In the information age, businesses must increasingly create and deploy intangible assets-for

instance, customer relationships; employee skills and knowledge; information technology;

and a corporate culture that encourages innovation, problem solving, and general
organizational improvements. (Kaplan & Norton 2000:2**).

Intro: A grand struggle in an organisation is the limited insight into the layout of
implemented strategies that is given to employees, thus creating difficulty in executing such
business strategy. Strategy maps attempt to fix this by providing a visual representation of a
companys critical objectives and the crucial relationships among them, increasing
organisational performance. Strategy maps are composed of four perspectives financial,
customer, internal process, and learning and growth, and it is the interaction of these
perspectives which will provides a greater dependency on intangible assets, as opposed to
material products. These assets depend on organisational context and company strategy,
and strategy maps can reveal their true value which arises from the entire set of material
assets and strategy that links them together.

Paragraph 1 (the four perspectives read the summary only support here): Financial (Mobils
goal was to increase its return on capital employed by more than 6% in three years, by
expanding sales outside of gasoline and selling premium brands to customers-growth, and
by slashing operating cost per gallon-productivity). Customer (Mobil targeted premium
customer, higher price than price-sensitive customers). Internal process (Mobil developed
new products and stores, improved basic refining, lowering operation costs, increase
customer intimacy through franchise). Learning and growth (Mobil provided employees
with training for marketing and refining, gave leadership skills, developed automated
technology for production)

Paragraph 2(how strategy maps are are useful-list): 1. Once a strategy map is completed,
each service department can complete their own detailed map in order to detect and fill
major gaps in the strategies being implemented at lower levels of the organisation. 2.
Strategy Maps can also help identify when scorecards are not truly strategic. Many
companies have stakeholder scorecards, these are just a measurement system around three
constituents: employees, customers and shareholders. However, strategy maps consider
the, more important, how these three groups will be satisfied. It is through the four
elements of a strategy map, (Financial, Customer, Internal Process, Learning and Growth),
that a stakeholder scorecard has any meaning, thus such scorecard is useless. 3. When
companies utilise a key performance indicator (KPI) scorecard, it can lack certain elements
when compared to a strategy map. The four Ps in a KPI scorecard, profits, portfolio, process
and people has a balanced approach. However, compared to a strategy map the KPI
scorecard lacks customer measures, internal process measurements focused on outcomes,
and defined role for information technology. A KPI scorecard does not describe a strategy.

Paragraph 3 (why they are useful): A strategy map enables an organization to describe and
illustrate, in clear and general language, its objectives, initiatives, and targets; the measures
used to assess its performance (such as market share and customer surveys); and the
linkages that are the foundation for strategic direction. Strategy maps are useful because
they provide an overall picture of the four key perspectives of an organisation. Case Study
Mobil increased its operating cash flow by more than $1 billion per year and became the
industrys profit leader.(result)