A McKinsey's 2023 research indicates how organizations that develop robust performance management practices essentially gain a 4.2 times higher likelihood of outcompeting competitors.
Today it has become important to track and measure performance with the right tools so that we can run an informed business completely.
But if you’re thinking of how to make your team’s actions aligned towards long-term goals, or want to optimize routine operations — you’ve probably heard of Balanced Scorecards and Operational Dashboards.
All of these are good solutions, but what is the right one for your organization?
It depends on what you’re aiming for. Each scorecard and dashboard individually provide some very valuable insight, but they each do so in different ways. In this article, we will compare balanced scorecards with operational dashboards what they do, also when you should apply them.
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Understanding Balanced Scorecards and Operational Dashboards
What Are Balanced Scorecards?
A Balanced Scorecard (BSC) is a strategic management device for linking business activities with the vision and long-term goals of the organization. They emphasize measuring performance across four key perspectives:
- Financial
- Customer
- Internal processes
- Learning and growth
BSC approaches it further in taking a holistic view of organizational health. What they do is enable businesses to monitor progress towards overarching outcomes and execute strategy.
A balanced scorecard can be used by a company that wants to improve its customer satisfaction, by tracking metrics such as NPS (Net Promoter Score) or any other relevant metric related to customer satisfaction) average response time, or hours spent on employee training.
What Are Operational Dashboards?
1. Purpose
Balanced scorecards are strategic tools built to enable long-term planning for an organization by aligning its goals with multiple viewpoints and measurable performance metrics.
More so their chief concern is in assisting organizations match daily tasks with strategic goals such as customer satisfaction, innovation, or financial performance. In contrast, operational dashboards are tactical tools used for real-time monitoring and troubleshooting to monitor daily workflow and correct any relevant issues that appear.
Key Difference
- Balanced Scorecards: Strategic focus (long-term objectives and vision)
- Operational Dashboards: Operational focus (immediate, day-to-day performance)
2. Metrics Tracked
With a balanced scorecard, we measure high-level KPIs that are centrally tied to strategic goals. In many cases, these metrics include things such as customer satisfaction, employee engagement, and a rate of innovation — all important for measuring progress toward the ultimate goal of long-term success.
On the other hand, operational dashboards watch granular and real-time things like website uptime, sales per hour, or production cycle time which are directly rolled up on short-term operations.
Key Difference
- Balanced Scorecards: Strategic KPIs for long-term goals
- Operational Dashboards: Granular, real-time metrics for immediate actions
3. Visualization Style
The structured format of Balanced scorecards links metrics to strategic objectives and sometimes explains in the form of a narrative to explain the data. Because operational dashboards are visually heavy and use charts, graphs, and gauges to show data at a glance, they make great quick decision-making dashboards.
Key Difference
- Balanced Scorecards: Structured and narrative-driven visualizations
- Operational Dashboards: Dynamic and visually intuitive elements for quick understanding
4. Audience
While ROI is a valuable measurement, the primary audience of balanced scorecards is senior leaders and strategists who require a high-level view of how organizational performance relates to alignment with long-term goals.
Operational dashboards are created to help monitor and improve day-to-day performance as performed by the manager, the operational teams, and the front-line staff.
Key Difference
- Balanced Scorecards: Strategic leadership
- Operational Dashboards: Operational teams
5. Customization
A Balanced scorecard usually follows a standardized framework (using standard perspectives, e.g. financial, customer, process, learning & growth). However, they are non-customizable to conserve consistency in strategic performance measurement.
Unlike operational dashboards, these are highly customizable and capable of tailoring metrics and visualizations to specific operational needs.
Key Difference
- Balanced Scorecards: Standardized structure
- Operational Dashboards: Highly customizable
Deciding Between Scorecards and Dashboards
While operational dashboards should be used to monitor day-to-day operations, balanced scorecards are used to address managing strategy. But there’s a gray area here where all these tools overlap.
Think of it as a Venn diagram: The intersection serves as “strategic dashboards” or “operational scorecards” that pull together elements of both.
A strategic dashboard simplifies and consolidates a small set of key strategic measures that represent the organization’s overall strategy. This could be displayed on a single page, offering a clear overview while still allowing users to dive deeper into specific metrics.
An operational scorecard, on the other hand, shifts focus to tactical goals rather than strategic ones.
It may track short-term objectives, projects, and metrics tied to these initiatives, offering insights into multiple ongoing tasks. Although it resembles a scorecard, its focus is more immediate and operational, often complementing dashboards by adding detailed context to project-specific metrics.
Ask These Questions to Determine Your Needs
When do I need real-time updates or periodic reviews?
An operational dashboard is the better choice, however, if you need live or highly updated data. A balanced scorecard is most appropriate for use for monthly or quarterly reviews.
Is either tool adaptable to suit my needs?
If you need a blend of both tools, weigh in on which works best for your main objectives, and use it. A strategic dashboard can supply an operation's insights or an operation scorecard can incorporate wider strategic goals.
Differences Between a Dashboard and a Balanced Scorecard
Design Process Comparison: Dashboard vs. Balanced Scorecard
Usage Process Comparison: Dashboard vs. Balanced Scorecard
Step 1
Dashboard Usage: Data from operational systems is collected and displayed in real-time.
Balanced Scorecard Usage: Responsible employees follow the objectives outlined on the strategy map.
Step 2
Dashboard Usage: Operational metrics are visualized through graphs, gauges, or charts for quick interpretation.
Balanced Scorecard Usage: Employees execute the strategic action plan, ensuring activities align with specific objectives.
Step 3
Dashboard Usage: Alerts or notifications are generated for managers if performance deviates from expectations.
Balanced Scorecard Usage: KPIs are compared against targets and thresholds to determine progress and highlight areas for adjustment.
Step 4
Dashboard Usage: Managers analyze the cause-and-effect relationships to address performance issues promptly.
Balanced Scorecard Usage: Progress is tracked, and updates to plans or objectives are suggested when necessary.
Final Thoughts
Balanced scorecards and operational dashboards are two powerful pieces of performance management, serving two different purposes. Balance scorecards give a strategic approach to align long-lasting goals with climbable KPIs to direct strategy execution.
What they don’t do is provide real-time insights that allow you to optimize daily operations and ensure efficiency — that’s provided by operational dashboards.
The decision between these two depends on your requirements but assembling them into a whole can make for a thorough method to follow up on execution and make choices.
Xenia’s dashboard tools are very handy if you’re eager to boost operations efficiency and master how to visualize performance, track progress, and get your team’s efforts merged.
The combination of features that can be tailored to your needs along with real-time data insights makes this one very easy to use.
Ready to Take the Next Step?
Discover how Xenia can transform your performance management strategy. Book a demo with Xenia today and see how our platform can help you build custom dashboards and manage operations with precision.
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📆 Recurring Tasks
Create recurring schedules for daily opening and closings, performance review meetings, inspections, cleanings and more.
📲 Chats & Announcements
Centralize team communications with in task chats, one-on-one chats, team messages and company wide announcements
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Use Xenia's analytics dashboards to view staff work reports. Filter by asset, location, category or due date and export the report in PDF or Excel
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🛠️ Work Orders
Create work orders with associated team, asset, location, priority, category and due date. View live progress reports on each work order, chat with teams, and review resulting template submission, images and notes to improve operations.
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Safety Compliance & Quality Assurance
👍 Concrete Brand Standards
Put your brand standards in a clear and operational checklist to be attached to work assignments.
🔎 Smart Inspection Workflows
Xenia's operations template builder has built in conditional logic into each step. This allows you to trigger actions based on a form response such as creating a corrective action on a failed inspection step, sending a notification to management for out of range meter readings, and much more.
✨ Corrective Actions
Operationalize inspections with fast work order assignment arising from a failed inspection step. All corrective data is stored in the checklist submission for auditing and accountability.
📋 Analytics and Reports
View live dashboard summaries of tasks, employee performance, template submissions and more. Filter, organize and export compliance reports to PDF and Excel formats to simplify compliance management.
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