SWOT Analysis of the Balanced Scorecard in the UK Banking Sector

SWOT Analysis of the Balanced Scorecard in the UK Banking Sector

In the last two decades of the 20th century, the UK banking industry experienced huge change because of three factors: deregulation, new technology and increasing competition (Gardener et al, 1999, cited in Hailey et al, 2005).

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Some banks such as NatWest, Halifax and Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), have successfully survived from the impact of the new century. Just as the head of employee at RBS indicates, the most significant part of their success is the use of the Balanced Scorecard in the performance of employees.

The Balanced Scorecard (BSC) is a strategic planning and management system that is used widely in different organizations all over the world.

The concept was originated by Robert Kaplan and David Norton in the early 1990s. In the HR field, it is a way of monitoring performance in the process of performance management. Kaplan and Norton (2000) hold the opinion that no single measure can provide a clear performance objective. This is the reason why the theory is called the Balanced Scorecard.

A series of measures which gives managers a quick but comprehensive view of the business (Armstrong, 2003). The “score” is from four different perspectives – customer, internal,financial, innovation and learning. For example, NatWest take a good use of the BSC.

From the middle of the 1990s, the Scorecard began to be widely used in every field all over the world, including the UK banking sector. Up to now, it has been more than ten years since its first use in banking industry in the UK.

he economical environment has experienced a lot of changes in the past decade while the application of the Balanced Scorecard remained the same during this period. This article is aimed at analyzing the function of the Scorecard in the UK banking s…………………tice, 9th ed., London: Kogan Page.
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