Crystal
Decisions Balanced Scorecard
Crystal Decisions Balanced Scorecard solution
goes beyond traditional financially based measurement systems and
looks at setting objectives and measuring performance from several
distinct perspectives, which provide a balanced view of the present
and future performance of the enterprise. The application provides
the framework for a full scorecard implementation from any number of
perspectives, containing a range of strategic objectives, each of
which can have a range of performance indicators and strategic
initiatives with supporting milestones. It also supports partial
scorecard implementations for those organizations that would rather
use a performance measurement system as an initial step towards a
complete solution.
Crystal Decisions Balanced Scorecard
Collaborative, Inc. announced on October 17, 2001 that Crystal
Decisions has been designated as Balanced Scorecard Collaborative
Certified. Under the terms of the certification, Crystal Decisions
is designated as compliant with Balanced Scorecard Functional
Standards as maintained by Balanced Scorecard
Collaborative.
The certification is designed to eliminate
confusion in the marketplace through educating suppliers and buyers
as to the important elements of a Balanced Scorecard management
system. The certification process consists of a demonstration of the
product by the application provider, a documentation review,
customer interviews, and application testing by the Balanced
Scorecard Collaborative.
Crystal Decisions Balanced Scorecard
application template focuses on an organization’s strategy: how to
envision what is needed and how to achieve it. Instead of
traditional financially based measurement systems that only provide
a historical perspective, the application template looks at the
company’s future goals and measures the success of achievement from
various perspectives, usually but not limited to, financial,
customer, internal, learning and growth. Qualitative and
quantitative sources are integrated for a successful, balanced
picture.
Balanced Scorecard Functional Standards were
announced on September 30, 1999 by Balanced Scorecard
Collaborative, Inc., the organization that facilitates the worldwide
awareness, use, enhancement, and integrity of the Balanced Scorecard
as a value-added management process.
Crystal Decisions Balanced Scorecard,
formerly Seagate Software, is a privately held Seagate company owned
by a group of investors that include Silver Lake Partners and Texas
Pacific Group. Crystal Decisions is an information infrastructure
company, which provides award-winning reporting, analysis, and
information delivery solutions. The company’s world-class products
are used by millions of customers in thousands of companies
worldwide and include, Crystal Analysis, Crystal Enterprise, Crystal
Reports and Holos. Crystal Decisions can be found on the
Web.
The impending acquisition of Crystal
Decisions by Business Objects introduces a new dimension to its
Performance Management strategy and unleashes a new wave of
competitive dynamics on Performance Management software vendors. The
combined entity will create a sizable marketing, sales and product
organization that, after elimination of redundancies, could re-align
significant resources to the Performance Management market. This
could put big pressure on companies like Hyperion and SAS to address
the potential new muscle of Business Objects. While Oracle looks to
consolidate PeopleSoft in the ERP market, and SAP focuses on a
different class of collaborative applications, Business Objects
could find new opportunity in Performance Management, but not
without competition from vendors such as
Cognos
Other key benefits of Crystal Decisions
Balanced Scorecard analytic application
include:
- Cause and
effect diagrams
- Multiple-level scorecard support, from the
individual to the enterprise
- Data and text
driven from industry-standard RDBMS
- Integration
with the data warehouse and many other data sources
- Identification of potential problems and
opportunities using the Highlighter view
- Weighted
scores view (high-level performance overview based on achievement)
- Multi-dimensional access to textual
commentary
- Powerful
Performance Indicator Engine (PI Engine) for practical
data-handling issues
Finally, reports generated by the application
give the user insight into the company's overall performance, as
well as the performance within each of the four perspectives. The
application highlights the areas that are performing according to
plan, as well as those in which potential problems may
exist.
