Definition of KPI, CSF, strategy map - the terms for strategic managements.

Management signals
A strategy process based on the company’s vision provides the framework for operational
management decisions. Strategic maps have been drawn up for various parts of the
business. The maps form a strategic platform that specifies the priorities and goals that
are to be communicated internally. The impact of various strategic choices is simulated
and calculated. The strategic platform includes targets, focus areas and a long-term
financial forecast.

Operational management
Scorecards highlight the value drivers that influence the company’s earnings and net
worth, and set tangible goals for key performance indicators (KPIs) that underpin the
value drivers. The scorecards form the core of the company’s operational management,
but are supplemented by other tools, such as forecasts, target cost figures, authorisations
and trend analyses.

To ensure a sound basis for financial planning and the coordination of resources, Statkraft prepares
monthly forecasts for the current calendar year and the coming 12 months.

Follow-up
Internal reports for management and the board are prepared each month. The reports cover all the
above-mentioned operational management tools and focus on the KPIs that have not been met.

Key Performance Indicators (KPI) are financial and non-financial metrics used to quantify objectives
to reflect strategic performance of an organization. KPIs are used in Business Intelligence to assess the
present state of the business and to prescribe a course of action. The act of monitoring KPIs in real-time
is known as business activity monitoring. KPIs are frequently used to "value" difficult to measure
activities such as the benefits of leadership development, engagement, service, and satisfaction. KPIs are
typically tied to an organization's strategy (as exemplified through techniques such as the Balanced
Scorecard).

The KPIs differ depending on the nature of the organization and the organization's strategy. They help
an organization to measure progress towards their organizational goals, especially toward difficult to
quantify knowledge-based processes.

A KPI is a key part of a measurable objective, which is made up of a direction, KPI, benchmark, target
and time frame. For example: "Increase Average Revenue per Customer from £10 to £15 by EOY 2008".
In this case, 'Average Revenue Per Customer' is the KPI.

KPIs should not be confused with a Critical Success Factor. For the example above, a critical success
factor would be something that needs to be in place to achieve that objective; for example, a product
launch.

Critical Success Factor (CSF) or Critical Success Factors is a business term for an element which is
necessary for an organization or project to achieve its mission. For example, a CSF for a successful
Information Technology (IT) project is user involvement.[1]

The concept of "success factors" was developed by D. Ronald Daniel of McKinsey & Company in 1961.
[2]
The process was refined by Jack F. Rockart in 1986.[3] In 1995 James A. Johnson and Michael Friesen
applied it to many sector settings, including health care.[4]
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Rockart and Bullen presented five key sources of CSFs: the industry, competitive strategy and industry
position, environmental factors, temporal factors, and managerial position [5].

A plan should be implemented that considers a platform for growth and profits as well as takes into
consideration the following critical success factors:[6]

• Money factors: positive cash flow, revenue growth, and profit margins.
• Acquiring new customers and/or distributors -- your future.
• Customer satisfaction -- how happy are they?
• Quality -- how good is your product and service?
• Product or service development -- what's new that will increase business with existing
customers and attract new ones?
• Intellectual capital -- increasing what you know that's profitable.
• Strategic relationships -- new sources of business, products and outside revenue.
• Employee attraction and retention -- your ability to do extend your reach.
• Sustainability -- your personal ability to keep it all going

Key success factors generally include exceptional management of several of the following:[7]

• Product design
• Market segmentation
• Distribution ad promotion
• Pricing
• Financing
• Securing of key personnel
• Research and development
• Production
• Servicing
• Maintenance of quality/value
• Securing key suppliers

A critical success factor is not a key performance indicator (KPI). Critical success factors
are elements that are vital for a strategy to be successful. KPIs are measures that quantify
objectives and enable the measurement of strategic performance.

For example:

• KPI = number of new customers

• CSF = installation of a call centre for providing quotations

Critical Success Factors

Identifying the things that really
matter for success.
So many important matters can compete for your attention in business that it’s often
difficult to see the “wood for the trees”. What’s more, it can be extremely difficult to get
everyone in the team pulling in the same direction and focusing on the true essentials.
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 That’s where Critical Success Factors (CSFs) can help. CSFs are the essential areas of
activity that must be performed well if you are to achieve the mission, objectives or goals
for your business or project.

By identifying your Critical Success Factors, you can create a common point of
reference to help you direct and measure the success of your business or project.

As a common point of reference, CSFs help everyone in the team to know exactly what’s most
important. And this helps people perform their own work in the right context and so pull together
towards the same overall aims.

The idea of CSFs was first presented by D. Ronald Daniel in the 1960’s. It was then built on and
popularized a decade later by John F. Rockart, of MIT's Sloan School of Management, and has since
been used extensively to help businesses implement their strategies and projects.

Inevitably, the CSF concept has evolved, and you may have seen it implemented in different ways. This
article provides a simple definition and approach based on Rockart’s original ideas.

Rockart defined CSFs as:

"The limited number of areas in which results, if they are satisfactory, will ensure successful competitive
performance for the organization. They are the few key areas where things must go right for the
business to flourish. If results in these areas are not adequate, the organization's efforts for the period
will be less than desired."

He also concluded that CSFs are “areas of activity that should receive constant and careful attention
from management.”

Critical Success Factors are strongly related to the mission and strategic goals of your business or
project. Whereas the mission and goals focus on the aims and what is to be achieved, Critical Success
Factors focus on the most important areas and get to the very heart of both what is to be achieved and
how you will achieve it.

Using The Tool: An Example

CSFs are best understood by example. Consider a produce store “Farm Fresh Produce”, whose mission
is:

“To become the number one produce store in Main Street by selling the highest quality, freshest farm
produce, from farm to customer in under 24 hours on 75% of our range and with 98% customer
satisfaction.”

(For more on this example, and how to develop your mission statement, see our article on Vision
Statements and Mission Statements.)

The strategic objectives of Farm Fresh are to:

• Gain market share locally of 25%.

• Achieve fresh supplies of “farm to customer” in 24 hours for 75% of products.
• Sustain a customer satisfaction rate of 98%.

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• Expand product range to attract more customers.
• Have sufficient store space to accommodate the range of products that customers want.

In order to identify possible CSFs, we must examine the mission and objectives and see which areas of
the business need attention so that they can be achieved. We can start by brainstorming what the Critical
Success Factors might be (these are the “Candidate” CSFs.)

Objective Candidate Critical Success Factors

Gain market share locally of 25% • Increase competitiveness versus other
local stores

• Attract new customers

Achieve fresh supplies from “farm to
customer” in 24 hours for 75% of
products
Sustain a customer satisfaction rate of
98%
Expand product range to attract more
customers
Extend store space to accommodate new
products and customers
• Sustain successful relationships with
local suppliers
• Retain staff and keep up customer-
focused training
• Source new products locally
• Secure financing for expansion
• Manage building work and any
disruption to the business

Once you have a list of Candidate CSFs, it’s time to consider what is absolutely essential
and so identify the truly Critical Success Factors.

And this is certainly the case for Farm Fresh Produce. One CSF that we identify from the
candidate list is "Sustain successful relationships with local suppliers.” This is absolutely
essential to ensure freshness and to source new products.

Another CSF is to attract new customers. Without new customers, the store will be
unable to expand to increase market share.

A third CSF is financing for expansion. The store’s objectives cannot be met without the
funds to invest in expanding the store space.

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 Tip: How Many CSFs?
Whilst there is no hard and fast rule, it’s useful to limit the number of CSFs to five or
fewer absolute essentials. This helps you maintain the impact of your CSFs, and so give
good direction and prioritization to other elements of your business or project strategy.

Using the Tool: Summary Steps

In reality, identifying your CSFs is a very iterative process. Your mission, strategic goals and CSFs are
intrinsically linked and each will be refined as you develop them.

Here are the summary steps that, used iteratively, will help you identify the CSFs for your business or
project: Step One: Establish your business’s or project’s mission and strategic goals (click here for help
doing this.) Step Two: For each strategic goal, ask yourself “what area of business or project activity is
essential to achieve this goal?” The answers to the question are your candidate CSFs.

Step Three: Evaluate the list of candidate CSFs to find the absolute essential elements for achieving
success – these are your Criticial Success Factors.

As you identify and evaluate candidate CSFs, you may uncover some new strategic objectives or more
detailed objectives. So you may need to define your mission, objectives and CSFs iteratively.

Step Four: Identify how you will monitor and measure each of the CSFs.

Step Five: Communicate your CSFs along with the other important elements of your business or
project’s strategy.

Step Six: Keep monitoring and reevaluating your CSFs to ensure you keep moving towards your aims.
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Indeed, whilst CSFs are sometimes less tangible than measurable goals, it is useful to identify as
specifically as possible how you can measure or monitor each one.

Tip:
To make sure you consider all types of possible CSFs, you can use Rockart’s CSF types as
a checklist.

• Industry – these factors result from specific industry characteristics. These are the
things that the organization must do to remain competitive.
• Environmental – these factors result from macro-environmental influences on an
organization. Things like the business climate, the economy, competitors, and
technological advancements are included in this category.
• Strategic – these factors result from the specific competitive strategy chosen by the
organization. The way in which the company chooses to position themselves,
market themselves, whether they are high volume low cost or low volume high
cost producers, etc.

• Temporal - these factors result from the organization’s internal forces. Specific
barriers, challenges, directions, and influences will determine these CSFs.

Key Points

Critical Success Factors are the areas of your business or project that are absolutely essential to it
success. By identifying and communicating these CSFs, you can help ensure your business or project is
well-focused and avoid wasting effort and resources on less important areas. By making CSFs explicit,
and communicating them with everyone involved, you can help keep the business and project on track
towards common aims and goals.

What are the main principles behind Strategy Maps?

1. Strategy balances contradictory forces.

2. Strategy is based on a differentiated customer value proposition.
3. Value is created through internal business processes.
4. Strategy consists of simultaneous, complementary themes.
5. Strategic alignment determines the value of intangible assets.

In their 2001 book The Strategy-Focused Organization, Kaplan and Norton transformed their Balanced
Scorecard, in 1992 introduced in the Harvard Business Review as a performance measurement system,
to a strategic management system. A lot of that transformation was done in introducing the so called
strategy map.

What are strategy maps?

A Strategy Map is a diagram that describes how an organization creates value by connecting strategic
objectives in explicit cause-and-effect relationship with each other in the four BSC objectives (financial,
customer, processes, learning and growth). See the figure on the left. You can click on the graph to

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download a bigger one in pdf format. Strategy Maps are a strategic part of the Balanced Scorecard
framework to describe strategies for value creation.

Here's a description of strategy maps:

1. All of the information is contained on one page; this enables relatively

easy strategic communication.
2. There are four perspectives: Financial; Customer; Internal; Learning and
Growth.
3. The financial perspective looks at creating long-term shareholder value,
and builds from a productivity strategy of improving cost structure and
asset utilization and a growth strategy of expanding opportunities and
enhancing customer value.
4. These last four elements of strategic improvement are supported by
price, quality, availability, selection, functionality, service, partnerships
and branding.
5. From an internal perspective, operations and customer management
processes help create product and service attributes while innovation,
regulatory and social processes help with relationships and image.
6. All of these processes are supported by the allocation of human,
information and organizational capital. Organizational capital is comprised
of company culture, leadership, alignment and teamwork.
7. Finally, cause and effect relationships are described by connecting arrows.

Why strategy maps?

By connecting such things as shareholder value creation, customer management, process management,
quality management, core capabilities, innovation, human resources, information technology,
organizational design and learning with one another in one graphical representation, strategy mapping
help greatly in describing the strategy and to communicate the strategy among executives and to their
employees. In this way alignment can be created around the strategy, which makes a successful
implementation of the strategy more easy. No small thing, bearing in mind that often, the implementation
of a constructed strategy is the biggest challenge.