applying the balanced scorecard to elaborate better...

RECA N°2. julio –diciembre 2010 Certificado de Reserva de Derechos al Uso Exclusivo del Titulo núm.: 04-2009-063011133400-203

Applying the Balanced Scorecard to elaborate better Business Plans (Aplicación del Balanced Scorecard para elaborar mejores Planes de Negocios)

Carlos Rodríguez1

[email protected]

El propósito de esta investigación fue estudiar la influencia del Balanced Scorecard en el diseño de planes de negocios con miras a su aceptación por parte de las agencias otorgadoras de crédito, como incubadoras de empresas o aceleradoras. Bajo el supuesto de que es posible incrementar la posibilidad de aprobación de los planes de negocios, mediante el diseño de estos por medio de una metodología para la administración del desempeño, se llevó a efecto un experimento con seis grupos de emprendedores. A los seis grupos se les solicitó desarrollar un plan de negocios para iniciar una empresa de consultoría en administración de procesos. Tres de estos grupos utilizaron la metodología comúnmente utilizada para la elaboración y aprobación de planes de negocios, identificada aquí como metodología Oxford-Harvard. Los otros tres utilizaron el Balanced Scorecard como metodología de diseño de planes de negocios. Los seis planes de negocios fueron sometidos al escrutinio de un panel de expertos en negocios. Las respuestas al cuestionario fueron evaluadas utilizando la prueba estadística no-paramétrica de Chi cuadrado. Los resultados del análisis muestran que los planes diseñados mediante el Balanced Scorecard, están en mejor posición para ser respaldados financieramente, que aquéllos realizados con la metodología tradicional Oxford-Harvard. El experimento confirma que un plan de negocios que incluye instrumentos de control puede alcanzar un mejor juicio para la obtención de apoyo financiero. Keywords: Business Plans, Balanced Scorecard, Computer mediated Strategic Planning, Performance Management Systems, Strategic Control. (Planes de negocio, Balanced Scorecard, Planeación Estratégica mediada por Computadora, Sistemas de Administración del Desempeño, Control Estratégico)

1 Candidato a Doctor por el Programa de Maestría y Doctorado en Ingeniería, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México – UNAM. Profesor en el Programa de Posgrado en Ciencias de la Administración, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México – UNAM.

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RECA N°2 julio – diciembre 2010 Certificado de Reserva de Derechos al Uso Exclusivo del Titulo núm.: 04-2009-063011133400-203

Applying the Balanced Scorecard to elaborate better Business Plans

Carlos Rodríguez2,3 [email protected]

The purpose of this research was to investigate the influence of the Balanced Scorecard in the design of business plans toward their acceptance by funding agencies like business incubators or business accelerators. On the assumption that it is possible to increase the approval likelihood of business plans by designing them with such a performance management methodology, an experiment was carried out with six groups of entrepreneurs. The six groups were asked to design a business plan for a consultancy in business processes. Three of them used the methodology developed by the universities of Harvard and Oxford, nowadays, the most common methodology to devise business plans; the others used the Balanced Scorecard which is as a methodology less used to design business plans. Products were submitted to an expert panel, constituted by Business School professors, to referee them. Chi-Squared analysis applied to a Likert scale questionnaire submitted to such a panel, demonstrate that the plans designed by using the Balanced Scorecard aroused better perceptions of quality than the ones using the currently accepted methodology of Oxford-Harvard. Therefore, results of the experiment confirm that a business plan including strategic control tools, like the ones provided by the Balanced Scorecard, appear to be better judged for obtaining financial support. Keywords: Business Plans, Balanced Scorecard, Computer mediated Strategic Planning, Performance Management Systems, Strategic Control.

____________________

Since the birth of Strategic Management, its creator, Professor Igor Ansoff warned that

the central problem with corporate strategy was execution. He argued that it is much

more important for an enterprise to execute correctly its strategy, and that is less

2 PhD Candidate at Graduate School of Engineering, National Autonomous University of Mexico (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México – UNAM). Professor at Graduate School of Management, National Autonomous University of Mexico (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México – UNAM). 3 Although the overall experiment was carried out in Spanish, as all subjects were Spanish spoken people, this report is written in English, in order to expose MBA students to English written literature.

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important the design of it (Ansoff, 1965). Later on, Robert Kaplan and David Norton,

creators of Balanced Scorecard, assert that is better for an enterprise to execute a

modest strategy than to possess a great strategy unable to be executed (Kaplan &

Norton, 1992, 1993). From that time now, much academic work has been done to solve

such a pervasive problem or at least to figure out little more about it. For example,

Christopher Orpen studies the effects of strategic planning in performance of Small and

Medium Enterprises -SMEs- (Orpen, 1985), in the same way Leslie Rue and Nabil

Ibrahim examine the relationship between planning sophistication and performance in

SMEs (Rue & Ibrahim, 1998). Stephen Perry in turn, studies the relationship between

using business plans and the bankruptcy of US SMEs (Perry, 2001). Products of such

effort have appeared in the form of strategic control methodologies, such as Critical

Success Factor Analysis, the Balanced Scorecard (BSC), Six Sigma, Malcolm Baldrige

and EVA®, among others. Those all were designed with the purpose of monitoring the

performance of strategy execution, indeed these frameworks can be identified also as

performance management systems.

For nearly four decades now, great efforts have been done to diminish errors in strategy

execution, but less work have been exerted to enhance the quality of their design. One

of the few scholars interested in strategic plans design is Mark Adkins who performed

an experiment with the United States Air Force. The aim was to compare the quality of

plans designed in Computer mediated Strategic Planning sessions, against quality of

plans designed in a traditional affair. The scope of his research covered just the task of

collaboratively designing of plans, which once finished were submitted to a panel of

experts to evaluate their quality (Adkins, Burgoon, & Nunamaker, 2003; Adkins,

Shearer, Nunamaker, Romero, & Simcox, 1998).

Adkins’ experiment inspired the one reported here. But unlike Adkins’, all groups of this

experiment were supported by a Computer mediated Strategic Planning system. Thus,

the main difference between both experiments consists in the definition of independent

variables. For Adkins’ experiment independent variable was the presence or absence of


an electronic collaborative system, whereas in the one reported here, it was the

methodology applied to design business plans. It must be understood that the rationale

supporting this research implies that business plans rejection is consequence of missing

strategic control tools in the design stage.

Deficient design of business plans, elaborated with traditional methodologies becomes

patent when trying to compete for funds, being rejected systematically. Omissions

occurred in the design stage of business plans, are caused by deficient collaborative

processes by means of which the plans are elaborated. Therefore, the problem tackled

in this research is the mistaken design of business plans, as well as the mistaken

collaborative processes by means of which, business plans are designed. As a possible

solution to this problem, it is proposed to embed strategic control tools, like the ones

provide by the Balanced Scorecard in the design of business plans. The research

question underneath this study inquires whether it is possible to improve quality of

business plans by attaching visual control tools like the gauges and color progress grids

provided by a dashboard system.

The hypothesis tested, for the research question to be answered, implies that if strategic

control instruments, like the ones provided by the Balanced Scorecard, are to be

incorporated in the design, quality of business plans will be improved. As a

consequence, business plans will be better suited to be granted for financial support.

Methodology

To prove this hypothesis, a social experiment was carried out with groups performing

collaborative tasks consisting of the elaboration of business plans for the creation of

business processes administration consultancy firms. The design of such experiment

corresponds to Post-Test Only Control Group Design (Campbell & Stanley, 1970) as

appears in Figure 1. This design of experiments was selected because of its power to

carry out social experiments in diverse areas like education, medicine, group decision

making, consumers’ psychology, and business research, among others. Post-Test Only


Control Group Design allows to experimentally comparing two groups exposed to

different treatments, one of which is the target of the researcher, meanwhile the other is

only a placebo. In the case of this research, the BSC methodology was the target,

meanwhile the placebo was OH methodology.

1

1 X O

O

R

R

Figure 1. Post-Test Only Control Group Design.

Experimental Units

Subjects of the experiment were students recruited from the Graduate School of

Management, National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). All subjects were

current and former learners with the one that subscribes in the subject matter of

Quantitative Analysis for Management. They all were already coursed the Business

Plan subject matter, which is part of the MBA syllabus, and much of them were in fact,

business consultants. The six groups created were classified into two categories,

experimental groups and control groups, subsequently; three groups of each category

were formed.

The process of recruitment of participants is considered to be random in nature (R),

since groups did not assign themselves beforehand. Experimental event (X) comprised

meetings to design business plans. In the case of experimental groups, they applied the

Balanced Scorecard (BSC), meanwhile control groups applied the currently accepted

methodology to design business plans, Oxford-Harvard methodology. Observation (O)

consisted of analysis to a questionnaire applied with the panel of experts who evaluated

the quality of the six business plans.

All six groups performed their task during meetings carried out at the Institute for

Research on Applied Mathematics and Systems, National Autonomous University of


Mexico. They all were accommodated at a “U” shaped table for face-to-face interactions

to be allowed. All groups performed their task within schedules lasting about 10 hours,

in only one day; this way avoids spuriousness to the experiment because of

experimental mortality or absences, which could arise as rival explanations if meetings

lasted more than a day.

Groups’ arrangement is shown in Table 1. Maximum number of participants was eight

as it is permitted by the electronic meeting system utilized. Minimum number of

participants was five for the experiment to be adjusted with the small group decision

making theory, which asserts that decision making groups perform better when formed

by 7±2 members (Fisher, 1974). Column of treatment shows the methodology used by

groups, either Oxford-Harvard (OH), or Balanced Scorecard (BSC)

GROUP No. OF PARTICIPANTS TREATMENT

1 A 8 OH

1 B 7 BSC

2 A 5 OH

2 B 8 BSC

3 A 6 OH

3 B 5 BSC

Table 1. Arrangement of groups attending the meetings.

All groups were supported by MeetingWorks™ Version 7; a Java Virtual Machine based

electronic collaborative system. Temporary licenses for eight users plus a chauffeur

license were granted for doing the experiment by MeetingWorks CEO.

Application of electronic collaborative systems, also labeled as Groupware, in group

decision making has been reported since some decades now (DeSanctis & Gallupe,

1987). The use of Groupware, specifically Group Decision Support systems (GDSS)

can effectively diminish problems raised during traditional processes of group decision


making. The anonymity of those who generate ideas is better preserved; parallel

participation makes the meetings more efficient; legitimacy of voting process is

guaranteed by means of electronic controls; and conflicts handling is improved by

discussing on the ideas displayed instead of on the authors (Nunamaker, 1989, 2004;

Valacich, Dennis, Jessup, & Nunamaker J. F., 1992).

Nevertheless, the application of Groupware in strategic planning began formally, for

only one decade. Currently such an application is known in academia as Computer

mediated Strategic Planning (Adkins, et al., 2003; Adkins, et al., 1998; Helquist, Kruse,

& Adkins, 2008).

Control groups utilized the standard methodology of Oxford-Harvard to formulate

business plans. This methodology implies the creation of a vision, a mission, a SWOT

analysis and statements for:

Information of the industry

Information of principals

Marketing plan

Financial documents

In turn, experimental groups utilized the Balanced Scorecard, which provides strategic

control tools such as gauges and color progress grids. This methodology, very recently

introduced in the design of business plans, implies designing plans taking into account

four perspectives:

Financial perspective

Customer perspective

Internal perspective

Innovation and learning perspective

Besides using MeetingWorks™, control groups used Innovateur™, which is a free Excel

based package to perform finance planning developed by a British software enterprise.


Experimental groups used StrategyMap™, BSC Australian application. A license for

limited cases was provided by the Firm’s CEO.

Facilitator and chauffeur were roles taken by the same person, and this person

conducted the six meetings, avoiding spuriousness of instrumentation to the experiment

because of facilitation style, which could be a rival explanation for the experiment if

groups were conducted by different facilitators. Figure 2 shows one of the groups doing

their task, being supported by the facilitator.

Figure 2. A group performing its task.

Meeting agendas were planned by using MeetingWorks™ some days before each

meeting took place. Schedule for control groups followed these steps:

1. Creation of a Vision and a Mission 2. SWOT Analysis 3. Competitive Analysis 4. Marketing Plan 5. Operations Plan 6. Financial Plan

Schedule for experimental groups followed these steps:

1. Creation of a Vision and a Mission


2. SWOT Analysis 3. Financial Perspective 4. Client Perspective 5. Technological Perspective 6. Learning Perspective

The strategic control tool included by control groups in their business plans was Break-

Point Analysis (Figure 3); Innovateur software was well suited to support such an

analysis. On their part, experimental groups included gauges and progress grids

provided by the BSC methodology; StrategyMap™ allows users to easily design such

instruments on the basis of what has been discussed. Figure 4 display a Strategy Map

as developed by one of the experimental groups (in Spanish, as it was the language

used during the experiment).

Figure 3. A break point graph for a business plan


Figure 4. A Strategy Map as designed by one of the groups.

Each group work flew throughout its agenda, which included brainstorming, explanation

and voting stages. The entire discussion products, including voting graphs were saved

in an MsWord file. One group member, chosen by agreement in each group was in

charge of editing such a file. Once the document was edited, it was submitted to the

head of the experiment, who collected the six business plans.

Questionnaire

A panel of experts in strategic planning and elaboration of business plans was

constituted by invitation to participate in this research. This panel was constituted by five

persons holding a PhD in Business Administration, four of them were with the Graduate

School of Management, National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM); the other

one was with the Manchester Business School, U.K.

All plans were uploaded into a web site in order to stay reachable by such a panel to

review them (Figure 5). The web site (designed in Spanish to facilitate understanding of

all members of the panel, even the one from Manchester Business School, as he is a


Spanish-speaking person) enclosed all business plans, and also had a link to the online

questionnaire, which was hosted by e-encuesta, an online service from Spain.

Figure 5. Web site containing the business plans and a questionnaire link.

The questionnaire applied was adapted from the one used by Mark Adkins in his

experiment with the United States Air Force (Adkins, et al., 2003; Adkins, et al., 1998). It

consists of a Likert scale questionnaire composed of six Likert items, each of them

could be answered selecting one out of seven options in line with the degree of

agreement the expert confers to it. The Likert scale questionnaire is repeated for each


business plan; therefore, as six plans were designed, the questionnaire was repeated

six times. No one of members of the panel was allowed to know the methodology used

to design the business plans.

The head of the experiment used the name of the plans (the consultancy firms

proposed) as internal code to know which methodology was applied to design them.

Table 2 shows the six Likert items (translated into English, original questionnaire was

applied in Spanish); they were written in form of assertions that cause a reaction that

can be indicated in a seven points scale, implicating the level of agreement. This is

indeed the attitude of the surveyed subject towards each assertion (Likert, 1932).

Six quality constructs are evaluated by means of such a Likert scale questionnaire:

completeness of the overall business plan as judged by the experts; attainability as for

purposes outlined in Mission and Vision statements; viability of the plan as can be

regarded by robustness of the analyses taken by the group; clearness in explanation of

purposes and actions to reach them; measurability of the plan as it comprehends

mechanisms to monitor its performance; suitability as the plan appears to be candidate

to be funded by a financial agency. Columns to the right only indicate the levels of

response allowed for the evaluators. Each level was weighted accordingly for statistical

analysis feasibility.

Likert item Level of response Elements of the Business Plan presentation, such as title and executive summary, really called your attention and allowed you to understand the aspirations of entrepreneurs.

Str

on

gly

Agre

e

Agre

e

Weakly

Agre

e

Indiffe

ren

t

Weakly

Dis

agre

e

Dis

agre

e

Str

on

gly

Dis

agre

e Temperance in approaching objectives denotes high possibility in

accomplishing the plan.

Aspects taken into account, both internal and external (as SWOT Analysis) allow you to corroborate high viability of the plan.

Ideas on actions to be undertaken in order to reach objectives are sufficiently clear and realistic

The plan includes control instruments that appear to be useful in measuring its performance, once implemented.

In general, the plan has an adequate structure, so that only minor improvements are needed for it to be a good candidate to obtain funds in order to initiate the business.

Table 2. Questionnaire submitted to the panel of experts.


All answer were collected by e-encuesta, the web server where the questionnaire was

hosted; this online survey service also provided a database containing all responses of

the questionnaires in a .csv (comma separated values) file that can be displayed with

Excel and other statistical packages.

The responses obtained in the questionnaire and kept on the database retrieved, were

analyzed statistically using the statistical package SPSS version 17 (Figure 6). The

nonparametric statistical method of χ2 was selected because it is used to analyze

relation between categorical variables, like the ones in this experiment, the six quality

constructs in the questionnaire, which were translated into a Likert scale item. Indeed,

the statistical proof of χ2 is regularly associated to Likert scale questionnaires to test

association of difference between two qualitative variables. Six cross tabulation tables

were produced to analyze the questionnaire. Columns variable was the level of

response the experts confered to each one of the Likert items; rows variable was the

methodologies applied to design the business plans.


Figure 6. SPSS Database containing the panel responses to the questionnaire.

For each construct, a null hypothesis was generated, implying the nonexistence of

relationship between the response of experts and the methodology used to design the

business plans. An alternative hypothesis was generated in such a way that if verified,

indicates relationship of difference between level of answers of experts and planning

methodology. Therefore, alternative hypotheses verify the existence of difference

between responses related to the construct under analysis and methodology to design

the business plan.

As it is common in social research, level of confidence demanded in this experiment

was set at 95% for the χ2 test. So α level was set at .05. A level of P-value above α

does not permit the null hypothesis to be rejected, and this implies no relationship

between variables under analysis. On the other hand, a P-value below α, does permit

the null hypothesis to be rejected, and then the alternative hypothesis can be accepted.


The last implies occurrence of relationship between variables, meaning that the

methodology used to design the business plan can exert influence in the response of

the experts.

Results

P-values for all Likert items are shown in Table 3. As can be noticed, none but item

about measurability (the kind of control instruments) shows statistically significant

differences in using one or another methodology. This means no matter which

methodology is used for designing business plans, quality keeps unaffected. This is not

the case considering the item of measurability, as P-value in there is far below the α

level of .05. Here, it must be accepted that a strong relationship appear between

methodology to be used for elaborate a business plan, and the improvement of quality.

The aspect of including graphical control tools in the design business plans, being

qualified far above P-value, arouse positive perception of quality in all members of the

panel of evaluators.

Likert item P-VALUE Elements of the Business Plan presentation, such as title and executive summary, really called your attention and allowed you to understand the aspirations of entrepreneurs.

.466

Temperance in approaching objectives denotes high possibility in accomplishing the plan.

.192

Aspects taken into account, both internal and external (as SWOT Analysis) allow you to corroborate high viability of the plan.

.740

Ideas on actions to be undertaken in order to reach objectives are sufficiently clear and realistic

.815

The plan includes control instruments that appear to be useful in measuring its performance, once implemented.

.006

In general, the plan has an adequate structure, so that only minor improvements are needed for it to be a good candidate to obtain funds in order to initiate the business.

.491

Table 3. P-values for the Likert scale questionnaire


The P-value only establishes a strong relationship of difference between the

methodology in use and the quality associated to measurability (.006, that is far below

.05 requested by the experiment), but it does not show which one of the methodologies

under evaluation is better. For this to be solved, a visual inspection to Figure 7 is

sufficient. As observed in the score of responses done in each level of the scale, it is

clear that Balanced Scorecard outperforms Oxford-Harvard methodology in designing

business plans, considering exclusively the quality of control instruments.

Both, P-value and visual inspection to the graph constitute a strong argument to

statistically accept the work hypothesis of this study: incorporation of control instruments

in business plans designed during Computer aided Strategic Planning meetings,

generates improvement in the quality of these.

Figure 7. Bar graph for Likert item: “The plan includes control instruments that appear to be useful in measuring its performance,

once implemented”.


This result constitutes substantial difference with regard to Adkins’ experiment, which

shows this construct unaltered. Adkins wanted to probe whether introducing a

Groupware system can improve overall quality of plans. Methodology for designing

plans that was used by all his groups was the same, but experimental groups were

aided by a Groupware, while control groups performed without such an aid. Adkins

found that measurability does not depend upon the use of a Groupware.

Discussion

This research corroborates findings of Adkins’ experiment, particularly those concerned

to quality constructs others than measurability. With respect to completeness,

attainability, viability, and suitability, P-values report no significant differences in using

any of the two methodologies tested here. It was expected this result because both kind

of groups, experimental and control were immersed in an electronic environment of

Computer mediated Strategic Planning. For Adkins, plans designed by the ones that

were aided by such kind of Groupware were better qualified by his evaluators. On the

other hand, he found measurability remains the same no matter if computer aid is used

(Adkins, et al., 2003; Adkins, et al., 1998). This is where this research contributes an

advance towards quality improvement of business plans. With respect to measurability,

P-value reports high relationship of difference between methodology utilized to

elaborate business plans and the perception of quality, as judged by the members of

the panel of experts

Balanced Scorecard was better qualified against the most commonly used methodology

to develop business plans, the methodology of Oxford-Harvard. As BSC incorporates

control tools like gauges and color progress grids, it can be asserted that by attaching

such devices in the design of a business plan, it appears to perform better once it is

implemented. The incorporation of control instruments improve the general robustness

of a business plan, since embedded in the design there exist instruments by means of

which performance of the plan can be monitored during the implementation.


Limitations

This research took part in an academic environment in which recruitment of participants

was realized with graduate students of Business Management. In spite of the fact that

the subjects know how to design a business plan, they all were aware that meetings

comprised simulated environments and that some aspects of a real business plan

cannot be done in a short period of time. On the other hand, they all were motivated by

the fact that products of the meetings can be regarded as robust templates that, with

only little additional work, will take form of real business plans.

Six groups of entrepreneurs, five to eight in size each are really a short population, so it

would be better to recruit more individuals, but this also would be time consuming.

Hence, despite of shortness of population, it was preferable to carry out the experiment

rather than wait for more groups to be constituted. Being a nonparametric test, χ2 allows

statistical analyses with rather small populations, as it does not claim data to possess a

mean and a standard deviation.

The scope of the research did not permit real implementation of plans, which indeed

was not the purpose. As in Adkins’ experiment, the main purpose was to produce a step

forward in academic efforts towards improvement of quality in the design of business

plans.

Conclusions

This research proves the influence of the Balanced Scorecard in the design of business

plans that are supposed to compete for funds. The motivation to carry out the project is

founded in the assumption that low likelihood for business plans to be better judged, is

caused by the absence of instruments that can support the plans in implementation and

control stages. Regularly, in collaborative processes of plans design, strategic control

instruments are not part of the overall design. Such instruments could assist

entrepreneurs during plans execution. Absence of control instruments that are


integrated in the design of business plans, causes uncertainty during the

implementation, and condemning planning efforts to failure.

As a possible solution to this ancient problem entrenched in strategic planning, it was

proposed to increase opportunity for the business plans to be accepted by exerting an

improvement in quality business plans, consisting of incorporating strategic control

instruments, like those provided by the Balanced Scorecard. All groups generated their

business plans immersed in an electronic environment of Computer mediated Strategic

Planning. Computer support substantially augmented the pace of meetings.

This is not the only benefit in using Electronic Meeting Systems. Other notable benefits

are: preservation of anonymity during the phases of ideas generation; participation in

parallel, made possible by the generation and sharing of ideas simultaneously; and the

guarantee of a legitimate processes of voting thanks to the security mechanisms that

avoid duplication of individual votes (Nunamaker, 1989, 2004). This study upholds these

benefits.

Thus, this experiment was carried out to compare Balanced Scorecard, which is

commonly utilized in developed countries, against the most commonly used

methodology to design and evaluate business plans, the Oxford-Harvard methodology.

Three plans were designed with Balanced Scorecard, and three with Oxford-Harvard

methodology.

Results of this experiment corroborate that embed strategic control tools, like the ones

provide by the Balanced Scorecard in the design of business plans, the likelihood for

plans to be better accepted, can be increased.

Quality of business plans was measured by means of six hypothetical constructs of

quality, each of them was turned into a qualitative variable that could be measured to

find relations between them and methodology used to design business plans. Five out


of six quality constructs remained invariable, which mean that completeness,

attainability, viability, clearness and suitability are not influenced by the methodology

used and therefore quality does not depend on them. On the other hand, the construct

of measurability, which evaluates whether the plan comprehends mechanisms to

monitor its performance, denoted strong relationship with regard to the methodology

used.

As judgment from the panel of experts favored Balanced Scorecard over Oxford-

Harvard methodology, it can be verified that incorporation of strategic control

instruments produce an improvement in business plans quality.

As a result, the main contribution of this research is an innovation proposed for the

design of business plans, elaborated in an electronic atmosphere of Computer mediated

Strategic Planning. Such innovation consists in utilizing a performance management

system, the Balanced Scorecard, as a methodology to design business plans, in such a

way that advantages in incorporating strategic control instruments can be materialized.

The Balanced Scorecard, though launched in 1992 (Kaplan & Norton, 1992), is being

slowly introduced to our country, but only big organizations are capable to get such a

management tool. Yet, its use as a methodology to elaborate business plans, is even

more novel, even in developed countries. Regarding this, the BSC software applied

during the meeting of this experiment, it is indeed an inexpensive option for Mexican

SMEs to implement it.

Although Balanced Scorecard is not commonly know yet as a methodology to evaluate

business plans by funding agencies like business incubators and business accelerators,

results of this experiments can be taken by such agencies as suggestion to improve

their procedures to approve business plans.


References

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