"The Cranfield (Balanced Scorecard Software) report is a must-read for anyone evaluating Balanced Scorecard applications. It provides an invaluable framework for choosing an application and this alone makes it worth the price tag.... To my knowledge, it’s the most comprehensive overview currently available." Dylan N. Miyake, director, Balanced Scorecard Collaborative
In order to manage an organization, managers require performance information to understand where their organization is, where it is going and what needs to be done to get it there. Without decent performance measures it is impossible to address these three fundamental issues. That is why performance measurement is so high up on the organizational agenda.
But defining the proper measurements and selecting the most appropriate methodology and the software solution to implement it has proven to be a challenge that many organizations have found daunting.
In this third edition of the Balanced Scorecard Software Report, the Centre for Business Performance, Cranfield School of Management and Gartner, Inc. have again joined to collaborate on an extensive evaluation of Balanced Scorecard vendors and their products. It includes the evaluation of BSC-related products from eleven new vendors that were not reviewed in the prior editions of this report:
4GHI Solutions AB
Corporater AS
EFM Software
Industrial and Financial Systems (IFS)
Insightformation, Inc.
Nexance
Open Ratings
Pilot Software Acquisition Corp.
Predicate Logic Inc.
Vision Grupo Consultores V.G.C. C.A.
The Vision Web
The Balanced Scorecard Software Report has been designed to guide you through the process of selecting the right software solution for your organization by offering a Decision Framework, as well as detailed evaluations of the thirty-one major Balanced Scorecard software products available today.
The BSC Decision Framework includes forty-seven specific factors that were used in the evaluation of each of the BSC-related software products that are included in this report. Even if your organization had the skills required to do this type of an assessment, the cost in staff and management time would far exceed the price of this report.
The choice of the right software to support a performance measurement system implementation is of crucial importance. This report provides a methodological approach so that companies can make the right choice.
In the Foreword to the report, Professor Robert S. Kaplan, co-developer of the BSC methodology says this about the report and its authors:
But, the report is more than evaluations of BSC-related products. It also provides background information on performance measurement and how it has evolved from a financially biased approach to a balanced approach that is more in tune with today’s business environment. It then looks at the BSC methodology and explains in simple terms the core concepts and philosophy. The report then illustrates the benefits of using software applications and explains in detail how software facilitates communication, collaboration, data analysis and data integration.
In other words, it is a complete look at performance measurement, the balanced scorecard, and the software that supports it.
