Case study: BSC Designer software supports the Balanced Scorecard concept in Italian IT company “Concept Italia,” Intel Software partner based in Rome.
Summary
Top managers of the Concept Italia use BSC Designer software to evaluate the level of achievement of business goals. One of the ultimate goals of using BSC Designer in the company is to improve customer satisfaction.
Concept Italia actively uses:
- Reports in PowerPoint format provided by BSC Designer;
- Strategy map functionality to illustrate results for top management;
- Excel files for collaboration purposes;
At the current stage of BSC Designer implementation process the company did not face any critical organizational or technical problems. By the end of the year BSC Designer is supposed to be introduced as a main Balanced Scorecard tool in the company.
Company profile
Company information: Concept Italia is an Information & Communication Technology company based in Rome, Italy. Their main expertise is producing software programs and providing consulting services in the Strategy and Management Control.
Case study with: Isotta Rossi, Program Manager
Communicating top management initiatives to middle management
In Concept Italia business support to the top management is provided by the Finance & Control Department. Top Manager expresses the business goals of the company to people who work in this department and they convert these goals into indications mainly for the middle management:
To make this work they also use some software tools both for office automation (like Microsoft Power Point and Microsoft Excel) and for Balanced Scorecard (BSC Designer).
Balanced Scorecard Implementation Details
- Technical support for software installation and maintenance is provided by the Information & Technology Department.
- Balanced Scorecard system is currently implemented in the Finance & Control department, where it is used.
BSC Designer is used by top managers
Currently the implementation is at top management level, where the managers use the results given by the system to evaluate what the level of achievement of business goals is.
- However Concept Italia is evaluating whether or not to expand the implementation towards department managers, and to use it as a system of performance measurement.
Data Input is done by two controllers
The input of the data for the Balanced Scorecard is prepared inside the Finance & Control department by two controllers, according to business goals expressed by top managers.
- The results obtained from BSC Designer are then used to prepare reports that then are sent to top managers.
- These reports are then used by top managers to make further decisions.
Balanced Scorecard is used to improve customer assistance
Balanced Scorecard is used for internal processes. The company use it for customer satisfaction analysis together with KPIs related to customer satisfaction to improve customer assistance.
Expectations about Balanced Scorecard
- The company expects improvement in customer satisfaction
- The management of the company plans to extend the use of Balanced Scorecard to strategy problems
- The company focuses on using desktop software for the Balanced Scorecard.
BSC Designer Business Challenges
The deadline for the Balanced Scorecard concept implementation is the end of 2013, however up to June 2013 the company is trying to introduce BSC Designer as the main software for Balanced Scorecard.
- At this stage of the implementation process Concept Italia did not face any critical organizational or technical problems.
The Balanced Scorecard is not yet integrated with any of the automation systems, but the company is analyzing SQL indicators available in BSC Designer to see if it will be convenient to make some type of integration. At present time the company only uses the scorecard for executives, so “indicators imported” are not in use yet.
- Concept Italia uses the “strategic map” for strategy presentations. In particular, the company uses it to illustrate the results for top managers.
Communication means
Currently managers that use BSC Designer exchange information with each other using an Excel file.
- Reports and strategy maps are printed only to present the results obtained by the top management.
The type of report that is used by us is the report in PowerPoint format. However, top management is also very interested in the use of HTML reports.
Functions to try in the future
- The management considers using all other possible types of input and output included in BSC Designer to see if some of them can be useful for their business processes.
- Concept Italia also plans to try such visualization means as “gauge diagrams” and improve performance formulas using non-linear functions provided by “custom formulas.”
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