Enhancing strategy design and planning in public utilities through ‘dynamic’ balanced scorecards: insights from a project in a city water company

In the last decade there has been an increasing effort to provide public utilities managers with planning and control tools, to take into account not only operational but also strategic issues. Among them are customer satisfaction, internal business process efficiency, business image, and bargaining power against other counterparts (e.g., the municipal administration). Often, however, such an effort has been oriented to generate a large volume of data, focused only on financial indicators and on a static view of the relevant system. This paper shows how the use of ‘dynamic’ balanced scorecards can significantly improve the planning process in a strategic learning perspective. Insights from a project in a municipal water company are analysed and discussed.