List the four areas of a balanced scorecard. Describe each area. Define "key performance indicator" (KPI). Give an example of a KPI in each balanced scorecard perspective

What will be an ideal response?

1. Financial Perspective?The financial perspective helps managers answer the question, how do we look to shareholders? The ultimate goal of a company is to generate income to its owners. The financial perspective focuses management's attention on KPIs that assess financial objectives such as revenue growth and cost cutting. Some commonly used KPIs include sales revenue growth, gross margin growth, and return on investment.
2. Customer Perspective?The customer perspective helps managers evaluate the question, how do customers see us? Customers are typically concerned with four specific product or service attributes: 1. the product's price; 2. the product's quality; 3 . the sales service quality: and, 4. the product's delivery time (the shorter the better). Some commonly used KPIs include average customer satisfaction rating, percentage market share, increase in number of customers, number of repeat customers, and rate of on-time deliveries.
3. Internal Business Perspective?The internal business perspective helps managers address the question, at what business processes must we excel to satisfy customer and financial objectives? The answer to that question incorporates three factors: 1. innovation; 2. operations; and, 3 . post-sales service. In addition to customer satisfaction ratings, the customer perspective is often measured using KPIs such as number of new products developed, new product development time defect rate, manufacturing lead time, yield rate, number of warranty claims received, and average repair time.
4. Learning and Growth Perspective?The learning and growth perspective helps managers assess the question, "can we continue to improve and create value?" The learning and growth perspective focuses on three factors: 1. employee capabilities; 2. information system capabilities; and, 3 . the company's "climate for action." The learning and growth perspective measures employees' skills, knowledge, motivation, and empowerment. KPIs typically include hours of employee training, employee satisfaction, employee turnover, and number of employee suggestions implemented.

Note: Student examples may vary.