What Is Meant by Innovation Scorecard?

First there was the concept of what is generally known as Balanced Scorecard. Over the years, a new theory emerged that took the original concept to new levels: Innovation Scorecard. Its focus was on innovation which also formed part of change management, and its strength lay in being a performance measurement and management control framework that had been developed to cope with ‘all things innovation’. It appears that the two concepts of Balanced Scorecard and innovation fit together well for different reasons. Balanced Scorecard, on its own, is considered useful in areas where, for example, measured returns on innovation investment are not aligned with company strategy, where it is difficult to deploy appropriate financial indicators and where there is a lack of definition of strategy as far as the planning of innovation is concerned. Combining Balanced Scorecard with innovation brings distinct advantages that enable companies to cope with and manage better the accelerated scale of changes that have taken place recently across industries (Li & Dalton, 2003). According to Žižlavský (2016), the rate of growth in the size and scope of R&D departments has been spectacular and rapid, to the extent that problems of visibility are being generated. Managers feel that the basic decisions that were taken relatively easily years ago have now become extraordinarily difficult. In addition, Li and Dalton (2003) suggest that a lack of visibility from the top down develops serious problems that emerge from the bottom up. It is very difficult for people who work at an operational level to have a thorough understanding of the strategic vision of the company they work for.