Observational Assessment of the Balanced Scorecard Strategic Alignment Process: A Study of a Utility Company

As part of a larger study, this paper presents an exploratory and qualitative analysis of the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) implementation of a utility company in Malaysia. Specifically, the paper explores whether the use of BSC facilitates the alignment between corporate objectives, strategic business units. strategies and the key performance indicators of individual managers. After sixteen years of BSC implementation, the company has received some mixed responses, both positive and negative feedback from its stakeholders. One of the major proponents about BSC is its purported ability to create vertical and horizontal alignment between each separated business segments, divisions and at individual level, particularly in a complex organization. Therefore, this study presents an observational assessment on how a Malaysian company which have been utilizing the BSC methodology for more than a decade and still trying to find a better match and alignment between corporate objectives, SBU strategies and KPIs of individual managers. It presents the current state of BSC alignment tools and processes used, and premised on some observational and documentation analysis, suggests on several improvement initiatives.