Implementing a balanced scorecard in a profit organization

Cattaraugus County ReHabilitation Center (CattCounty ReHab) is a Not-For-Profit enterprise. The purpose for its creation is to provide services to several diverse districts and voters, particularly people with injuries, developmental and physical disabilities, people with autism, and pertinent services to the disabled of all ages. The Balanced Scorecard (BSC), credited to Robert S. Kaplan and David P. Norton of the Harvard Business School, is a process framework used to assess the effectiveness of an organization as it pertains to the pursuit of its mission or specific practice/objective. There are four equitably critical aspects in the BSC example that base measurement of multiple aspects of an enterprise's achievement.

Just like their name suggests, non-profits do not seek to make profit as their main objective. Although they need revenue in order to carry out their end goals, they must also consider additional aspects such as: providing proper and consistent service to customers and stakeholders, continual maintenance of internal management, and implementation of a progressive culture that actively seeks participation from customers, stakeholders, and employees. CattCounty ReHab desired an implementation process through the BSC in order to review its operations, as well as establish a long-term plan encompassing strategic planning and communication for its service delivery. This paper proposes to review the successes, and deficiencies, in the venture.

Analysis

CattCounty ReHab brings services to several diverse districts and voters, particularly people with injuries, developmental and physical disabilities, people with autism, and pertinent services to the disabled of all ages.The organization's main focus is on customer care. The four-pronged method the BSC designed would allow for other aspects of the organization to influence management, instead of the traditional profit objective found in other organizations. In order to implement this strategy, involved parties (customers to stakeholders to employees) must actively participate.

Involvement of the employees and stakeholders in the BSC review may be the biggest lesson from the Cattcounty ReHab implementation. The Balanced Scorecard method enabled the use of all functional areas to secure project focus. The complete process was evaluating drawing from the four perspectives of the BSC. A results summary follows:

To determine financial stability, participants reviewed existing financial management and management data. This is standard action in any strategic implementation design.

Investigation led to added motivation for inquiry of additional funding sources as well as additional revenue sources.

It also led to an increased effort in loosening up discretionary funds for spending by department managers.

In order for success of a BSC participants must feel empowered, providing additional resources from discretionary funds aids in this.

Endowment or long-term giving such as in bequests or gifts, was not specified as a financial search. That action may be considered an error for this area is worth review/search.

Thanks to the introduction of BSC, several customer goals were initiated. Improvement in public relations were also noted as direct consequences of BSC that include public notification of available services and increasing availability of specific staff for outreach. Improvement to service delivery, another important component was also a significant objective. Creation of a comprehensive information delivery system allowed for customer service timeliness to be measured and studied and consent with regulatory requirement along with enforced safety measures for all participants. Expected long-term benefits for this sector should occur within the near future for existing and potential customers.

Evaluation of investments yielded information on where funds were allocated such as in workforce, technology and environment. Further investigation discovered investments in staff core competencies, employee recognition programs, amongst others reflected the significance the workforce have to the CattCounty ReHab. Last to review was the work environment along with corporate values and communication avenues. They appeared to be aligned and strengthened.

Employee improvements included non-monetary actions such as "employee of the month" and improved parking spaces to boost employee productivity and morale. Growth and learning were not addressed separately from the BSC, and although the report notes major improvements in the other three areas, the commitment of CattCounty ReHab is the area that lacks improvement. Some mentions of commitment to altering current activities were noted in the report, but failed to promote attention or action to better this area. It is unknown if all participants were actively involved in data sourcing as well as evaluating or implementing.