Measuring e-business performance: Towards a revised balanced scorecard approach

Abstract.

The balanced scorecard (BSC) is a management system that enables executives and managers to map their strategic objectives onto a set of performance measures in four inter-related areas, known as the financial, customer, learning and growth, and the internal process perspectives. Based on research into leading and lagging e-business companies and their measurement practices, this paper introduces an approach to modifying the balanced scorecard, applicable to the management of e-business units in which the customer perspective of the traditional balanced score card is supplemented by the incorporation of four additional perspectives (brand, service, market and technology) that have been found to be critical to the development and execution of e-business strategies. This approach facilitates a clearer understanding of the customer perspective, which consequently benefits the process of selecting the goals and measures associated with the other three perspectives, improving the quality of the overall decision-making and managerial processes as a whole.