to say, this is no way to move forward.

Historically, the main organizational feedback mechanism has been the income statement (or it’s predictive cousin, the budget). However, this does not work in the long term for a rapidly changing business, since the easiest way to meet the budget is to sacrifice the future in order to do so. It used to work. It worked OK in the environment that is largely static, where not much changes, even such a limited feedback tool was enough. But as competition gets aggressive, as speeds and flexibility increase, we are forced to look at a much broader picture and we fail to do so with the traditional financial only indicators.

In 1992 Norton and Kaplan, in presenting the Balanced Scorecard, formalized the thought that we need to look at multiple voices that came from Total Quality Management model which in turn was influenced from Toyoda, who no doubt was indirectly influenced by Andrew Carnegie’s Wealth of Nations. Yet, 18 years later the adoption of this tool has been sporadic and rarely company-wide.

And the only solution to this, in my mind, is a more streamlined, system that can be implemented much more readily that the traditional Balanced Scorecard. A system in which management is trained and certified. A system that is testable and verifiable, repeatable and replicate-able. A universal system of Business measurement that can be implemented in any kind of a business and used by anyone to provide consistently better feedback than is available by use of the financial statements alone, or relying primarily on intuition.

Just as the airplane can only be flown by a simultaneous attention to gauges that use different systems of measurement (fuel gauge, altimeter, attitude indicator, air speed indicator, magnetic compass, heading indicator, turn indicator, vertical speed indicator, course deviation indicator, radio magnetic indicator) that are fairly standard no matter the airplane, the need for business indicators that provides information in a similar fashion is even more crucial since unlike flying we cannot do without it.

This tool is the Excellence  Matrix (E-M8) which is being developed right now by Futureworks in collaboration  with Bucket Brigade and AKS-Labs. The challenges are many, since in business we do not even have the terminology or universally agreed upon units of measurement that define the variable that we must monitor, but a 100 years ago the airplanes faced the same challenge and they overcame it. Thus, we need to commit to doing the same in the realm of business.

Would you like to be a part of this research or one of the companies that becomes a test bed for these new tools? If so, get in touch with the good folks at Aks-labs or with myself directly and we will figure out what are the opportunities for collaboration.

—

Oleg Tumarkin, Juris Doctor, Master of Business Administration, Certified Six Sigma Black Belt is an Adjunct Professor of Business at Lakeland College and Concordia University of Wisconsin. His firm, FutureWorks, in partnership with Bucket Brigade and AKS-Labs provides business coaching and Balanced Scorecard implementations.  His life’s passion is the development of a universal business measurement and management system that would cause management in to the realm of a repeatable, replicable, yet humane and flexible science.

Please note: if you are managing distributed team consider using BSC Designer Online. It’s a good solution when you want your remote employees or partners to do the data input job for your Balanced Scorecard.

If you have any questions about implementation plans for BSC Designer, contact our sales using online form.

As known, balanced scorecard measures performance of a company to communicate operational management and strategic goals.  Every business has its own set of KPIs – key performance indicators which are known as values representing the most important aspects in work of a company.  Of course, some KPIs are more important than the others.  At the same time it is impossible to omit some less important KPIs.  Thus, there is an obvious need to set weights for indicators and categories of indicators in balance scorecard.  Weights in BSC represent importance of an indicator and influence its contribution to performance of category of indicators (perspectives), as well as total performance.

Let’s take a random example.  For instance, a call center has assigned three indicators to financial perspective: cost per call, revenue per successful call and conversion rate.  According to company strategy, the management should set weights and decide which indicator is the most important.  Conversion rate is the number of sales for 100 calls.  So, if company is interested in the increased number of sales, this indicator would be given priority.  Without weights it is difficult to balance evaluation process since less important indicators would contribute the same percentage to the total performance as most important indicators that directly influence company performance.

Weights concept in BSC Designer

First of all it needs saying that each category of indicators (perspective) has its own weight.  Indicators inside the category have their values as well.  If a category has only one indicator it doesn’t matter that all what weight it has.  So, using the above example, financial perspective may have weight 4, while the three indicators of the category would have weights 3, 3 and 4 respectively.  It should be noted that it is recommended to set weights in such a way so that their total number equals 10, 100, 1000 etc (3, 3 and 4 in our case).  This is for convenience of users to understand how performance calculation system works.

Weights are shown in a strategy tree

It is possible to amend weights for indicators and categories

Change weight of a category (perspective)

Let’s take another simple example: We have a project with 4 categories: First, Second, Third and Forth.

1) If  all the categories are equal for the project, we need to set their weights  to  be  equal  (by  default it is “1″, but it does not really matter what  number  it  is  -  it  just  needs  to be equal for every category).

2) If some categories are more important, than another ones, we need to set bigger numbers as weight values for the more important categories and  smaller  numbers  for  those  ones, which are less important. For example:

First (5) – The most important one;

Second (3) – The less important, than the First;

Third (1) – not important category, but we still need it;

Forth (1) – not important category, but we still need it.

If we use weight values, sum of which is 10 or 100, 1000  and  so  on,  it  is  easier for user to see how the performance calculation of the parent category is going:

Parent category performance (the whole project in our case) = 0.5 * (First category  actual performance) +  0.3 * (Second category actual performance)  +  0.1  (Third category actual performance) + 0.1 (Forth category actual performance).

2.2) If we use weight values, sum of which is not is divisible by 10, the program will still calculate such a thing properly, but it will be a bit harder for user to understand what every of the values actually mean, referring to the project’s calculation. For example, we have such situation:

First (9)

Second (5)

Third (3)

Forth (1)

In this case, Parent category performance = 0.5 * (First category actual performance) +  0.28 * (Second category actual performance)  +  0.16  (Third category actual performance) + 0.06 (Forth category actual performance).

The formula for a coefficient is (Weight value of the element) / (Sum of all the elements’ Weight values). For the First category it is: 9 / (9 + 5+ 3 + 1) = 9 / 18 = 0.5.

As you can see weight system in BSC Designer allows users to adjust the program and its performance calculation system to company strategy goals, priority tasks etc. Moreover, the weight system in BSC Designer is adjustable.

It is possible to set Maximum Weight limit (go to File-Document properties-Max Weight). This value is set at 10 by default. Some companies prefer to use MW = 100 instead of 10.

Set maximum weight in BSC

If necessary, values for indicators can be amended. The bottom panel contains Weight box where one can change weight value. After that strategy tree can be balanced (go to Strategy Tree-Balance tree) and the total amount of weights in the category where such an indicator weight has been amended will become divisible by 10.

Balance your strategy tree (sum of all weight values in categories will be balanced according to a maximum weight)

Watch total performance and weight value

We have changed value for 1 indicator and total performance value has automatically changed

Weights management algorithm in BSC Designer

1. Set weight for main 4 categories (or any other number of them, if applicable).
2. Set weights for indicators (if there is just one indicator in the category its weight is unimportant) and for sub-categories if any
3. Change weights for indicators and categories if necessary and balance strategy tree after that (if necessary)
4. Check out absolute weights for each element (percentage contributed by each element to total performance value)

Absolute weight chart

Absolute weight chart makes it possible for users to have a look at graphical representation of the Tree elements Weights within their category (perspective) and check out their absolute weights on an entire project’s scale. This graph is available at the side menu under the calendar. Weights chart (just like all other types of diagrams and charts) can be shown in a Strategy Tree (as a part of routine dashboard) as well as in the reports. As a part of Report’s info it visually demonstrates contribution of different elements to the total performance of the project (Scorecard).

Absolute weight chart

Summary of weight concept in BSC Designer

System of weights in BSC Designer is a flexible and well-balanced system that automatically performs necessary calculations whenever any change to an indicator or a category weight has been made. It is very important to be able to introduce amendments to the BSC system through the process of its implementation, and Weight concept offers such an opportunity. Some elements (indicators or categories) may appear more important than the others, and vice versa. Weights show the priorities of business which are individual for each company.

Weight Concept in BSC Designer makes it possible to:

• Set Weights for every element of the Scorecard;
• Change Weights after the review (if needed) and total performance will be automatically re-calculated;
• Set Maximum Weight parameter for each project, allowing to use the particular scale needed;
• Balance Strategy Tree according to Max Weight;
• Visualize the contribution of Strategy Tree elements to the Total performance through the Absolute Weights Chart (can be used both in the program dashboard and in the reports).

Balanced Scorecard is evolving together with the business environment.  More and more companies occupied in various business and non business spheres choose to use Balanced Scorecard which helps companies reach strategic goals and measure performance.  As said above, Balanced Scorecard is being used by various businesses in various parts of the world.

It needs saying that Balanced Scorecard is becoming increasingly popular in government and nonprofit organizations.  If large companies have one major goal of making more profits, increasing value of the company and competitive advantage in the market, nongovernment organizations have limited funds, and so they need to make sure that the money is spent wisely.

The company strategy should be formulated in financial terms/indicators.  Of course, most businesses have financial goals, and this is normal.  But if the company owners and management do not have strategic vision it will be very difficult to reach these goals even using Balanced Scorecard system.  Companies that view their mission as obtaining a certain position in the market or in the society can make a very effective use of Balanced Scorecard.

You may ask “Why are so many companies interested in Balanced Scorecard?” It seems like there is the dozen (or even more) other alternative business management systems.  As a rule owners and managers of top companies want to use Balanced Scorecard with just one question: “How can I optimize performance of my company to increase its value?” To answer this question, experience of top companies needs to be analyzed.  Such companies as UPS, Mobil, AT&T Canada showed great growth largely due to successful implementation of strategy based management. That’s why managers often view Balanced Scorecard as a tool that can improve performance of the company.  However, one should be careful when analyzing successful experience of different companies, since every company is individual, and thus requires different measures, approaches, response actions, and strategic goals.  Do not forget that this is somebody else’s experience.

It is also important to realize when the company needs implementation of Balanced Scorecard.  There are 4 major signs indicating that the company requires Balanced Scorecard.

1. The company has both strategy and mission, but for some reason top management is not involved in strategic planning.  About 85% of managers spend less than an hour a week for strategic planning, or have a very vague idea of strategic management.
2. Company’s personnel does not understand strategic goals of the company and thus fails to participate in implementation of these goals.  Balanced Scorecard, when implemented properly, serves as a great learning tool for employees.  It is very important that every employee understands his contribution to implementation of strategic goals.  It is imperative that everything employees do is aimed at reaching strategic goals.  Discrepancies between operational and strategic management may have negative consequences to the company performance.
3. Use of Balanced Scorecard system is highly recommended for holding of companies with no common strategic goal.  If every company pursues own goals, or some companies may not even have any, overall performance of the holding may not be satisfactory.  BSC implementation solves the problem of communication between companies belonging to one holding through development of a comprehensive strategic management scheme.
4. There is no operational control on implementation of strategic goals.  Strategic management is a continuous process which includes setting of the goals, implementation of the goals, control and response actions.  If a company is unable to control implementation of the set goals it would be fair to think that it will never reach them.

Major mistakes in implementation on BSC

Of course, even the most successful companies faced problems when implementing Balanced Scorecard.  Moreover, these mistakes are typical and as a rule do not depend on the country of the company or the market it operates in.  They can be classified as follows:

1. Balanced Scorecard is implemented in the company that has no clear and comprehensive strategy.  A company with no strategy will never be able to make an effective use of Balanced Scorecard.
2. A company has a clear strategy but the Balanced Scorecard is implemented without clear budgeting, human resource management and compensation systems. About 60% of companies cannot combine Balanced Scorecard with budgeting systems.  If personnel is not properly motivated, for example with system of bonuses and rewards, Balanced Scorecard is unlikely to bring some positive results.
3. It often happens that the company implements Balanced Scorecard, but its personnel is not ready or doesn’t want to use BSC in the everyday routine work.  If a management doesn’t need Balanced Scorecard there is no reason to implement it in the first place.  As a rule, if the company management is reluctant to use Balanced Scorecard, implementation of the system fails even before the initial stage.

Balanced Scorecard: future prospects

It seems like Balanced Scorecard is not going to have tough competition in the nearest future. These days, there are many strategic development tools. However, it is only BSC that can combine strategic vision with everyday routine work of the company (operational level).

Of course, the system will further develop and improv to effectively use such modules as investment planning, budgeting, human resource management etc.

Does your company need BSC?

KPI management is an effective business concept that is based on measuring the performance of a company. The Key Performance Indicator (KPI) can be defined as “effectiveness measurement indicators” that show important company activities which achieve Strategic Goals. This appears to be very simple — you define what you want your company to become (i.e., how is it going to grow, what are the priority objectives) and then create indicators to measure how fast you are achieving the Strategic Goals; such as what are the vulnerabilities and strong sites of the processes, what is needed to be changed and what works just fine as it is.

Balanced Scorecard is a control and executive corporate system that allows a company to develop an effective method by using not only a good measurement system, but by also paying attention to other aspects of business theory.  It is part of the KPI based Management and it was put together by Harvard Business School professor Dr. Robert S. Kaplan, along with business consulting specialist David P. Norton in 1990.

Perform precise planning. According to Balanced Scorecard, the business needs to turn the strategic planning process into one of the key functions. It needs a precise theory that produces exact measured values which make it possible to create realistic forecasts.

Balance your business activities by using not only financial measures, but also with marketing, process and human resources. The Balanced Scorecard concept focuses on an organization’s strategy from four different points of view or perspectives, with each of them potentially containing its own sub-perspectives and exact goals. The perspectives are the following:

• Financial perspective;
• Customer perspective;
• Innovation and learning perspective;
• Internal process perspective.

A well-implemented BSC provides linking between internal business processes and a company’s strategic goals that is needed to attain advanced strategic effectiveness with the company’s success as the outcome.

Balanced Scorecard is aimed to link the strategic and operational activities of the company so effectively, that every employee (even at the lowest hierarchy level), can understand exactly what the strategic goal he or she is helping to achieve when working on any task.

BSC Designer

Balanced Scorecard Designer is a software tool that provides automatic use of the Balanced Scorecard concept and other KPI-based management systems. Its most important advantage is the ease in which it can be understood and used, as well as all of its powerful features. BSC Designer makes it possible to create projects that would support any KPI-based Management concept (including Balanced Scorecard).  It automates most implementation and maintenance processes, leading to a reduction of costs for the concept’s use and also  improving its benefits.

BSC Designer is available in three desktop editions that have different pricing schedules which include: BSC Designer Light (freeware with very limited functionality), BSC Designer Standard (allowing for many more functions and having a mid-level pricing) and BSC Designer Pro (a fully-functioning tool for real professionals that absolutely warrants its higher price). We provide different editions of our tools so that they can become good solutions for almost any business activity, from small home businesses to huge corporations.

BSC Designer Online is a great solution for multiple project uses. It is perfect for users who travel a lot and for transnational and online businesses. BSC Designer makes it much easier to coordinate through the Internet.  This powerful edition can be purchased though special credits, allowing customers to use it with a limitation on time and the number of projects that they can work on.  You can check out the difference between functionality of the all four editions of BSC Designer (both online and desktop ones) in this comparative chart.

Basic KPI Management Functions

Basic KPI management provides a group of functions and tools that forms the entire set of software products called BSC Designer. Those functions are available in all four editions of BSC Designer: Light, Standard, Pro and Online.

All four editions of BSC Designer provide you with an easy-to-use and understandable tree of subcategories and indicators. The tree can be presented in both simple and column view modes. You can create and edit indicators’ and categories’ names and descriptions with just a few clicks! Read more about the Tree of metrics

Manage the importance of categories and indicators by changing their weight values. By default, the weights are set to “1,” but you may change the weight of every element in a range from “1” to “10”: the higher the weight value, the more important the elements are. You may also change the Max Weight number to customize the range of weight values. Read more about Weight concept in BSC Designer here

Look at stop lights and other signal icons to capture the indicators that happen to require your attention more than others. Signal icons also portray the dynamics of performance changes. Find more information about stop lights and other signal icons

Manage measure units of the indicators, select “Score” or “%” as the measure unit or create your own (for example, “$ / hour”).
Learn more about measure units

Manage indicators in time, using the calendar and time points. Each of the indicators may be changed once per day. After the project is filled with values for different time points, the dynamics are shown in the Time Chart which is available for each of the indicators and categories (including the entire project). Learn more about Time points management

Standard and Pro Edition Functions

“Standard” functions – group of functions available in BSC Designer Standard and Pro editions. It includes several different types of reports, diagrams and charts, as well as other useful features.

One of the most useful and detailed reports that reveals the dynamics of the performance and the details for the elements of the tree is the HTML report. It only takes a few clicks to generate an HTML report. You can then print it, send it to anyone via email, upload it to the remote server so you can share it worldwide or just collect it. This report is also available in BSC Designer Online.  Check out the full report. Find the full description of HTML Report

Export to MS Excel (Excel Report) is helpful to export the data from BSC Designer to MS Excel so that it can be used to share the project’s data with colleagues or other individuals that are involved who do not have BSC Designer (i.e., outsourcers). By using the Excel project, you can manage the basic aspects of indicators and categories, such as weights and values. In other words, MS Excel Report can be used as an alternative to BSC Designer for those that are not equipped with the tool, however it does not provide the same functionality as BSC Designer. Learn more about MS Excel report

Export to MS PowerPoint or PowerPoint Report — this is a perfect function for making presentations.  With just a few clicks, you will be provided with a *.ppt file that contains slides that show the basic information about the project, the project’s overview (a chart that shows names and descriptions of the project’s elements) and a full review of every element in the project’s tree (including Time chart and Gauge diagram). This function could be really helpful to make clear, informative presentations of the activity’s performance to Top Management, as well as to Shareholders and Investors. Read more about MS PowerPoint Report

Optimization graph visualizes the optimization direction of KPIs which also reveals the current value with its percentage for the indicator. Optimization graph does not work with such tree elements as categories and the project; only indicators’ data can be visualized with its assistance. This graph can be very helpful to see what function is being used to measure the metric’s data. In a Standard edition, it could be linear minimizing or maximizing functions, but in the Pro edition you will be able to create your own functions that will also be presented on this type of graph. Read more about Optimization graph

Diamond diagram is a unique diagram based on the radar chart method. It can be helpful to see which part of the whole project or a subcategory appears to be weak and which parts are the strongest (according to their actual performance and targets). By determining the weaknesses through this diagram, you will be able to pay more attention to them which makes your business performance balanced. Learn more about Diamond diagram

Use KPI attachments to associate files with indicators. Any type of file can be associated with indicators to provide you links to additional information such as: task assignments, charts, detailed instructions and authorization data (long text files), multimedia files (images, sounds, videos) and many more. The attachments are not used in performance calculations, but are aimed to put together links for all of the additional information that relate to the task that is associated with the indicator. Learn more about KPI attachments

Professional Edition Functions

Professional functions are available only in BSC Designer Pro edition. They include additional types of reports and charts, more options for you to customize functions for your specific needs, unique features that link indicators and categories between different projects, database linking to projects using SQL, transferring data, and many other functions to meet almost any demand that your business might need for Balanced Scorecard.

Report for selected item makes it easier to work with HTML reports – it is possible to select any item, such as a subcategory or indicator, and create an HTML report that provides a single description without mentioning the rest of the items in the project. This function is helpful in many cases, including reporting to an upper manager / investor / shareholder about the exact task or group of tasks, as well as how it’s been changed during the last year (for example, financial growth). Find more about reporting for selected item

Overview report makes it clear how the map of operational goals looks like. It does not show any values; simply the names of the categories and indicators and their descriptions that are put together in an easy to understand colored diagram. Read more about Overview report

Dashboard report can be an alternative to the common HTML report, presenting other types of diagrams, such as the “Diamond” diagram’s usage instead of “Time” chart. You can choose what type of report is needed in different situations and for different purposes. While common HTML reports aim to present the performance’s dynamics that might be interesting for shareholders, Dashboard report refers to the current project’s performance values which may be better suited for an upper executive manager. Read more about Dashboard report

The ability to customize the HTML report helps to accommodate your specific needs. You can select the types of diagrams and charts that are to be shown and the order of presenting them — all with just a few clicks! Now you can make the HTML report look just like Dashboard – you may choose the diagrams and charts among all six types that exist in BSC Designer. Learn how to customize the HTML Report with BSC Designer Pro

Gauge diagram is another visualization method of performance. With this diagram, it is easier to ascertain actual performance and compare it to where it should be. It also has colors that clearly reveal the actual performance as “bad”, “middle” or “good” (the boarders of the colors can be set by the user). Read more about Gauge diagram

Pie performance chart is an easy to understand circle graph that shows the performance percentage for the whole project, as well as for all of the subcategories. When viewing this chart, it becomes clear which component makes a business project stronger and weaker. Learn more about Pie performance chart

Secure your data with passwords function of BSC Designer. Different types of passwords can be set to protect pertinent data from being viewed or edited. Since BSC Designer mainly deals with most vulnerable information, this function can be very helpful in securing it.
Read more about corporate data security and passwords in BSC Designer

Weight chart makes the exact weight for every element in the entire project apparent. It can be easily understood that the “Financial perspective” category has a weight value of 40% for the whole project. But sometimes it’s hard to calculate the exact meaning of the indicator that is part of the subcategory, which in turn is a part of another subcategory, the Financial Perspective and the whole project. But with the help of the performance chart, this problem can be solved; you will see the weight of each element (subcategory or indicator) in regards to the whole project. Learn more about Weight chart

The Strategy Map tab combined with the operational dashboard makes it easy to create and edit  the Strategy Map (while reviewing the strategy) which is an extremely important component of the Balanced Scorecard concept. In other words, you can use BSC Designer Pro not only as a dashboard for operational tasks, but also as a full Scorecard, which also includes strategy planning tool such as Strategy Map. Read more about the Strategy map

In the Pro edition, mathematical formulas for measuring performance values are not limitedto the basic linear functions (as it is in Standard), but can be customized to fit your needs in regards to finding out how to measure each of the indicators. An easy-to-use Formula Builder makes it possible for specialists (i.e., financial managers) to set formulas for each indicator or to use the standard ones. Read more about Formula Builder

Have the ability to delegate and import indicators which will allow you to easily organize the Cascading Scorecards. Since the tool is installed on every computer that is involved in the chain, the process of building the links between BSC projects will not take much time. When the cascading is used, a CEO can see up-to-date information about their VPs actual performance, VPs could give tasks and monitor for the lower level of management hierarchy, and so on. Check out the example of building cascading scorecards, described in the following articles: Cascading process in company with BSC Designer; Improved Cascading.

Establish linking between the BSC project and almost any type of existing database using SQL Indicators. This tool becomes very useful when you need to connect to ERP’s or other databases that support the whole company’s processes or just a few activities (i.e., accounting). With the easy-to-use SQL query builder, even non-IT professionals can handle it (if the database is in suitable format, please contact our support service to learn more). This function is also available in BSC Designer Online edition. Read more of how to set up SQL indicators