Abstract

Institutions of higher learning need a strategic plan in order to achieve their visions and missions. Factors contributing to the importance of a strategic plan in the context of the university are keen competition amongst institution of higher learning, the government’s decision to create Malaysia as the educational hub for the region, the introduction of ranking and rating of universities and the new direction set by the Ministry of Education through the Educational Development Plan 2001-2010 (the plan). The International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM) Strategic Planning Report 2001–2010, with its vision to be the leading international centre of educational excellence, focuses on entrepreneurship and consultancies; research and development; postgraduate; science, technology and innovation; internationalization; Islamization; student development; and staff development. The plan encountered several issues including difficulties in obtaining data for measuring the performances; lack of understanding of the outlined strategies and plans; poor monitoring of action plans’ execution; and unclear responsibility in executing the strategies. In its effort in solving the above issues and ensuring the success of the plan, the management has evaluated many tools and finally adopted the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) framework for systematic monitoring of the University’s plan. In general BSC translates the conceptual strategic plan into operational plan implementation and ability to communicate the feedback for improvement. This paper elucidates a significant justification why IIUM choose to adopt Balanced Scorecard framework as strategy implementation.