Performance Measurement - Balanced Scorecard Today - Research Paper Example

Cohen struggled very hard to establish and expand its business. By 1939, he succeeded in establishing more than 100 Tesco stores all over the United Kingdom (Tesco Stores Limited). Tesco had a steady pace till 1980 whereby it gradually declined, however, in the 90s, the company took a fresh stance and set a goal to become Europe’s top food outlet (Tesco, 2009). For this particular rationale, it chose to widen its areas of operations all over the European countries even ventured into Asian emerging markets especially in Gulf and the Central Asian States. In the UK, It rapidly expanded its network from 500 to 2500 grocery stores. In the early 90s, the entry of Tesco in Ireland was so aggressive that it purchased all the retail stores of Quinnworth, Stewart, and Crazy Prices. Today almost more than 8000 brands are being offered to customers at all major stores across the globe. The brands include electronic items, fuel, cloth, books, furniture, household daily routine items, Internet services, DVDs, CDs, and many other brands. Tesco plc presently engages more than 500,000 individuals who belong to fourteen different countries (Hawkes, 2012). In 2009, Tesco’s income surpassed £1 billion each week and it continued for the whole year (Microsoft, 2010). Presently its share cost is 427. 55p and is far more than its top rivals having a share price of 332. 40p (Tesco, 2009). In the London stock market, the Tesco function with the logo TSCO where it is also part of the FTSE 100 Index with revenue of £64.539 billion and a net income of £2.806 billion.

The Balanced Scorecard is a strategy performance management tool. It has been observed that most companies fail to execute the strategy and to translate it at the lower level. The major cause of this failure is the complex strategy which the employees are unable to understand at a mass level. Sometimes only that person understands and knows the pros and cons of the strategy that has been written or formulated it but even then there are cases that even the formulator has no good idea to execute the strategy successfully. With the application of the Balanced Scorecard, the strategy approaches become more structured. It explains how one should make a systematic strategy for his or her organization, what perspective should be taken into account, and consequently, this approach gives exciting results. The most famous 1000 index companies have implemented Balanced Scorecards in their organizations. The foremost necessity of a balanced scorecard is that it helps the companies to understand the strategy, and supports to measure and improve their performances. Further routine jobs and everyday problems have no links with strategic objectives. These jobs, tasks, and problems are resolved and executed by the company but they don’t contribute to the major goals. The concept of a Balanced Scorecard is different. It brings the top managers, CEOs, and investors to explain their strategies and goals. It links those goals to low-level initiatives and line-level employees. It enables the employees to understand their roles in the overall success and to support their managers to achieve the strategic goals. Thus Balanced Scorecard links the strategic level goals to line-level actions. It means that an organization uses the Balanced Scorecards for its top-level managers; it will not acquire measurable results. Rather the Balanced Scorecard will be required to be implemented companywide to inform all of the employees.