Instructors can activate a performance measurement tool called The Balanced Scorecard. Balanced Scorecards allow companies to gauge their performance by assessing measures in four categories:

• Financial– includes profitability, leverage and stock price;
• Internal Business Process– ranks, among other measures, contribution margin, plant utilization and days of working capital;
• Customer– examines the company’s product line, including how well it satisfies buying criteria and awareness/accessibility levels;
• Learning and Growth– evaluates employee productivity.

9.1 Guiding Your Company

The Internal Business Process and Customer perspectives can crosscheck company performance. For example, under Internal Business Process, a low score for Contribution Margin generally indicates the company is unprofitable– the company should look at its cost and pricing structures. Under the Customer perspective, a poor Buying Criteria score suggests the company should consider R&D projects to improve the product line.

As you enter decisions in the Capstone® Spreadsheet, projections of the Balanced Scorecard results for the upcoming year are available via the proforma menu. Scores from previous years are available on the website; login to your simulation then click the Reports link.