Impregnation of the broad strategy from the top management into the lower levels has always been a challenge. Strategy map is a technique developed for breaking down the broad strategy into operational terms. It hinges upon the concept of Balance Scorecard, acknowledging the causality existing among the four perspectives. This helps the employees realize the interdependencies and their contribution affecting the overall strategy. It works on the basic premise that the internal processes which add value and boost the customer loyalty, get reflected in the financial performance. However, organizations have to utilize intangible assets for garnering superior financial results. Strategy maps acknowledge the role of intangible assets in addition to splitting up the grand strategy by identifying the causal relations.

The need for developing a comprehensive measure for assessing the organizational performance has always worried the think-tanks of management and most of them relied on unidimensional financial measures. In the early 1990s Kaplan and Norton came up with the idea of Balanced Scorecard (BSC), that includes four perspectives from which a company can be evaluated. These are the financial, customer, internal process and learning and growth perspectives. The idea made its mark in a big way.

Though the organizations adopting BSC were content with the new measure to analyze the effectiveness of a strategy from a multidimensional perspective, the bigger problem was left unanswered. The success lies not in framing a well-laid and carefully-worded strategy that is appealing, but in translating the strategy down the organization and percolation of the same to all the levels. Strategy maps were developed with a view to achieving this end and very plainly put "is a pictorial manifestation of the strategy, lucidly bringing out the cause-effect relationship among the four perspectives." This helps in providing a vivid description of the strategy and aids every employee in identifying his/her key goals and his/her contribution to organizational goal.

Global CEO Magazine, Intangible Assets, Grand Strategy, Customer Loyalty, Balanced Scorecard, Organizational Performance, Organizational Goal, Operations Management, Customer Relationship Management, Organization Change, Operating System, Porter's Generic Strategy, Leadership Stlyles.