Business Commons^™

With or without a balanced scorecard, it is easy for managers to become inundated with metrics and measures. In this article, we first highlight the differences between lagging and leading measures. Second, we illustrate the importance of differentiating the strategic leading indicators-the key leading measures-from those that may improve operational efficiency without significant improvements in profitability. Third, we use a business simulation to demonstrate that focusing on and improving the key leading measures has the greatest impact on profitability, but getting lost in the secondary measures dilutes the effect. Combined, the results illustrate that less may be more when it …

Economic growth depends upon the wealth of goods and services that natural resources provide. Yet, over the years, as corporations pursue hefty returns on their investment, they have been depleting the natural resources so vital for economic development. After the Rio Earth Summit of 1992, however, corporations that once viewed environmentalism as a threat to their survival all of a sudden realized sustainability as a means of gaining a competitive edge; it reduced costs and stimulated greater innovation. When the program of action for the Earth Summit was reviewed in 2002 at the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) in …