American Express Company is a major financial services company, noted for its American Express® card

American Express Company is a major financial services company, noted for its American Express® card. Below are some of the performance measures used by the company in its balanced scorecard.

Average card member spending           | Number of Internet features
Cards in force                                       | Number of merchant signings
Earnings growth                                   | Number of new card launches
Hours of credit consultant training       | Return on equity
Investment in information technology  | Revenue growth
Number of card choices

For each measure, identify whether the measure best fits the innovation, customer, internal process, or financial dimension of the balanced scorecard.


Answer:

Although there is some judgment in classifying each of these measures, the following represents the author’s assessment with explanations: 

Average card member spending | Customer—demonstrates the usefulness of the card to the customer. 
Cards in force | Customer—if customers did not value the 
card, they would not have one. 
Earnings growth | Financial 
Hours of credit consultant training | Internal process—advisors will do their job better if they are trained. 
Investment in information technology | Internal process (or innovation)—shows the investment in improving processes. 
Number of Internet features | Internal process (or innovation)—shows new process investments in a new channel. 
Number of merchant signings | Customer—the larger the number of 
merchants that honor the card, the more valuable it is to cardholders. 
Number of card choices | Customer—more choices are more valuable 
to customers. 
Number of new card launches | Innovation—measures the new cards  (affinity, regional, etc.) being developed and marketed. 
Return on equity | Financial 
Revenue growth | Financial