Both platforms can model strategy, risk, controls, and related management processes. BSC Designer emphasizes calculated management models, traceability, and strategic links. Corporater combines management models with configurable workflows, forms, states, routing, and automated actions.
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This comparison focuses on the distinction between management-model design and workflow enforcement. The information about Corporater is based on its public product documentation and published implementation cases.
The Core Product Similarities and Differences
Let’s look into the conceptual similarities and differences between BSC Designer and Corporater.
Similarity: A Management Model
The two products start from similar management principles. A broad objective or process is broken into smaller elements, each element receives an owner and supporting data, and the results are aggregated for review.
- BSC Designer applies this logic through calculated scorecards, supporting evidence, and links between management elements.
- Corporater represents domain concepts through configured business objects, relationships, supporting data, and reporting.
A control, for example, can have an owner, type, test frequency, effectiveness rating, linked risks, evidence, and corrective actions in either system.
Difference: How the Platforms Handle Process Behavior
The difference becomes noticeable when we consider the number of manual actions involved in managing the control.
In BSC Designer, the control is formalized within a scorecard model.
- Indicators show whether it is effective, initiatives record remediation work, and evidence supports updates.
- Permissions and approvals define who can change the data.
- Cross-links connect the control to risks, requirements, objectives, or other scorecards.
In Corporater, users can attach more process logic directly to a configured business object, such as a control, finding, risk, or assessment.
- Administrators can create object-specific forms, add or change fields, and define validation rules.
- They can configure workflow stages, route tasks, and trigger actions.
- Relationships connect the object to risks, requirements, controls, findings, and other management records.
Example: A Control Test Implementation
To illustrate the difference, let’s use this typical assurance chain:
Regulatory requirement → policy → risk → control → control test → finding → remediation → executive report
Both products can store and report the full chain.
BSC Designer
An implementation in BSC Designer would use several connected scorecards:
- A requirements scorecard for obligations, applicability, owners, and linked policies.
- A risk-and-control scorecard for risk quantification and the design of controls.
- A testing-and-findings scorecard to manage ongoing findings and their evidence.
When a test fails:
- The responsible user records the result and attaches evidence.
- A finding is created or linked, an initiative is assigned to the responsible owner, and the control score affects the related risk calculation and executive dashboard.
- The model visualizes which control failed, which risk it affects, what action was assigned, and how the failure changes the reported result.
Corporater
Corporater can use the same data model and add a configured workflow. Depending on the implementation, the workflow can perform or enforce steps such as:
- Changing the test status after a failed result.
- Creating a finding.
- Calculating its severity according to a configured rule.
- Assigning remediation to the control owner.
- Sending an approval task to a reviewer.
- Escalating an overdue action.
- Preventing the finding from being closed until verification is complete.
The appropriate approach depends on the required workflow, configuration, integrations, and operating model.
- BSC Designer can define criteria, weights, scales, formulas, evidence requirements, and related actions, but it does not provide a full questionnaire-distribution system for sending conditional forms to hundreds of respondents.
- Corporater’s configurable forms and workflows are closer to that requirement and may be easier to automate at scale.
Implementation and Maintenance Implications
The platforms’ different architectures lead to different implementation demands and learning curves.
Model-Specific Configuration
BSC Designer uses the same small set of elements across different domains. This consistency allows administrators and power users to learn one modeling approach. Users see similar screens across different management processes. Reports and calculations follow the same logic.
If needed, the default model can be expanded through model design and manual workflows. For example, a team may agree that a “failed test” event must be followed by a “finding registration” event. In BSC Designer, such a workflow relies on the responsible manager or user to perform that step.
Process-Specific Configuration
Corporater allows more process-specific configuration. Different components that describe a business domain can have different workflows. For example, policy approval and incident investigation can each have different forms, stages, rules, and actions. This can reduce manual actions when the configuration is well designed.
The cost is greater implementation and maintenance effort. Someone has to define and maintain the object types, forms, field rules, status transitions, notifications, relationships, permissions, and automation. Changes to the process require corresponding changes to that configuration.
Takeaways
Can we consider BSC Designer an alternative to Corporater for our organization? The key question to ask is:
Where is the main complexity of our management process?
Depending on the answer:
- Choose BSC Designer when the main requirement is a transparent, calculated model that connects operational management to strategy.
- Choose Corporater when the main complexity lies in current manual actions and automated workflows justify the extra configuration and maintenance.
This comparison reflects my best effort to describe the difference between the two platforms objectively. At the same time, my perspective is shaped mostly by helping clients of BSC Designer, so I may have missed something important about how Corporater sees this distinction. I would welcome Corporater’s own published view on the difference between the two platforms.
Alexis Savkin is a Strategy Architect and founder of BSC Designer, a strategy execution software platform with the Balanced Scorecard at its core. He helps organizations translate strategy into measurable objectives, KPIs, and initiatives. Alexis is the creator of the Strategy Execution Canvas, the author of 100+ articles on strategy and performance measurement, and a regular speaker.