CHAPTER 11If a balanced scorecard is to make a difference in the company's strategic discussion and learning processes, depends on whether it is continually updated with current and operationally relevant information or not. Thus, a critical question for the company is how to establish procedures and implement systems that collect information and communicate it to management and employees. Regardless whether simple and straightforward procedures (based on manual input) or a more sophisticated software solution is chosen, success depends on actually using the tools and communicating the right level of information to the right people. Software companies from different segments in the IT-industry have discovered the potential for new management-control IT solutions, and introduced specialized applications designed to suit balanced scorecard projects. Initially, the market was not ready for these packaged applications. Instead most organizations started to implement balanced scorecard support applications in existing software environments such as Excel or Visual Basic, focusing mainly on high-level management - catering them with information in the four perspectives. But as the balanced-scorecard concept began to gain more widespread acceptance, the demand for more advanced solutions has grown, and there are today numerous specialized balanced-scorecard applications on the market. When evaluating alternative software options, the company must first determine why it needs an IT solution and then compare the alternatives with these requirements. In this chapter we will discuss how IT can be used and suggest how the alternative solutions can be compared. 
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Chapter 1 