The Business Values Scorecard within BAE Systems: The evolution of a performance measurement system

Abstract

This paper explores the evolution of a performance measurement system in BAE Systems, a UK aerospace company. In 1994, the company embarked on a culture change project, which focused the organisation on five key values: performance, people, customers, partnerships, and innovation and technology. Tracing the mechanisms used to implement these values through the culture change project, the study describes the introduction of the “Business Values Scorecard” (BVS), which provided a way of translating the five key values into a coherent set of performance measures. The paper contrasts the BVS in BAE Systems with the balanced scorecard (BSC) of Kaplan and Norton, emphasising the importance of “coherence”, rather than cause-and-effect relationships. Furthermore, the BVS was not simply designed and then implemented; instead it evolved over an extended period of time. Finally, while it reflected the strategic vision of senior managers, the BVS was used as a tool to enable strategy to emerge from within the organisation, rather than as a mechanism for cascading down the hierarchy the strategy previously established by top-level managers. However, although the profitability of the company increased significantly over the period of the culture change project, many other things were also changing; consequently, it is not possible to isolate the effects on profits of introducing the BVS. Nevertheless, the belief within BAE Systems is that the BVS has made an important contribution to the recent success of the company.