PERFORMANCE MEASUREMENT

For several years managers have been discussing the corporate scorecard or "management dashboard." This concept proposes that management develop and use a balanced set of financial and non-financial measures that are derived from a strategic, long-term vision. The concept's popularity underlines a common concern: that traditional, financially-based organizational-performance measures place a disproportionate emphasis on short-term results. However, the literature to date has tended to be mainly normative, focusing more on the advantages of the approach than on the details relating to actual implementation. One company in Canada that has implemented such an approach is Standard Life. Parent of the Standard Life Group of Edinburg, Scotland, Standard Life is Canada's oldest life insurance company. This article discusses its experience in implementing a corporate scorecard.