Performance evaluation of a South African aluminium manufacturing company based in Pietermaritzburg: the Balanced Scorecard approach.

Abstract

The current state of manufacturing industry in South Africa is in decline. Measuring and evaluating the firm’s performance to compete, grow and withstand harsh external forces is necessary. This will assist business executives to formulate and implement strategies that will provide a clear roadmap to achieve desired objectives. To address performance of a manufacturing company, literature related to business performance measurements and evaluation methods was reviewed. Furthermore, the research explored literature related to Kaplan and Norton Balance Scorecard as theoretical framework adopted for this study. The literature reviewed the Balance Scorecard as a business performance measuring tool by exploring each Balance Scorecard perspective individually and its relationship with business strategy. This study adopted post-positivism (positivist) paradigm as the data was quantitative nature. The primary data was collected by means of questionnaires which were analysed by means of descriptive statistics. There were 217 questionnaires distributed to participants, 187 completed responses were received, yielding a response rate of 86%. The results were measured to be reliable using Cronbach’s alpha. The aim of this study was to evaluate business performance within a South African manufacturing company using Hulamin as the case. The results showed inconsistency amongst the four Balanced Scorecard perspectives. The respondents indicated positive response on customer perspective, internal business process perspective and performance management whereas on financial and learning and growth perspective respondents indicated negative responses. Furthermore, the results and literature indicated that the Balanced Scorecard is not an adequate tool to be solely used to evaluate overall business performance.