A key example of applying management accounting to
EPM is strategy execution. In this area the popular
method is a strategy map—used to document and visualize
the linkages of strategic objectives that realize the
strategy—and the strategy map’s companion balanced
scorecard. The scorecard’s key performance indicators
(KPIs) and its cascaded operational performance measures (often displayed in dashboards) have become the
accepted technique for strategy execution. As we’ve heard
many times, if you can’t measure it, you can’t easily manage
it. And if you can’t manage it, you can’t improve it. A
definition of a strategic KPI is to monitor the progress of
accomplishing the strategy map’s strategic objectives.
Management accounting information provides a subset
of KPIs. It translates performance into the language of
money, such as unit cost of outputs to monitor favorable
improvements or as product and customer profits—with
both examples against target amounts