Applying Balanced Scorecard to Hellenic Navy’s Education and Training: An initial approach

Abstract

Like organizations striving for growth, Hellenic Navy is facing rising pressure to increase the value added by its services. To meet this challenge in an era of scarcity of resources Hellenic Navy's education and training will need to undergo fundamental changes in the way they operate and continuously seek ways to create future value. This paper explores and discusses the potential applicability of Balanced Scorecard in Hellenic Navy's education and training in order to stimulate and sustain continuous improvement. Favorable results were reported in the for-profit and government organizations supporting the aforementioned applicability.Keywords: Hellenic Navy's Education and Training, Scorecard to Hellenic Navy's Education and Training, Balanced Scorecard IntroductionNowadays there is an increased trend for government departments and public entities for reform especially in the area of management and budgeting. This reform along with the decreased government funding have resulted the need for delivering agreed outputs as efficiently as possible. In turn, this need has as an effect the adoption of private sector management practices one of which is performance measurement (Niven 2008; Holmes et al 2006;Pallot 1991;Suppanz 1996).Traditionally, performance measurement systems have been based on financial results which have a limited effect on the criteria used to measure, to assess or even more to drive performance. In the past, various systems for performance measurement that overcome this limitation have been suggested. One of these, the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) has met worldwide acceptance as a management tool that measures and drive performance based on financial and non-financial indicators. BackgroundThe concept of the balanced scorecard was first introduced by Robert S. Kaplan and David P. Norton (1992) in their now well known Harvard Business Review article "The Balanced Scorecard -Measures That Drive Performance". The idea of BSC has met enormous success worldwide especially in private sector organizations. For instance, Kaplan and Norton (2001) reported that by 2001 about 50% of the Fortune 1000 companies in North America and 40% to 45% of companies in Europe were using the BSC.The core argument of BSC is that financial results alone cannot capture value-creating activities (Kaplan & Norton, 2001a). That means that financial measures are lagging indicators and, as such are not effective in identifying the drivers or activities that affect financial results. Also, Kaplan and Norton (1992) suggested that organizations, while using financial measures, should develop a comprehensive set of additional measures to use as leading indicators of financial performance.The BSC is based on balanced set of measures covering financial, customer, innovation and learning process areas to manage effectively. In addition, the BSC is used to translate an organization's mission and strategy into a comprehensive set of performance measures that enables organizations to track short-term financial results while simu...

Balanced Scorecard: A Strategy for the Quality Improvement of Islamic Higher Education

“…According to Panagiotis in Stavrakakis et al, (2010), Kaplan and Norton divide the BSC into four quadrants of measures: financial, customer, internal business process and learning and growth. Four perspectives in the Balanced Scorecard linked to the vision and strategy of the organization, namely; 1.…”

“…In addition, the BSC is used to translate an organization's mission and strategy into a comprehensive set of performance measures that enables organizations to track short-term financial results while simultaneously monitoring their progress in building the capabilities that generate future growth. In contrast to financial performance measurement systems, the BSC "puts strategy and vision, not control at the center (Stavrakakis et al, 2010).…”

Performance measurement adoption and business performance

“…Regulations determined a different approach to ship management including a focus on quality systems and benchmarking. For example, TMSA is an approach based on the BSC customised for the tanker industry (Stavrakakis et al, 2010). An initiative by the tanker industry, TMSA is a tool that can help the ship's operators/managers to measure and to improve their management systems.…”