The Balanced Scorecard - Translating Strategy Into Action - Robert S. Kaplan, David P. Norton
This book arose from a research that culminated with an article entitled "The Balanced Scorecard - Measures That Drive Performance", published in the Harvard Business Review, in early 1992.
The book has a preface and two chapters with an introduction to the concepts of Balanced Scorecard. In the preface, they explain the path to publish the book, since the research, publication of articles, to the application of the concepts of balanced scorecard in several companies.
After the introduction, the book is organized within two Parts, Part One is about measuring business strategy and Part Two deals with managing business strategy.
In the Part One, entitled Measuring Business Strategy, they define the four perspectives: financial, customer, internal business process, and learning and growth, one chapter for each perspective. This part has more two chapters, one about linking balanced scorecard measures to your strategy, and the last chapter about structure and strategy.
The Balanced Scorecard Provides a Framework to Translate a Strategy into Operational Terms:
(Source: www.balancedscorecard.org, based on the book)
In the Part Two: Managing Business Strategy, they describe in four chapters how several companies are using the balanced scorecard as the foundation of the strategic management system.
This is a great book, where Kaplan and Norton explain how to use this excellent tool. The Balance Scorecard is considered nowadays one of management practices most important and revolutionary.
Of course, Kaplan and Norton, using their experience, based on extensive applications in organizations worldwide, updated and evolved the concepts in their next books: The Strategy-Focused Organization: How Balanced Scorecard Companies Thrive in the New Business Environment, Strategy Maps: Converting Intangible Assets into Tangible Outcomes, Alignment: Using the Balanced Scorecard to Create Corporate Synergies
