Strategic Map

Author: Robert S. Kaplan, David P. Norton, translated by Liu Junyong, Sun Wei
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-06-01
Features: Generally speaking, more than 75% of a company's market value comes from intangible assets that traditional financial indicators cannot capture. The two masters, Kaplan and Norton, believe, "If you can't measure it, you can't manage it." In 1992, they proposed the revolutionary performance measurement system—Balanced Scorecard—enabling businesses to quantify key intangible assets such as human capital, information, and culture. In 1996, the publication of their seminal work, The Balanced Scorecard: Translating Strategy into Action, marked the establishment of Balanced Scorecard theory. The Balanced Scorecard theory is not rigid or inflexible. With the advancement of practice, the theory system has continuously evolved and been refined. Harvard Business School Press published the sequels Strategy-Centered Organizations and Strategy Maps: Translating the Intangible into the Tangible in 2000 and 2004, respectively. These three works have been translated into 21, 18, and 5 languages, respectively. At this point, Balanced Scorecard theory has formed a rigorous logical system of "describing strategy, measuring strategy, and managing strategy." The three works focus on different aspects: the Balanced Scorecard focuses on strategy measurement, Strategy-Centered Organizations on strategy management, and Strategy Maps on strategy description. Today, thousands of companies worldwide have adopted the Balanced Scorecard and achieved remarkable results. They do not view it merely as a measurement system but as a strategic management system. When 70% to 90% of strategic action plans fail, companies using the Balanced Scorecard consistently achieve rapid and successful execution of their strategies. So, how do they do it? Based on their collaboration with over 300 organizations over the past twelve years, the two masters have created a new tool—the Strategy Map, which is no less innovative than the Balanced Scorecard. Just as "If you can't measure it, you can't manage it," Kaplan and Norton believe, "If you can't describe it, you can't measure it." In this book, Kaplan and Norton use dozens of case studies from various organizations to vividly demonstrate how to create customized strategy maps, enabling businesses to:
· Clarify strategy and communicate it to all employees;
· Identify the key internal processes driving strategic success;
· Align human capital, technology, and organizational capital investments for maximum impact;
· Reveal strategic flaws and take corrective actions early;
· Bridge the gap between strategic planning and implementation, providing a blueprint for describing, measuring, aligning intangible assets, and achieving excellence.