A balanced scorecard for evaluating the performance of motor dealerships

The focus of Lean Production in the automotive sector has been on upstream manufacturing with limited consideration of downstream service activities. The automotive manufacturers' national sales companies manage the sale of new cars through franchising agreements with automotive distributors. A typical dealership will have multiple value streams besides just the sale of new cars. In order to maintain operational efficiency and effectiveness performance monitoring needs to be routinely undertaken. The traditional balanced scorecard (BSC) is one approach a franchisee could adapt. The BSC incorporates four perspectives, which include: financial, customer, internal processes, and innovation and learning. The approach aims to achieve a balance between short and long-term objectives and between hard objective measures and softer subjective measures. This paper outlines the development of a balanced scorecard for an automotive distributor (dealership) that operates multiple franchises implementing a Lean Transformational change programme that will include Lean evaluation measures.