Boston Lyric Opera's strategic objectives and balanced scorecard approach

BLO

Boston Lyric Opera: Case study

Customer objectives for its three strategic themes

Develop loyal and generous supporters

There are two major elements to this goal of the opera company -- that of building customer loyalty and generosity. Funds from tickets are not enough alone, so the opera must solicit donations. Keeping track of donations is an essential metric to using a Balanced Scorecard approach. But there is another component of this metric -- determining the demographics from whom the donations are solicited. The BLO wishes to build its young, professional donor segment to ensure that the opera has a long, steady source of revenue from a growing rather than shrinking consumer base. Lowering the demographic age of the donors and also measuring the extent to which attendees at specific types of fundraisers become regular patrons is also required.

Reach the Boston-area community

Keeping track of the demographic age of the overall audience, and the number of community partnerships with different demographic groups (such as schools) can measure the effort devoted to achieving this objective. Doing follow-up surveys to measure satisfaction with attendees who participate in such programs, and surveying the public as a whole regarding perceptions of BLO 'brand awareness' is another metric.

Changes required adopting the Balanced Scorecard to a non-profit organization

When the Balance Scorecard was introduced, streamlining ticket-buying and gift-giving as well as keeping track of donor demographics; creating a coherent 'brand awareness' campaign; and using web-based services and tracking were required to ensure that metrics were measured in an efficient manner. Also, a new internal review process had to be created, including the development of three-year operational plans with specific goals of quality assurance, including 'product quality.' This is something of an intellectual shift for a nonprofit -- rather than seeing 'art' as something for 'art's sake,' the BLO had to see opera as a product that was 'sold.'

Benefits challenges and barriers of Balanced Scorecard

It is difficult to ensure that the organization is truly improving, and out-performing its competitors (or even keeping up) without keeping careful track of quality metrics. Improving the IT system to ensure that the necessary data was quantified and crunched in the correct manner was a vital component of changing the BLO. However, there was another factor at stake: a cultural one. The culture of the BLO had to shift to a more corporate point-of-view, and become more profit-directed to gain the full benefits of the Balanced Scorecard.

Department managers, artistic leaders, and employees at the BLO: Empowerment

Ultimately, the Balanced Scorecard approach was highly empowering for the members of the department. It is very easy to lose focus at an artistic organization. The Balanced Scorecard's focus on metrics made it much easier to 'check in' in terms of how the productions were faring and what the public desired. It enabled comparison between the past, present, and future of the organization, and made comparisons more objective, rather than based solely upon personalities and organizational influence. It offered a systematic way to analyze 'tradeoffs' of attendance vs. donation, such as pleasing some members of the public with traditional standards, versus donors who wished to see a more challenging repertoire.

The Balanced Scorecard: A performance measurement system or a management system?

The Balanced Scorecard is a performance measurement system, strictly speaking, but it requires a specific type of management system to function. To ensure that meaningful data is accrued and that the organization is meeting its objectives, managers must keep track of hard, quantifiable facts and data, and know how to analyze them.

Process that the BLO used to develop the Balanced Scorecard: Critical for the success of the project

Organizational cooperation and willingness was vital in developing the Balanced Scorecard. Not all board members were committed, and some wished to simply fall back into the old formula and old ways of thinking -- trying to recruit current, top opera stars, rather than seeking out the next new stars. To introduce the Balanced Scorecard and overcome organizational resistance, two approaches were used. The first, at 'Citizen Schools,' professional leaders worked with staff to develop the Balanced Scorecard. This plan was then reviewed, refined and approved by the board. At the BLO itself, management engineered the Scorecard, with input from the Board, and only then was lower-level staff involved.