A Comparative Analysis of the Balanced Scorecard as Applied in Government and Industry Organizations

Abstract

Organizations have become increasingly dependent on information technologies to conduct daily operations, achieve competitive advantage and to create and penetrate new markets. This dependence has come at a high price, in 1990 U.S. companies spent over $154 billion on information technologies. However, organizations have found it difficult to measure the value added from these investments. Survey results found four significant barriers to measuring financial performance related to information technologies including: • Difficulty of measuring economic benefits • Inability to determine returns • Lack of good metrics • Incomplete records/accounting of investments The Balanced Scorecard framework provides part of the structure required to overcome these barriers. How organizations can overcome these barriers and successfully measure performance with respect to achieving strategic plans is the focus of this chapter. This chapter provides a comparison of results of two case studies regarding the use of the Balanced Scorecard measurement framework. The application of the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) is evaluated for a Fortune 500 information technology organization and a government organization. Both organizations have a business focus of software development. The BSC framework is applied and reviewed in both contexts to provide insight into unique organizational characteristics for government and contract software environments. A specific focus is to inform the use of financial measures such as Return On Investment (ROI) in the government context. The BSC framework provides the necessary structure to evaluate quantitative and qualitative information and identify the critical linkages between financial measures of past performance and key measures of future performance.