The balanced scorecard: a foundation for the strategic management of information systems

The balanced scorecard (BSC) has emerged as a decision support tool at the strategic management level. Many business leaders now evaluate corporate performance by supplementing financial accounting data with goal-related measures from the following perspectives: customer, internal business process, and learning and growth. It is argued that the BSC concept can be adapted to assist those managing business functions, organizational units and individual projects. This article develops a balanced scorecard for information systems (IS) that measures and evaluates IS activities from the following perspectives: business value, user orientation, internal process, and future readiness. Case study evidence suggests that a balanced IS scorecard can be the foundation for a strategic IS management system provided that certain development guidelines are followed, appropriate metrics are identified, and key implementation obstacles are overcome. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.