BSC Designer is a powerful software that allows companies to design, implement and utilize a customized Balanced Scorecard for tracking essential performance data and progress toward company goals. For businesses with a strong desire to grow and succeed, BSC Designer can provide the tools needed to effectively lead the company.
BSC Designer was developed with the busy executive in mind, offering a multitude of customizable features that allow CEOs and senior-level executives to quickly review and analyze Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). Data views, reports and charts assist in communicating KPI data to line-level management, helping your front-line team implement practices that correspond with company objectives.
The BSC Designer Standard edition is an excellent solution for small- to medium-sized businesses who wish to improve performance. The software’s easy-to-understand tools make defining and implementing KPIs painless. Reporting functions provide both summarized and detailed information for quick evaluation.
BSC Designer presents information in multiple formats for ease of data review and analysis. The Strategy Tree view lists the KPI values in a table with stoplight-style status indicators for each indicator. This allow managers to quickly compare current values to goals based on the color of a small circle next to the indicator. Many companies use colors similar to an intersection stoplight, with red to indicate poor performance, yellow for marginal results and green for acceptable levels.
The Strategy Tree also has dynamic indicators, which are colored arrows next to the indicator value. These indicate whether the value has moved toward the goal or away from it since the last time point. The stoplight and dynamic indicator thresholds are completely customizable, allowing executives to set warning levels appropriate to the company’s performance objectives.
Several charts are included in BSC Designer Standard to allow for rapid data analysis. The time chart shows how indicator values have changed over a time period. The chart is also color-coded to demonstrate where each value is in relation to company goals.
The diamond chart, also known as a radar graph, compares the current indicator values with both a base reading and the objective values. Weights of importance can be applied to each indicator and calculated into the diamond chart results.
The optimization chart shows the base value, current value and goal value for an at-a-glance look at your progress toward the indicator goal.
The HTML Report includes all of these charts plus the current indicator values to provide managers with a snapshot of the scorecard status. Busy executives can quickly review KPI values and evaluate progress toward important goals. The HTML Report can be viewed with any web browser and can also be posted to a web site, making it accessible for managers regardless of location or hardware platform.
BSC Designer Standard can export balanced scorecard data and charts to MS Excel and PowerPoint for reports and presentations. FTP checkout is also included to allow multiple users to work on projects together or independently.
BSC Designer also comes in PRO, Light, and Online versions. Each is tailored to suit the needs of a specific type of user.
The BSC Designer PRO version includes all of the features of BSC Designer Standard, plus several additional tools that make it an excellent solution for large corporations with complex business objectives.
The Cascading Scorecard feature in BSC Designer PRO makes tracking multiple corporate goals much more effective. Rather than keeping performance indicators for all business units in one massive scorecard, you can divide indicators into unit-specific scorecards and delegate each scorecard to the appropriate division manager. Senior managers can view the scorecards of subordinate divisions to evaluate the performance of each division.
Additionally, data used for the subordinate scorecards can also be used to create the senior executive’s scorecard reports. This allows a high-level executive to easily evaluate the performance of his or her entire area of responsibility. By coordinating the scorecards of executives with the scorecards to line-level management, KPIs can be effectively managed from the bottom of the company to the top.
Analysis and forecasting tools in BSC Designer PRO also add value to this product. Performance and progress analysis screens allow you to compare your current indicator values to previous levels and evaluate the rate of progress toward your company objectives. Forecasting analysis uses your performance history to estimate when you will reach company objectives or selected values.
In addition to the time, diamond and optimization charts included in BSC Designer Standard, the PRO version also contains a pie performance chart, a weight chart and a gauge chart. These charts give additional views of your KPIs for evaluating your company’s progress.
Two additional reports are included with the PRO version of BSC Designer. The overview report has a traditional representation of a balanced scorecard, providing an at-a-glance look at your top-level indicators. The dashboard report provides the same information that you see on the HTML report, but with data for only one selected day. This allows you to evaluate performance on a daily basis.
The Strategy Map tool assists you the process of illustrating your company objectives and your process for achieving them. You can walk through the steps in an easy-to-use wizard or allow the Strategy Map tool to automatically generate your strategy map based on existing indicators.
The BSC Designer PRO version also includes SQL indicators, which allows the software to interact with company databases to collect data for your balanced scorecard.
For small businesses, the BSC Designer Light freeware version can be helpful in improving business performance. It has many of the same features as the Standard edition, but without charts or graphs for quick data analysis. Export features and SQL indicators for database connections are also not included.
The BSC Designer Online version is another good solution for small business executives. It is comparable to the Light version, but does include the HTML Report and SQL indicators for database connection. An Internet connection and subscription are necessary to use BSC Designer Online.
Regardless of the size of your business, the BSC Designer software will provide you with essential tools to control and improve the performance of your company. Join the many businesses already using BSC Designer and reap the rewards of well-managed, goal-oriented business performance.