More than a decade ago, Robert S. Kaplan and David P. Norton
introduced the Balanced Scorecard, a revolutionary performance
measurement system that allowed organizations to quantify
intangible assets such as people, information, and customer
relationships. Then, in The Strategy-Focused Organization, Kaplan
and Norton showed how organizations achieved breakthrough
performance with a management system that put the Balanced
Scorecard into action.
Now, using their ongoing research with hundreds of Balanced
Scorecard adopters across the globe, the authors have created a
powerful new tool-the "strategy map"-that enables companies to
describe the links between intangible assets and value creation
with a clarity and precision never before possible.
Kaplan and Norton argue that the most critical aspect of
strategy-implementing it in a way that ensures sustained value
creation-depends on managing four key internal processes:
operations, customer relationships, innovation, and regulatory and
social processes. The authors show how companies can use strategy
maps to link those processes to desired outcomes; evaluate,
measure, and improve the processes most critical to success; and
target investments in human, informational, and organizational
capital.