A need is felt across education industry to apply measurement technique to effectively plan, manage and lead higher education institutes. Taking a step forward in this direction encompassing practice and theory the Balance Scorecard concept that is traditionally applied to businesses to measure the returns can be applied to the higher education institutes. This will help in better understanding and measuring the underlying forces of learning and growth, internal processes, customer perspective and financial aspect in the sphere of higher education. Business scorecard concept will help in forecasting intellectual, organisational, technological and fiscal needs with reference to instructional design and delivery to build professional communities
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Higher Education institutes need to evolve and embrace the associated changes of massive
and rapid growth in technology that has raised the demand for innovative study methods.
Hence the leadership at the higher education institutes is affiliated to the success or failure in
the education sector as well as in the society.
Balance scorecard approach can suggest alternatives to define and reengineer leadership
process as this can be considered as an opportunity to qualitatively and quantitatively
measure and translate the effectiveness of knowledge creation that is rational and complete.
Balance scorecard – a measurement technique though traditionally is being used to measure financial performance addressing shortcoming in the traditional processes and systems can also be used by leaders to build a common understanding of the institutes vision and mission, guiding faculty towards common goals and identifying improvements required holistically adhering to the strategy alignment and effective measurement framework.
Involves intellectual, socio-technological, systemic and fiscal procedures that address the organization’s vision, mission, and objectives.
Allows management to evaluate internal processes and determine the renewed value chain to form a culture of innovation and creativity fulfilling customer demands and expectations of shareholders.
Provides management with a tool to access customer service areas like time, cost, quality, service, and performance
Involves contribution of institute’s objectives and strategies to bottom line
Balance scorecard produces a framework of the strategy and vision of the organisation
providing a cause and effect influence by fostering development of learning and growth
for the benefit of customer and organisation by improved profitability.
Whereas the mission and strategy is translated into detailed set of performance measures
capturing financial objectives.
Tangible and Intangible assets are important to an organisation, however intangible
assets enable an organisation to develop customer relationship, create innovative
products, utilize effectively employee skills, an deploy technology.
These drivers will enable an institute to – Create a structured plan of action to generate
information for continuous improvement fulfilling mission, objectives and goals at the
same time providing learning environment promoting academic excellence. While
evaluating viability, value and making use of resources in an effective way, these drivers
will provide direction prioritizing needs to support resource allocation and future planning.
An integrated approach on goals, targets and progress measures can be derived by
applying balanced scorecard measurement system as it combines information from
various perspectives so that the trade-off can be balanced for example a financial
perspective can be replaced by an academic management perspective.
Balanced Scorecard can be used for managing performance quality rather than only
monitoring performance and measuring the same.
Balanced scorecard can be used as a strategy mapping tool in educational institutes.
Human capital is an integral part of any organisation including educational institute, and
possess qualities such as loyalty, satisfaction, productivity and competency. This can be
framed in an institute under leadership and support system as it is a part of organisational
capital comprising of culture, goal alignment, teamwork and leadership. This will cover
soft skills or intangible assets.
Higher educational institutes traditionally have been following a framework of teaching
and learning, service or outreach, research and scholarship, satisfaction and financial
systems, but this framework is inefficient to raise alerts or has predictive limitations to
be ready for the dynamic environment surrounding these institutes warranting changes to
be made in advance.
In the customer perspective segment of higher education sector the key stake holders are
Parents/Students, Alumni, Faculty, and Society and they can be termed as ‘customers’.
The higher education institute needs to address a primary question – In accordance to
the vision and its achievement, how should an institute appear to the customers?
The internal process is another segment where quality plays a prominent role where
satisfaction of faculty / staff, students can effectively contribute to value creation and form
a culture of inventiveness. The higher education institute needs to address the question –
In order to satisfy shareholders and customer and achieve satisfaction, what are those
business processes we must be best?
To answer this question BSC can be used / applied in the following way -
Staff / Faculty – Assuring Quality – This can be achieved by meeting the standards
established locally or regionally, through networking and creating value.
Enhanced adult development – having a work based culture, project based instructions, and
practicing inter-professional learning method
Engaging in heterogeneous programs – serving emerging trends, cost efficient, efficient
enrolment, and examination processes.
In the component of Learning and Growth, faculty professional growth and development,
and boosting of morale is combined to enhance delivery leading to motivation and
participation of student. Implementation of technology and exposure of the student to those
technologies contribute more participation of the student. Institute needs to address the
question – How can we change and improve so that we achieve our vision?
To answer this question BSC can be used / applied in the following way -
Faculty development, creative and innovative teaching, methodical appraisals – Increased
teacher and student motivation
Growth in motivators –intrinsic and extrinsic – promoting reflective practice through
peer/self- appraisal, staff satisfaction, creating professional communities.
Organisational responsibility – Intrinsic motivation with promotion of care and trust
The three pillars of financial component – Project, Prosper and Profit are the core of
financial planning at a higher education institute enabling the evaluation at various levels
and time. Institute needs to address the question – How should we present ourselves to
the shareholder?
To answer this question BSC can be used / applied in the following way –
Project –
Forecasting conveys the execution of plans needed in specific areas
Prosper –
Enriched course with the use of technology by faculty with increased transparencyand accountability will help in achieving cost effectiveness
Profit –
Effective use of tangible and intangible resources will boost cost efficiency and also
productivity.
The four components act as core instigators to defining and reengineering the leadership process to suit the institute’s needs. They are the motivators to invest in faculty and improve service, leading to greater customer satisfaction, customer loyalty, creating positive word of mouth publicity streamlining the cash flows to be reinvested in future development and growth.
Prof. Deepak Agnihotri
Adjunct Faculty
DR V N BRIMS, Thane
Also read : HISTORY RHYMES-WILL IT REPEAT? PMC COLLAPSE
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