IT Strategist Examination — knowledge map
The 76 core concepts of IT Strategist Examination and how they connect. Click a node in the map above to explore related terms and prerequisites; the list below indexes every concept with its definition and links to its prerequisites and related concepts.
Concepts (76)
Innovation and disruptive innovation
Innovation is the creation of new value through technological or systemic change. Whereas sustaining innovation incrementally improves the performance of existing products, disruptive innovation refers to change that — though initially lower in performance — displaces existing markets and products through new value such as simplicity or low price.
Information security
The overall effort to protect information from threats such as leakage, tampering, and loss, keeping it safe to use. Its basis is protecting the three elements (CIA) — confidentiality (only authorized people can use it), integrity (contents stay correct), and availability (usable when needed) — covering not only technical measures like firewalls but also operational ones such as password management and user training.
Compliance
A management practice by which an organization adheres to laws, internal rules, and industry codes of conduct. Beyond information security, it spans labor law, accounting standards, and other norms; violations directly threaten corporate trust and viability and are therefore treated as a management risk.
Prerequisites: Information security
Competitive strategy
A collective term for strategies to gain advantage over competitors. Using methods such as SWOT and five-forces analysis, PPM, and core-competence management to analyze markets and rivals, it aims to establish a sustainable competitive advantage through cost leadership or differentiation.
Prerequisites: Core competence、Five forces analysis、SWOT analysis
Copyright
A right that arises automatically the moment a work such as a novel, music, or a program is created; unlike a patent right, no registration procedure is required. Copyright in a program generally belongs to the person who created it, except in the case of a work made for hire.
Internal control
The mechanisms and structures a company builds into its own business processes so that operations are carried out appropriately and efficiently. Its objectives are (1) effectiveness and efficiency of operations, (2) reliability of (financial) reporting, (3) compliance with laws and regulations relevant to business activities, and (4) safeguarding of assets, and it comprises six basic elements: control environment, risk assessment and response, control activities, information and communication, monitoring, and response to IT (FSA implementation standards / COSO framework). Responsibility for establishing and operating it rests with management.
Prerequisites: Compliance
System planning
In the Common Frame (SLCP), the planning process consists of drafting the systemization concept and drafting the systemization plan; this term refers to the latter. Taking business strategy and operational issues as input, it concretizes the scope, objectives, cost-effectiveness, project organization, and schedule, feeding the subsequent requirements-definition process — the most upstream phase of development.
Prerequisites: Requirements definition
Related: Systemization concept
Inventory management
Management to maintain an appropriate inventory level, curbing both lost sales from stockouts and holding costs from excess stock. It uses methods such as the reorder-point system, which orders when stock falls to a set level, and the economic order quantity (EOQ), which finds the order size that minimizes the sum of per-order and holding costs.
Cloud (cloud computing)
A model in which IT resources such as servers and software are not owned by the user but rented and used over the internet as needed. Users avoid buying and maintaining equipment and often pay only for what they use. Many familiar services, such as email and online storage, are provided via the cloud.
MOT (Management of Technology)
A management approach used by technology-based businesses to continuously translate the outcomes of technological development into business results and increased corporate value.
SWOT analysis
An analysis method that organizes a company's internal factors — strengths and weaknesses — alongside external environmental factors — opportunities and threats — to support the formulation of business strategy.
Requirements definition
An upstream software development process step that clarifies the functions and performance the users or client require and fixes the scope of what will be built. Misunderstandings here directly translate into costly rework in later stages.
Innovator's dilemma
A phenomenon in which an industry-leading firm, precisely because it listens carefully to its best existing customers and keeps refining sustaining technology, is slow to respond to disruptive technology that initially performs worse but offers new value such as low cost or simplicity, and as a result loses its market to that disruptive technology. Strategists use this paradox, in which sound, rational decisions about the existing business end up blinding the firm to a future threat, to judge whether disruptive technology needs to be nurtured in a separate unit outside the core business.
Prerequisites: Innovation and disruptive innovation
LTV (customer lifetime value)
The total profit a single customer generates for the firm over the entire relationship, from acquisition to churn. Strategists compare it against customer acquisition cost (CAC) to judge whether marketing investment is justified and how much to invest in retaining and deepening relationships with existing customers. Measures that raise retention, purchase frequency, or order value push LTV up and shorten the CAC payback period.
Prerequisites: Payback period method
Payback period method
A method of evaluating an investment by the length of time (in years) required for the cash flows it generates to recover the initial outlay. Although simple to calculate, the plain payback period ignores the time value of money (discounting) and does not reflect large returns that arise after the payback point, so it is best used alongside NPV and IRR. When the time value of money must be considered, a discounted payback period is used instead.
PEST analysis
A framework that organizes four external macro-environmental factors, Politics, Economy, Society, and Technology, to analyze their impact on business strategy. Strategists use it to catch, early, environmental shifts the firm cannot control, such as regulatory change, economic trends, demographics, and technological innovation, as groundwork for identifying the opportunities and threats in a SWOT analysis.
Prerequisites: Innovation and disruptive innovation、SWOT analysis
Systemization concept
The uppermost step in the Common Frame (SLCP) planning process, in which the target business scope and systemization aims are sketched in broad strokes based on business strategy and objectives. Whereas the subsequent drafting of the systemization plan concretizes scope, organization, schedule, and cost-effectiveness, the systemization concept establishes the underlying management intent and direction, agreed with executives beforehand. An IT strategist is responsible for drawing up a systemization concept aligned with business strategy and gaining executive approval before it is translated into a concrete plan.
Related: System planning
VRIO analysis
A framework for diagnosing whether a firm's resources can be a source of sustained competitive advantage, by asking four questions: Value, Rarity, Imitability, and Organization. Strategists apply it to resources and capabilities identified through value-chain or core-competence analysis, judging that only resources satisfying all four conditions yield sustained advantage, in order to prioritize where to invest. A resource can be valuable, rare, and hard to imitate yet still fail to deliver advantage if the Organization condition is not met.
Prerequisites: Core competence、Value chain
Break-even sales
The sales level at which profit is exactly zero. It is computed as break-even sales = fixed cost ÷ (1 − variable cost ratio), where variable cost ratio = variable cost ÷ sales. Actual sales above this level yield a profit and below it a loss; the gap is also used as a measure of a business's margin of safety.
Prerequisites: Fixed cost and variable cost、Break-even point
Commissioning business and small/medium subcontracted business
The names for the parties to a transaction under the Act on Ensuring the Proper Handling of Subcontracting Transactions (formerly the Subcontract Act): the ordering party is the commissioning business, and the receiving small/medium enterprise is the small/medium subcontracted business — terms that replaced the former 'parent enterprise' and 'subcontracted enterprise' following the January 2026 revision. Commissioning businesses are obligated to avoid abusing their superior position, such as by delaying payment.
Related: Act on Proportionate Transactions for Small and Medium Sized Subcontractors
De jure standard and de facto standard
A classification of standards by how they come into being. A de jure standard is established through the formal procedures of an official standards body such as ISO or JIS, while a de facto standard becomes the effective standard through widespread market adoption and share, without going through an official certification process.
Prerequisites: Standardization bodies (ISO and JIS)
Devil's river, valley of death, and Darwinian sea
A metaphor in management of technology (MOT) for three barriers a basic research result must clear to succeed as a business. The 'devil's river' is the gate from basic research to product development; the 'valley of death' is the wall of funding and organization needed to commercialize the developed product; the 'Darwinian sea' is the stage where the launched product faces competitive and market selection.
Prerequisites: MOT (Management of Technology)
Five forces analysis
A framework for analyzing an industry's competitive structure and profitability through five forces: rivalry among existing competitors, threat of new entrants, threat of substitutes, bargaining power of buyers, and bargaining power of suppliers. The stronger each force, the more industry profitability is squeezed; the framework informs business strategy formulation.
Fixed cost and variable cost
Two categories obtained by breaking down total cost by its relationship to sales (or production volume). A fixed cost, such as rent or fixed salaries, is incurred at a constant amount regardless of sales, while a variable cost, such as raw material cost or piece-rate wages, rises and falls in proportion to sales. This split underlies break-even and CVP analysis.
Related: Break-even point
Open innovation
A management approach that drives innovation by actively incorporating external technologies and ideas from other companies, universities, and research institutions, rather than relying solely on internal resources. It also includes licensing out a firm's own underused technology, and stands in contrast to closed innovation, which relies entirely on internal resources.
Prerequisites: Innovation and disruptive innovation
Value chain
A framework that breaks a company's business activities into primary activities — such as inbound logistics, operations, outbound logistics, marketing and sales, and service — and support activities such as HR, procurement, and technology development, to analyze where value is added.
Break-even point
The sales amount (or unit volume) at which total sales exactly equal total cost (fixed cost plus variable cost), producing neither profit nor loss. A lower break-even ratio means a business can turn a profit even with relatively little sales.
Related: Fixed cost and variable cost
Functional requirements
Requirements that define what a system must do — the concrete features users will use, such as 'search for products' or 'register an order.' They are the counterpart to non-functional requirements, which cover quality aspects like performance and security.
Related: Non-functional requirements
Non-functional requirements
Requirements concerning the quality aspects of a system — such as performance, availability, security, and maintainability — rather than the functions themselves. They must be clarified alongside functional requirements during requirements definition.
Prerequisites: Requirements definition
Related: Functional requirements
Act on Proportionate Transactions for Small and Medium Sized Subcontractors
A law ensuring fair dealing when a commissioning business (formerly a parent enterprise) places orders with a small/medium subcontracted business (to take effect in 2026; formerly the Subcontract Act, renamed in Syllabus Ver.6.5). It prohibits practices such as delayed payment, unjust price reductions, and beating down prices, and regulates payment methods such as paying by bills that are hard to discount (e.g., bills with excessively long terms) - it does not blanket-prohibit bill payment.
Related: Commissioning business and small/medium subcontracted business
Ambidextrous management
A management approach that lets a firm pursue two activities of very different character at once: exploitation, deepening the existing business through efficiency and refinement to secure current profit, and exploration, venturing into uncertain new areas. Strategists design how to reconcile the tension, leaning too far into exploitation risks the innovator's dilemma of losing adaptability, while leaning too far into exploration risks losing the profit base, by choosing whether to run both within one organization or separate them into distinct units that top management balances.
Prerequisites: Innovation and disruptive innovation、Innovator's dilemma
Chasm
In diffusion-of-innovation theory, a deep gap in demand said to lie between the early market (innovators and early adopters) and the mainstream market (early majority onward). For a new technology or product to win over the pragmatic majority, who value proven reliability rather than novelty, the firm must shift from the marketing and product approach that worked for the early market. Strategists judge which market the product currently sits in and decide on measures to cross the chasm, such as building a track record or narrowing focus to a specific beachhead application.
Prerequisites: Innovation and disruptive innovation、Diffusion of innovation (adoption curve)
IRR (Internal Rate of Return)
The discount rate at which a project net present value (NPV) becomes exactly zero, representing the effective rate of return the investment generates. If the IRR exceeds the cost of capital (required rate of return), the investment is judged worthwhile, and among competing proposals a higher IRR is generally considered more favorable. Care is needed because certain cash-flow patterns can yield multiple solutions, and IRR does not directly reflect differences in investment scale.
Prerequisites: NPV (Net Present Value)
Marginal profit and marginal profit ratio
Marginal profit, or contribution margin, is sales minus variable cost (marginal profit = sales minus variable cost), and is the source from which fixed costs are recovered and profit is generated. The marginal profit ratio is marginal profit as a proportion of sales (marginal profit ratio = marginal profit divided by sales), and is used to compute break-even sales = fixed cost divided by marginal profit ratio, equal to fixed cost divided by (1 minus variable cost ratio). Products or businesses with a higher marginal profit ratio see sales increases translate more readily into profit.
Prerequisites: Break-even sales、Fixed cost and variable cost、Break-even point
ROI (Return on Investment)
A profitability measure calculated by dividing the profit generated by an investment by the investment amount (ROI = profit divided by investment). A higher value indicates greater investment efficiency, but because it does not reflect the time required for payback or the time value of money in the cash flows, it is best combined with other measures such as NPV, IRR, and the payback period when making an investment decision.
Prerequisites: Payback period method
SoR and SoE (systems of record / systems of engagement)
A system of record (SoR) is a stability-focused system that accurately records and manages core business data, such as accounting or inventory-management systems. A system of engagement (SoE) prioritizes fast, responsive value delivery at points of contact with customers or employees, such as mobile apps or social-media integration, and demands agility. When driving DX, IT strategists pursue overall optimization with a two-layer structure: keeping the robustness-critical SoR stable while building an SoE layer around it that can respond nimbly to change.
Prerequisites: Inventory management
Subscription model
A revenue model in which a company charges customers repeatedly for the right to use a product or service over a period, rather than selling ownership outright in a single transaction. Because it generates continuous usage data, it makes changing customer needs easier to track, and managing churn rate and customer lifetime value (LTV) becomes central to success. IT strategists consider shifting from one-time sales to subscriptions to stabilize revenue and build an ongoing relationship with customers.
Prerequisites: LTV (customer lifetime value)
Core competence
A company's core, hard-to-imitate strength, such as proprietary technology or know-how. Unlike a strength tied to one product or business, it can be deployed and applied across multiple business domains; firms define their business domain around it to sustain competitive advantage.
Decision tree (decision analysis)
A management science technique that represents multiple options and their outcomes as a tree diagram, computing the expected value of each branch from its probability and payoff to guide optimal decisions. Used to evaluate investment decisions and project choices under uncertainty by comparing the expected value (sum of probability times payoff) of each branch.
Prerequisites: Expected value
Digitization and digitalization
Terms describing stages on the path to DX. Digitization is the stage of converting existing operations and information into digital form as-is, such as scanning paper documents. Digitalization is the stage of using digital technology to transform the business processes or customer touchpoints themselves — going beyond mere digital conversion, unlike digitization.
Expected value
The sum of each possible value of a random variable multiplied by its probability of occurrence: E(X) = Σ(x_i × p_i). It represents the average outcome expected over many repeated trials, and is used widely — from comparing expected payoffs in decision-making to quality control and insurance premium calculation.
Standardization bodies (ISO and JIS)
Bodies that unify standards. ISO (International Organization for Standardization) establishes international standards such as ISO 9001 (quality management) and ISO/IEC 27001 (information security management). JIS (Japanese Industrial Standards) are Japan's domestic industrial standards, often enacted in alignment with international standards. The purpose of standardization is to ensure interoperability and facilitate transactions.
Prerequisites: Information security
BPR (Business Process Reengineering)
An effort that fundamentally re-examines and redesigns business processes, organizational structure, and information systems from the ground up, without assuming existing organizational rules — distinct from incremental improvement (kaizen).
Prerequisites: Organizational structure
DX (Digital Transformation)
Transforming products, services, business models, organizations, and corporate culture through the use of data and digital technology to establish a competitive advantage — a different goal from simple digitization.
Prerequisites: Digitization and digitalization
Industrial property rights
A collective term for four rights: patent, utility model, design, and trademark rights. Unlike copyright, obtaining these rights requires application to and registration with the patent office.
Prerequisites: Copyright
Intellectual property rights
A collective term for rights that protect creative outcomes such as inventions, works of authorship, designs, and trademarks. It is broadly divided into copyright and industrial property rights (patent, utility model, design, and trademark rights).
Prerequisites: Copyright、Industrial property rights
IT control
The mechanisms that support internal control from the information-systems side, using IT to manage and control operations so they are performed correctly and safely. It consists of system-wide controls such as access-rights management and change management, and controls that safeguard the accuracy of individual business processing, such as input checks and reconciliation.
Prerequisites: Internal control
Market segmentation
Dividing a market into groups of customers who share similar needs or attributes (age, region, preferences, etc.). In marketing it is the starting point for selecting a group to target and tailoring products and messaging to that segment.
Non-functional requirements grades
A system and set of tools published by IPA for acquirers and suppliers to concretely agree, as graded levels, on non-functional requirements such as availability, performance/scalability, operability and maintainability, migratability, security, and system environment/ecology. It makes abstract, easily overlooked non-functional requirements visible as items and levels, preventing mismatched understanding of required levels and cost estimates. The architect uses it to elicit non-functional requirements without omission and fix them as premises for architecture design.
Prerequisites: Functional requirements、Non-functional requirements
Information security governance and corporate governance
Corporate governance is the mechanism by which shareholders, the board of directors, and similar bodies oversee management to ensure transparency and soundness in how a company is run. Information security governance is the framework, forming part of corporate governance, through which executives themselves lead policy-setting, resource allocation, and oversight for security. Its defining feature is that management treats security as a business issue to be led from the top, not merely a matter for the IT department.
Prerequisites: Information security、Corporate governance
BPM (business process management)
A management discipline that visualizes, analyzes, and continuously measures and improves business processes. Whereas BPR (business process reengineering) refers to a one-time, radical redesign, BPM is distinguished by running a PDCA cycle to keep raising process efficiency and quality on an ongoing basis. IT strategists use BPM tools to visualize how processes are executing and embed a mechanism for continuous process improvement, aligned with management goals, into business strategy.
Prerequisites: BPR (Business Process Reengineering)、PDCA cycle
Companies Act and Financial Instruments and Exchange Act
The Companies Act sets out the basic rules for companies, including the establishment, organization, operation, and governing bodies (general meeting of shareholders, board of directors, and the like) of joint-stock companies, and the preparation and disclosure of financial statements. The Financial Instruments and Exchange Act (FIEA) regulates the issuance and trading of securities and financial-instruments business, mandating information disclosure such as securities reports and the internal-control reporting system (J-SOX) to protect investors and ensure fair markets. Both laws are closely tied to the governance and disclosure practices of listed companies and underpin corporate compliance and internal-control design.
Prerequisites: Compliance、Internal control
Corporate governance
The system that disciplines and oversees management so that a company is run in line with the interests of shareholders and other stakeholders. Through board and auditor oversight, outside directors, information disclosure, and internal control, it secures the transparency, soundness, and accountability of management. An IT strategist aligns IT governance with corporate governance so that IT strategy and IT investment fit the oversight and accountability framework.
Prerequisites: Internal control
Diffusion of innovation (adoption curve)
A theory that classifies how a new product or technology spreads through a market into five adopter categories, in order of adoption speed: innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, and laggards. Strategists use it to judge which adopter segment the product is currently reaching, shifting from measures that appeal to innovators' and early adopters' taste for novelty in the early market to measures emphasizing track record and reliability once the product moves toward the majority.
Prerequisites: Innovation and disruptive innovation
Feasibility study
An analysis performed during the systemization-concept and planning stage that verifies in advance whether a project is achievable, from technical, cost, schedule, and organizational perspectives. When the study reveals factors that make realization difficult, the results feed into revising the plan, considering alternatives, or deciding to halt the project. In the Common Frame planning process, it is often conducted alongside drafting the systemization plan.
Prerequisites: System planning、Systemization concept
Lean startup and MVP
Lean startup is a method for developing new businesses in which unvalidated hypotheses about a business idea are tested by quickly building a Minimum Viable Product (MVP), a product with just enough features to be usable, putting it in front of customers, and learning from the result through a build-measure-learn cycle, then deciding whether to pivot or persevere. Strategists apply it when judging that, for a new business with uncertain demand, cheap hypothesis testing via an MVP should take priority over a detailed up-front business plan.
Prerequisites: Hypothesis testing
NPV (Net Present Value)
The sum of a project future cash flows discounted to present value at a given discount rate, minus the initial investment. A positive net present value (NPV greater than 0) indicates the investment is worthwhile, and when comparing multiple proposals the basic rule is to choose the one with the largest NPV. Because it is expressed as an absolute money amount reflecting differences in investment scale, it differs from the payback period method.
Prerequisites: Payback period method
Product innovation and process innovation
Product innovation creates a new product or service itself, while process innovation improves the methods and workflow used to produce or deliver an existing product, raising efficiency or cutting cost. Strategists judge where to place investment emphasis according to the business's life-cycle stage, favoring product innovation for differentiation early on and process innovation for cost competitiveness as the business matures.
Prerequisites: Innovation and disruptive innovation
Competitive quotation
A procurement method in which the same requirements are presented to multiple suppliers, and quotations are obtained from each to compare price, delivery time, and quality. It is used to prevent collusion with a specific vendor or unfairly high pricing, improving the transparency and fairness of procurement.
IT general controls and IT application controls
Among IT controls, IT general controls cover system-wide foundations such as access management, change management, and operations management, while IT application controls ensure the accuracy of input, processing, and output within individual business systems (input checks, reconciliation, approvals). If IT general controls are not effective, the reliability of individual IT application controls is also undermined.
Prerequisites: IT control
Hypothesis testing
A method for judging, from sample data, whether a hypothesis about a population is statistically valid. The hypothesis one wishes to reject is set up as the null hypothesis and the one to adopt as the alternative hypothesis; one compares the probability of the observed result under the null hypothesis (the p-value) against a significance level, rejecting the null hypothesis when the p-value is smaller. Errors of judgment include a Type I error (rejecting a true null hypothesis) and a Type II error (accepting a false null hypothesis).
Organizational structure
The form of organization a company adopts to carry out its business. Types include the functional organization, which divides departments by kind of work; the divisional organization, structured into self-contained units by product or region; and the matrix organization, which combines functional and business axes in a grid — chosen according to business strategy and scale.
Solution business
A business model that sells not individual products alone but solutions to a customer's management or operational problems, combining hardware, software, and services. Its forms include cloud-based offerings such as SaaS/PaaS/IaaS and outsourcing arrangements that take over system build and operation as a whole.
Prerequisites: Cloud (cloud computing)
BSC (Balanced Scorecard)
A management technique that evaluates a business from four perspectives — financial, customer, internal business process, and learning and growth — linking strategic goals to day-to-day operations. Its distinguishing feature is a multi-faceted evaluation that does not rely on financial metrics alone.
Generative AI
AI capable of generating new content such as text, images, audio, or program code. While useful for improving operational efficiency, care is needed regarding risks such as hallucination — plausibly generating incorrect information — and copyright infringement.
Prerequisites: Copyright
ISMS (Information Security Management System)
A systematic management framework an organization operates to appropriately protect its information assets, spanning policy formulation, risk assessment, implementing countermeasures, and review (PDCA). A certification scheme based on the international standard ISO/IEC 27001 exists.
Prerequisites: Information security
PDCA cycle
A method for continuously improving operations or management by repeating Plan, Do, Check, and Act. The key point is not to stop after one cycle: the result of Act feeds into the next Plan.
POS system
A point-of-sale (Point Of Sale) system that records product codes, quantities, and the time of sale at the moment a product is sold at the register, and uses that data for inventory management and sales-strategy analysis.
Prerequisites: Inventory management
Procurement (planning and execution)
A series of activities for selecting and obtaining what is needed in order to outsource work such as system development to external vendors. First a 'plan' is drawn up to decide what to procure and how, then 'execution' follows, choosing a supplier and contracting through means such as an RFI (Request for Information), RFP (Request for Proposal), and competitive quotations.
Prerequisites: Competitive quotation
Cloud service models (SaaS, PaaS, IaaS)
Three models classified by how much a cloud provider delivers as a managed service: SaaS provides the application itself, PaaS provides the platform to run applications on, and IaaS provides infrastructure such as servers and networking.
Prerequisites: Cloud (cloud computing)
Segregation of duties
A basic internal-control principle that prevents fraud and error by dividing a sequence of duties — such as approval, execution, recording, and custody — among multiple people rather than concentrating them in one person.
Prerequisites: Internal control
Technology roadmap
A time-based visualization of future technology trends and a company's own technology-development plans. It is used in MOT (management of technology) to align R&D investment decisions with business strategy.
Prerequisites: MOT (Management of Technology)
Information security policy (three-tier structure)
A documented structure of an organization's information security decisions, made up of three tiers: the top-level basic policy (management's philosophy and declaration), the standards that concretize it (rules to be followed), and the procedures that describe day-to-day operational steps. Higher tiers change less frequently; lower tiers are more concrete and updated more often.
Prerequisites: Information security
Blue ocean strategy
A strategy that avoids fiercely contested existing markets (red oceans) and instead opens up new, uncontested market space through value innovation, raising value while lowering cost at the same time. Strategists use tools such as the eliminate-reduce-raise-create grid to examine which factors of the industry's existing framework to remove, reduce, raise, or add, judging whether differentiation and cost leadership can be pursued simultaneously rather than traded off.
Prerequisites: Innovation and disruptive innovation
STP (segmentation, targeting, positioning)
A three-stage marketing strategy process: segmentation, dividing the market by attributes or needs; targeting, choosing which segment(s) to pursue; and positioning, deciding how the product should be perceived relative to competitors within the chosen segment. Strategists treat STP as the prerequisite step before designing concrete marketing measures such as the 4Ps or 4Cs, and in positioning they focus on whether the firm can claim an advantage on an axis competitors do not already own.
Prerequisites: Market segmentation
Strategy map (BSC)
A one-page diagram that visualizes the cause-and-effect chain among the Balanced Scorecard's four perspectives: financial, customer, internal business process, and learning and growth. It tells the strategy's story: improvements in learning and growth drive better internal processes, which raise customer satisfaction, which ultimately produces financial results. Strategists use the strategy map to explain an abstract business strategy as a consistent causal chain down to front-line KPIs, and to build organizational consensus around it.
Prerequisites: BSC (Balanced Scorecard)