One of the most reliable sources of information is statistics and data, because it is objective information to which is very difficult to pose any refutation. This same logic also applies to the business environment, especially to SMEs, as they need to improve their efficiency and make data-driven decisions, which increases their chances of success. To facilitate this process, there are tools known as scorecards.

Scorecards are used to facilitate the overall monitoring of the company, its objectives and areas, as they graphically represent the indicators or metrics for which you want to monitor. In addition, the use of these scorecards offers multiple benefits, such as more informed decision making, prioritisation of operational objectives, better internal communication, or a design of key indicators (KPIs) more appropriate to the SMEs goals, among others.

Depending on their functionalities and the information they display, they can be classified as follows:

1. Balanced scorecards (BSC): provides an integral view of the SMEs performance, including its strategic and action plan, as well as its objectives.
2. Executive scorecards: allows a quick look at the most relevant information of the SME.
3. Analytical scorecards: useful to carry out in-depth analyses of the most relevant variables within an SME in order to identify patterns, trends or correlations.
4. Operational scorecards (OSC): used to focus on specific business areas, and in particular on monitoring performance, efficiency, management and effectiveness within the SME.

Considering the amount of information that these scorecards provide, it is crucial to know how to create them in such a way that the reading and analysis of the information is understandable. In this sense, the minimum steps to follow consist of defining the type of scorecard, defining measurable objectives, identifying indicators that capture the information of interest, selecting the appropriate tool for its creation – for SMEs, tools such as Power BI, Google Data Studio, Zoho or Excel are suggested-, the visual design of the scorecard, and the establishment of success and/or failure thresholds.

As for the characteristics of scorecard creation tools, it should be noted that they vary depending on the specific tool used. However, there are some common features, including the customisation of data visualisation, the publication of the scorecard in a collaborative environment accessible to several people, the ability to create interactive graphs, and the use of several data sources simultaneously.

In short, it is a very useful tool for the control of the SME, which greatly facilitates a vision of its evolution, allows monitoring of those objectives that are of most interest and improves decision-making based on data.