If you are new to the world of Business Scorecards – Welcome! If you have been at it for a while, it might be time to have another look at what your scorecard is doing for you.
Jacques Vigeant, Product Strategy Director for Oracle Business Intelligence and Enterprise Performance Management, was interviewed in a podcast by Nigel Youell, Director of Product Marketing for Oracle Performance Management Applications, and had a very interesting discussion about the business value that scorecards add to dashboards. To listen to the podcast click here.
To summarize, Jacques explained that dashboards are really about monitoring organizational metrics, usually including data that has been rolled up by dimensions relative to the business. Typically they are single page dials and graphs that give you information about trends and data in a point in time. Very useful for keeping track of what has happened. Whereas scorecards can provide a huge amount of business value by supplying additional information about how those metrics are related to the business strategy, which metrics are particularly important, what impact a particular metric has on the strategy, and who is accountable for the metric. This additional information enables employees to better evaluate their own impact on strategy and effect real change based on the metrics and initiatives they can influence.
According to Jacques, not all metrics are created equal. Some have a much bigger impact on strategic outcomes than others. For example, the number of units sold is a good metric to watch, but the profit on those units sold is MORE important. Importance can be seen through weightings placed on metrics relative to the strategy, and through maps showing how each of the metrics are related – cause and effect style.
The BIG news however is how scorecard functionality is changing, and Oracle is investing here. Oracle Scorecard and Strategy Management, or OSSM, has taken better decision making very seriously. Oracle has introduced the concept of ‘actions’ and invoking those actions based on who is viewing the scorecard (position in the organization) and which metric they are viewing. If a value has gone wrong (or very right) a list of suggestions – based on the individual viewing the metric – can be presented to the user. In some cases, it is appropriate to automatically invoke a business process, trigger a workflow or initiate a job requisition based on a metric result value. In other words, intelligence can be built in to assist employees to make better business decisions every day. In addition, employees can support each other even more in making better business decisions through written collaboration and annotations on metrics and initiatives and what is happening to improve them.
Finally, reporting has changed to improve understanding of how each metric contributes to the organizational strategy. Strategy maps show relationships between objectives, but can also show relationships to specific metrics. The ‘contribution wheel’, a patented graphic that Jacques himself designed, beautifully depicts how each metric and initiative contributes to the overall strategy in one graphic. 
So as you can see, Oracle Scorecard and Strategy Management is not your father’s scorecard. It has moved on to enabling managers and business leaders to see the impact of initiatives and metrics on the organizational strategy and, more importantly, helping to modify the behavior of employees to make better business decisions every day. At the end of the day, Oracle Scorecard and Strategy management can help provide enough business context so that everyone can make better business decisions every day. When this happens, achieving organizational goals and strategy is possible!
To listen to the Podcast, click here.