The Benefits Management and Balanced Scorecard Strategy Map

Abstract

We are living in a period of enormous technological transformations and the organizations face new opportunities that the systems and information technology (IS/IT) implementations provide with the hope that these investments will help to increase productivity and business prosperity, meanwhile, several studies performed in public and private sectors have proven that the investments done in IS/IT have not brought the expected benefits. Some authors argue that the result of the studies that related investments in IS/IT and the increasing performance of the organizations in the last thirty years were far from true. In this paper the authors propose a link between the Benefits Dependency Network, from a Benefits Management approach, and a Strategy Map, from Balanced Scorecard, to improve the management of business benefits and to ensure that actions taken along the investment life-cycle lead to foreseen benefits realization. The goal of this integration is to build a framework that combines useful features of both methods. The authors sustain that they can be complementary. As a Strategy Map is committed with strategic alignment, communication and monitoring of strategy execution at all levels of an organization, a Benefits Dependency Network is aimed at explaining how benefits are going to be obtained through organizational change. Using the results of a case-study research, the authors explain how a Strategy Map can cross with the Benefits Dependency Network. The integrated contribution is meant to increase the investments effectiveness, giving to stakeholders the confidence on a clearer delivery path for their expected benefits.

The success of IS/IT projects in the healthcare sector: Stakeholders' perceptions

“…Brynjolfsson [16] introduces the "mismanagement of information and technology as being a possible explanation". In line with this argument, other researchers argue that most organisations are exclusively focused on the implementation of the system or technology, instead of focusing on the realisation of promised expectations and previously-identified benefits [14] [15]. Henderson and Venkatraman state that the inability to realise value from IS/IT investments is in part due to the lack of alignment between organisations' business and IT strategies [17].…”

“…Many organisations fail to review whether the planned benefits of IS/IT projects have been achieved, or not, as they do not possess sufficient resources to undertake a benefit review and are constantly under pressure to deliver other projects [13]. Benefits management identifies goals and benefits and the way to achieve them by combining organisational changes and investments in IS/IT [14] [15]. The research questions that guide this work are the following:…”

Mediating Effects between Perspectives in Strategy Maps

“…Many other studies also highlight the importance of a strategy map in improving performance including by involving the entire organization (De Carlo et al 2008;Gomes et al 2013;Hu et al 2017;Lilian Chan 2009). However, Wu (2012) argued that most of these studies focus on a generic framework of the BSC strategy map, which may not be a good fit for all the different kinds of organizations using the strategy map concept.…”

Maturity, Benefits and Project Management Shaping Project Success

“…Our linking process intends to use benefits management not only as a contained process area, but also as a process that crosses all the process areas. In accordance with the benefits management approach, two internal workshops were organised to facilitate further discussion and the sharing of knowledge and expertise [32], [56]. The ability of all stakeholders to commit the required time and resources for the project must also be ensured.…”