A balanced scorecard for a higher education institute: A case of IIM Bangalore

Abstract

The balance scorecard as a concept has gained wide acceptance since it was introduced by David Norton and Robert Kaplan in 1992. However, its application in higher education has been fairly limited. The key reason for this is that most education institutes run on government budgeting system and, enjoy less freedom than corporate entities in making independent decisions. Globally there are less than 30 universities who have adopted the Balanced Scorecard.1 Even if they are applied, they might be applied to specific departments, courses or fail to take all the stakeholders in to consideration. To further aggravate the difficulties, the causal linkages are much more difficult to understand and codify and then link to the broader strategic vision, in an educational set-up. But the competitive landscape is set to change in the coming future because of the entry of international universities in to India and Indian institutes need to tread the future course of path carefully and intelligibly. In this report, we apply the balanced scorecard to a business school and elaborate on the subtleties of applying the balanced scorecard to an educational institute. IIM Bangalore has formed a vision document to guide its actions in the future. Keeping the vision in mind, the balanced scorecard is designed to be a leading indicator of whether IIMB is treading the right course to achieve the state it envisaged.