Aligning business and information technology through the balanced scorecard at a major Canadian financial group: its status measured with an IT BSC maturity model

The balanced scorecard (BSC) initially developed by R. Kaplan and D. Norton (1996), is a performance management system that enables businesses to drive strategies based on measurement and follow-up. In recent years, the BSC has been applied to information technology (IT). The IT BSC is becoming a popular tool with its concepts widely dispersed by international consultant groups such as Gartner Group, Renaissance Systems, Nolan Norton Institute, and others. As a result of this interest, the first real-life applications are starting to emerge. The development and implementation of an IT BSC within an Information Services Division (ISD) serving a Canadian financial group is described and discussed. On the basis of this case study, a maturity model for the IT BSC is introduced and the necessary linkage between the business and IT scorecard is clarified.