ONE of the biggest problems currently facing the continued business growth and development of public entities and even some private companies in our country is lack of creativity and failure to follow the right path to success.

Although these companies and institutions have sufficient employees, capital, assets and a long surviving history, yet they are not organised for change and sad to say they harbour outdated business mentality. 

Much management spend an enormous amount of time on capital appropriation decisions, and only a few pay much attention to what happens after the capital investment has been approved and injected. The Controller and Auditor General (CAG) reports have years in years out revealed such weaknesses in a detailed manner. 

Creating thinking is therefore important - it refers to how the management, its board and support staff approach the problems and solve the obstacles that appear now and then. In business, to be creative, is for the key personnel to influence the way that business is done so that it can grow profitably. 

It is for this reason we wish top authorities to consider introducing what is called the ‘Balanced Scorecard’ system so it can revamp on-going business strategies.  

In a nutshell, the balanced scorecard is a set of measures that allows senior managers in enterprises to have a comprehensive view of their business. 

The system links the organization with its four critical performance measures. They are financial perspective, customer perspective, internal business perspective and innovation perspective.  This is to say that the scorecard forces executives to focus on the handful of measures that are most critical.

In our continent we can cite as an example South Africa, Botswana and Swaziland which have adopted the system but indeed several countries in Europe, North America and Asia have adopted this system too. 

In turbulent times, this system has helped to withstand sudden blows and manage well the fundamentals.  

The scorecard firstly brings together the managerial needs of the company's agenda venturing on quality of service and products, emphasis on teamwork, watching keenly issues related to customer satisfaction, ensuring good public relations and Communication with various stakeholders and so on.

Many firms have a corporate vision and mission that focuses on the customer but cannot deliver to them appropriately.  The scorecard demands that executives translate their mission statement on customer service into specific measures that reflects the factors that really matter to customers. 

Customer's concerns tend to fall into five categories- time, performance, quality, service and cost. To put the score card to work is for the companies to articulate these goals properly and translate them into specific measures.  

Despite excellent customer performance (derived from processes, decisions and actions) managers must be able to focus on critical internal operations that enable the firm to satisfy customer needs. The scorecard gives the managers good assessment of what internal perspectives are.

To achieve the right goals close watch should be on cycle time, quality, productivity and cost as well as devising measures that are influenced by employees’ actions. That way it will be easy to link key internal processes and action taken by individual staff all aimed at achieving corporate objectives. 

The scorecard also emphasises that Information Systems play an invaluable role in helping managers disaggregate the summary measures. If the Information system is weak, reports are generally late, some measures are not linked or coordinated, and there is late delivery of goods and so on.

Regarding financial performance measures, these indicate whether the company's strategy and execution contribute to the bottom line improvement.  Survival is measured by cash flow, success by quarterly sales growth and operating income, and prosperity by increased market share.

It appears today that some managers do not care to observe these categories.  That is why by introducing the scorecard system managers will always be alerted which key areas they should pay attention to their financial matters. 

Lastly, as companies apply the balanced scorecard measures they begin to recognise that scorecard system represents a fundamental change in the underlying assumptions about performance measurement. 

It is well suited to the kind of organisations that many firms are trying to become. The scorecard puts strategy and vision, not control, at the centre.

It establishes goals but assumes that people will adopt whatever behaviour and take whatever actions are necessary to arrive at those goals. The measures are designed to pull individuals and top executives towards the overall vision, mission and values. The problem is that some of the missions of the firms are outdated; there must be a way to reactivate them to suit the present situation. 

The scorecard keeps the companies moving forward.

Daniel Mshana is a seasoned journalist & Media/Public Relations/Investment Consultant.  

Email: [email protected]