Balanced benchmarking

We suggest a decision support approach, Balanced Benchmarking that combines Balanced Scorecard (BSC) and Interactive Benchmarking. A successful BSC implementation requires a theoretical and operational sound foundation for the key measures. This foundation may be constructed using Interactive Benchmarking. It combines benchmarking of relative performance with preference information to develop the most relevant targets. The user interacts with the benchmarking model by adjusting the set of references (defining best practices possibilities) and the direction (defining the strategy). Interactive Benchmarking hereby complements the BSC in three main ways. It enables the user to: (1) test a strategy, (2) explore causal relations and (3) measure/communicate the relative performance.We suggest that this is of great importance in both the initial phase of setting up a BSC and the final phase of applying a BSC.