Overview
To improve performance, managers require a balance of relevant information that reflects both financial and operational measures. The Balanced Scorecard (BSC) provides a succinct, yet comprehensive assessment of a business that includes both financial and operational measures in its four perspectives: customer, internal, innovation and learning, and financial. These perspectives and their associated questions limit the number of measures used, while bringing together seemingly disparate elements of a company’s strategic agenda in a single report.
The Balanced Scorecard concept acknowledges that corporate strategy and operations strategy are linked, and requires managers to consider what this means for their organization. In an applied sense, the Balanced Scorecard can be used as a strategic communication and implementation tool. In this course, students will practice modeling operational strategies within the BSC, using strategy maps. They will also learn to quantify an operations strategy with concrete key performance indicators (KPIs) and measures.
Objectives
After completing this course, learners will be able to:
- discuss how corporate strategy, operations strategy, and operations management are linked, what this means for business, and how this can be applied in an organization;
- explain the Balanced Scorecard concept and process, and apply it in different contexts;
- identify the major strategic themes of a company, and develop strategy maps;
- quantify an operations strategy with concrete measures and performance indicators.
Evaluation
Students will be evaluated based on their participation in weekly online discussions (40%) and one four-part assignment (60%). To pass the course, students must achieve 60% or more on each of the credit activities.