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The Balanced Scorecard links strategic objectives and performance measures across a number of perspectives. A development of the Balanced Scorecard—strategy mapping—provides a powerful way of demonstrating the links between each of the perspectives. This paper explores the use of strategy mapping as a tool to develop strategy in a public sector agency and suggests a simplified version which can communicate that strategy effectively, both inside and outside the organisation.

The UK Small Business Service (SBS) came into being at the beginning of April 2000 with three tasks set by ministers—to be a strong voice for small business at the heart of government, to develop and maintain a world-class business support service and to mitigate the effects of regulation. But the SBS was a brand new organisation—not only inheriting some functions from elsewhere within the Department of Trade & Industry but also taking on some new responsibilities. It had overall objectives—and some process targets agreed with Parliament—but nothing that could be called a strategy. It fell to me, as the first Chief Executive, to weave a set of disparate functions into a coherent strategy both for our own staff and for our external stakeholders. The process that we used to develop our strategy was based on the concept of strategy mapping, as conceived by Robert Kaplan and David Norton. While there have been published case studies reflecting on strategy mapping in the private sector,1 nothing has been identified which considers the use of this technique in the public sector, and yet the challenge is the same. In the public sector, the clarity of a financial bottom line does not exist but it is equally essential that everyone in the organisation has a clear understanding of strategy, and their role in achieving it. With a little effort, we found that we could use a simplified version of the strategy map (see Figure 1) as an effective means of communicating both with our staff and with our external stakeholders.1.1. Exploring strategy Henry Mintzberg argues that strategic planning is a contradiction in terms in that it is not possible to plan and to be strategic simultaneously.2 Every organisation has a strategy of some sort, even if it is never articulated. An emergent strategy, though, is unlikely to be as successful as a strategy which is planned in advance, where the organisation is proactive rather than reactive and where the organisation is creating opportunities rather than responding to them. Driving an organisation forward and satisfying the stakeholders requires: • Some idea of where the rest of the world is going - that is, foresight; • A clear purpose that defines what the business does and the values it holds dear; and, • A vision - an idea of a desired future state—which excites and unites the staff (and, in the case of the SBS, external stakeholders as well). Hamal and Prahalad call this desire to understand and to shape the future an organisation’s ‘strategic intent’.3 When the SBS was created it was given the three objectives described above. These were turned into a purpose statement: to build an enterprise society in which small businesses thrive and achieve their potential. I also set an ambitious vision, namely that by 2005, the UK should be the best place in the world to start and grow a business. Some staff thought this unachievable and unmeasurable—but it has now been adopted by the government as a whole. And, like all visions, it provided clarity about where the SBS wanted to go and where it hoped to lead others. Having set this vision, we then went on to look in some detail at two areas. The first was to identify and prioritise the external challenges facing small businesses, such as growth of the knowledge-based economy, increasing use of technology and IT, globalisation, how to satisfy ever more demanding customers, the difficulties of attracting, retaining and developing staff and increasing pressures to be good corporate citizens. The second was to look at the needs of business, such as management skills and finance, and their desire to work in an environment supportive of business. 1.2. The balanced scorecard To take this forward, however, we needed to find some way of pulling this work into a coherent strategy for the SBS—one which would provide a route map for the staff in helping them see how their individual activities fitted into the bigger picture; and one which would provide an external communication tool. This is where the balanced scorecard—and in particular strategy mapping—came into its own. For years consultants have tried to encourage businesses to devise and implement strategies that enable them to out-perform their competitors. However, many strategies fail—and one reason for this, according to Kaplan and Norton, is that they are top-down and financially driven.4 They were concerned that too many senior managers were simply focusing on financial measures like return on investment and earnings per share.5 Some people responded to this by looking for more sophisticated financial measures; others ignored financial measures and concentrated on, say, quality measures. Kaplan and Norton asserted that you cannot afford to rely just on a single set of measures, but need an appropriate balance—and developed the concept of the balanced scorecard—which they originally suggested was about performance measurement rather than about strategy. They suggest that businesses adopt goals and performance measures in four areas as illustrated in Figure 2: • finance (with particular thoughts about shareholders’ views) • marketing (how is the business seen by customers) • continuous improvement (how can the business continue to improve and innovate) and, • an internal view looking at excellence (including staff development). They argue that the scorecard puts vision and strategy, rather than control, at the centre. It can be used to help businesses focus and agree on the strategic objectives necessary across all four areas in order to achieve their ‘big hairy audacious goals’.6 Ideally, people will take appropriate action to move the business towards achieving those objectives.1.3. Strategy mapping Effectively, Kaplan and Norton have taken the four elements of the balanced scorecard and simply set them out in a hierarchy, as shown in Figure 3. A typical for-profit business would first define its vision and then consider the financial objectives required to achieve that vision and ensure happy investors. It would then determine what it must do for customers to achieve its financial objectives. It would consider what processes it needs internally to deliver that service to its customers. And lastly, it would need to think about its own continuous improvement and development requirements.As soon as I read about this technique, I realised that I could apply it to the Small Business Service, though I felt that the order of priority was inappropriate for us and started to doodle ideas. 1.4. The thinking process A start had already been made on considering the likely challenges facing businesses over the next five years—and how they could then be assisted to address those challenges successfully. Staff, the business support network and other stakeholders were encouraged to contribute to that thinking. Developing the strategy map was an iterative process that built on inputs from the senior management team as well as the rest of the organisation, and broadly followed the steps outlined in Figure 4. The starting point for the process was a presentation made to the senior management team which described the concept and offered a first stab at a strategy. The team started work to refine the strategy but also wanted to ensure that the entire staff was not only involved in the process but also owned the outcome. Presentations were made to all staff at SBS’s sites in London and Sheffield. The most effective feedback came during the discussions following those presentations. The draft strategy was made available through the intranet so that everyone could see the big picture. All staff contributed through the development of their own directorate’s plans and all staff were encouraged to comment on the overall approach.Given that SBS’s ultimate customers are small businesses, but that it delivers almost nothing directly to small businesses, much of the debate focused on what the SBS needed to do to ensure that it really did understand the needs of those customers and what it needed to do to ensure that the Business Link network was effectively meeting those needs. As staff worked on the strategy map, the senior management team also developed and refined a statement of values, building on work already underway by the SBS’s ‘continuous improvement team’ and seeking input from all of the staff. This was of considerable importance since the values of an organisation underpin its strategy. The SBS, like most not-for-profit organisations, has a large number of external stakeholders, with whom it needed to consult. Having gained stakeholder feedback, we refined and agreed our strategy—and then sought ministerial approval. After one final iteration with staff—again through personal presentations—the strategy was published. 1.5. The strategy map The aim of the strategy map is simple—to show how a range of potentially disparate activities link together to enable an organisation to achieve its vision. Most businesses will want to put the financial perspective at the top, as their ultimate objective is to satisfy shareholders by generating a decent return. In the SBS’s case, the primary objective was to support entrepreneurs and owner managers. Provided that we got that right then the government would no doubt continue to provide financial support. Whilst the government was clearly looking for the SBS to be efficient and effective, SBS was not expected to generate a return in the way that a for-profit business would be expected. We therefore decided to put the customer perspective at the top of our strategy map. Feedback from staff-wide meetings suggested that the use of the word ‘perspective’ to describe each of the levels was not sufficiently descriptive. We therefore looked for other titles, as shown in Figure 5.

With their new ideas of strategy mapping, Kaplan and Norton have developed a powerful technique that can be applied to any business and non-profit organisation.9 The model may have its faults: what is important is that it provides a framework which encourages users to think logically about the different elements of their strategy and to consider how those elements interact. Having a clear vision, and a strategy to achieve that vision, is just as important in a statutory or not-for-profit organisation as it is in a for-profit company. In both cases, organisations often lack a customer focus. Strategy mapping is just a tool. But it is a very effective tool in ensuring an understanding of the role of strategy and how an effective strategy encompasses all of an organisation’s activities. Strategy mapping reminds organisations about the different strategic perspectives, and ensures that they are all taken into account. I would, however, echo the views of Prof Heinz Ahn10 that the four perspectives need to be adapted to the individual needs of the organisation—in the case of the SBS, simply changing the name of each perspective made a huge difference. Strategy mapping can be applied at directorate level as well as at organisational level. Whilst a final strategy may well be quite complex, strategy mapping allows (indeed, encourages) organisations to start with a simple view which aids understanding of each of the perspectives and how they relate to each other. Use of the process within the SBS stimulated considerable debate about the way in which objectives impinged on one another and assisted in leading to a consensus about what was important. The technique could be used by any public sector organisation. The starting point is to be absolutely clear about your customers and what it is that they need from you. How close is the UK to achieving the vision? A 2002 study by the Economist Intelligence Unit and Apax Partners11 ranked the UK second out of 60 countries surveyed—so it seems that real progress is being made.