Strategic Performance Management

Reviews / Votes

This is an outstanding book! Bernard Marr provides leading edge thinking on strategic performance management presented in an engaging and practical way. This book is a milestone and a must read for every manager trying to manage strategic performance. - Eggert Claessen, Managing Director, Tolvumidlun Ltd and Chairman, GoPro Ltd.

Excellent book! In 'Strategic Performance Management' Bernard Marr describes how managers can get a firm grip on their corporate performance. He shows remarkable insight into this topic and fresh ideas to make performance management work. With this book, Bernard will teach you how to put passion into performance. - Frank Buytendijk, Research Vice-President Corporate Performance Management, Gartner

"Bernard Marr has done it again! With Strategic Performance Management he delivers a fascinating, refreshing, and actionable read. This book is not only a delight to read, it will open your mind, guide you through the distracting complications and traps of measuring and managing performance, and leave you with a clear vision of strategic performance management for the 21st century." - Stuart Crainer, Editor, Financial Times Handbook of Management, Editorial Fellow, London Business School

"Bernard Marr profoundly challenges many prevailing assumptions about measurement and management. If you feel that you are measuring the wrong things, if you feel you haven't identified all your intangible value drivers, and if, like DHL, you think you should, then read this book!" - Gary Crates, Commercial Director, DHL

This impressive book effectively melts the often disparate topics of strategic analysis, performance measurement, and performance management into a powerful framework for achieving strategic success. Using practical examples and tools, Bernard Marr provides fresh insights into the specific methods available to create a truly performance-driven organization. - Christopher D. Ittner, Ernst & Young Professor of Accounting, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania

'At last, the definitive book on Strategic Performance Management! In this comprehensive guide to the discipline, Bernard Marr has distilled theory and practice into the essential information any executive needs to take their performance management initiative to the next level' - Steve Fluin, Chief Executive, Performancesoft

If you read only one management book this year, make it Strategic Performance Management by Bernard Marr. This terrific book sets new standards of how to measure and manage what really matters in organizations today. In a thought-provoking manner, Bernard Marr demonstrates why many traditional approaches to performance management are doomed to failure. I believe every business leader can benefit from Bernard Marr's refreshing thinking on strategic performance management. - Roger Camrass, Director, Business Transformation Group, Fujitsu

In Strategic Performance Management Bernard Marr provides trenchant insights into how organizations can design and use metrics to help maintain their dynamic capabilities in rapidly changing environments. The book is well written and will be insightful for both academic and executive audiences at the senior level. - David Teece, Professor of Business Administration, Haas School of Business, University of California at Berkeley

Bernard Marr provides a concise, focused, and tightly-integrated approach to strategy analysis and performance management. The performance-oriented approach to strategy development and management he outlines is superior to balanced scorecard approaches because it is firmly based upon the fundamental drivers of value creation. - Robert Grant, Professor of Management, Georgetown University

Bernard Marr's latest book is an immensely valuable management handbook as well as a great read! The approach he takes in Strategic Performance Management is accessible to anyone. The book includes tools, anecdotes, helpful hints and tips, and some fascinating case studies, making it a very practical guide for managers hoping to transform the performance of their businesses. - Jocelyn Blackwell, Chief Executive Officer, Higham Group plc

In a very pragmatic way this book outlines how to implement Strategic Performance Management. By doing so, Bernard Marr overcomes the boundaries and shortcomings of the traditional Balanced Scorecard approach and takes Performance Management to the next level: true Strategic Performance Management! - Andreas Spaene, Principal, Booz Allen Hamilton

Bernard Marr has written a very valuable, insightful and easy to read book on strategic performance management and value creation mapping. It will help to avoid that companies stay ignorant to this important issue. The book shows practical and illustrative cases and step-by-step guidance on how to go from management by numbers to management by insights. In this book Bernard Marr presents many well-designed templates for the identification of the value proposition and value drivers, for the design of meaningful performance indicators, and for the selection and adoption of software applications for a more efficient and effective strategic knowledge navigation and decision making. - Leif Edvinsson, Professor of Intellectual Capital, Lund University

Bernard Marr has written a practical, yet thoughtful, book on strategic performance management, which should provide a valuable point of access to the subject for all managers - whether in the private or public sectors. In a world of rapid and unpredictable change, the emphasis on how they can create a structured learning environment is particularly apposite. - Dr Reg Hinkley, CEO, BP Pensions Trustee Limited

By skilfully blending research insights and real life experience, Bernard Marr takes the reader on a journey through concepts, tools and methodologies which enable managers to develop and execute value driven strategies. He succeeds in creating a structured and straightforward approach that will help managers at all levels of any organization to become strategy focused leaders. - Fredrik Wastenson, President and CEO, Prodacapo AB

Bernard Marr's work on value driver mapping at Novo Nordisk has been remarkably valuable. It allowed us to make transparent the impact of our intangible heritage (Triple Bottom Line business principle and Novo Nordisk Way of Management) on our overall business performance. It also enabled us to include indicators for our intangible performance drivers in our strategic planning and performance monitoring. I strongly recommend this book as a practical and inspirational tool to improve your strategic performance management. - Hanne Schou-Rode, Vice President, Business Strategy & Governance, Novo Nordisk A/S

Many organizations are still struggling to identify and manage the value driver, both tangible and intangible, that help to deliver value to their stakeholders. Unfortunately most books in this field are too narrow, focusing either on the strategic aspects, on the performance management issues, or on information technology matters. Bernard Marr has done a great job by presenting a really integrated and state-of-the-art approach to Strategic Performance Management - linking together strategy and strategic planning, performance measurement, and performance management (including the role of PM software). This excellent book is a must read for everyone interested in performance management. - Juergen H. Daum, CFO adviser, enterprise performance management expert, and Chief Solution Architect, SAP AG

Bernard Marr has authored another excellent book on measuring and managing organizational value drivers. Especially the Value Creation Map approach he has developed is a powerful tool to understand how value is created and how the tangible and intangible assets interact as value drivers. Bernard Marr's approach has provided us with invaluable insights about our business and allowed us to validate our business hypotheses. - Dr Holger Adelmann, Medical Science, AstraZeneca

Strategic performance management is high on the agenda of most managers and senior executives. A superficial or wrong understanding of performance management concepts often produces poor results and disillusionment. Real benefits are only created by designing an integrated system across the whole organisation based on common understanding of strategic objectives. In this book Bernard Marr provides clear guidelines of how to make strategic performance management work. Particularly insightful is his guidance on measuring intangibles, which represents one of the key challenges for all organisations. This book is entertaining to read, very comprehensible and is brought alive by numerous real-life case studies. It will prove to be of invaluable help in designing an efficient strategic performance management system for your organisation. - Norbert Buechel, Chief Executive Officer, Procos Professional Controlling
Systems AG

Strategic Performance Management is an exceptional book and the first strategic management book that focuses on measuring and managing intangibles as the key value drivers in today's organizations. I highly recommend it to top managers that are looking to build successful business recipes for a sustainable competitive advantage. - Jose M. Viedma Marti, Professor of Business Administration Polytechnic University of Catalonia, Spain


Bernard Marr profoundly challenges many prevailing assumptions about measurement and management. It is your chance to be enlightened. If you feel that you are measuring the wrong things, if you feel you haven't identified all your intangible value drivers, and if, like DHL, you think you should, then read this book.

Bernard Marr's lucid and highly accessible book, filled with practical, real-life examples, is a pleasure to read and will greatly benefit any organization that takes his thinking to heart. - Kenneth Donaldson, Director of Pensions Strategy, Dunnett Shaw Ltd

Strategic Performance Management provides a great combination of tools, cases, and philosophies that have helped much-admired firms develop their performance management systems to deliver their strategy. This book is an excellent road map for managing for excellence in a format that is easy to understand and easier to implement. - Dr Yasar Jarrar, Executive Dean, Dubai School of Government

Do we need any more books on performance management, you might ask? Well, if these books are anything like Bernard Marr's book, keep them coming! With well chosen examples and anecdotes, often funny and always insightful, Strategic Performance Management is a delight to read and even better it will entice the reader to act. - Andre A. de Waal, Associate Professor, Maastricht School of Management, the Netherlands

This book provides invaluable insights on the approaches to linking different parts of an organisation to provide a coherent view on performance. I recommend it to professional accountants in business seeking a more sophisticated and practical approach to performance management. - Stathis Gould, Technical Specialist, Chartered Institute of Management Accountants

In Strategic Performance Management Bernard Marr gives good examples of existing best practices and fresh insights into performance management. There is something for everyone to learn in this book. - John Wilkes, Head of Performance Management, Capgemini UK

The book Strategic Performance Measurement tackles one of the most important challenges corporations are facing today: the design of a system to measure and manage the tangible and intangible performance drivers. The book provides the reader with a great overview and sufficient details. What I particularly like about it is that it brings together scientific approaches with practical management needs. Bernard Marr has done great job in extracting, developing and describing sophisticated and applicable tools that will enable managers to make strategic performance management work. - Professor Dr Klaus Moeller, Technical University of Munich, Germany

With Strategic Performance Management Bernard Marr provides clear guidance on how to overcome the challenge of effectively and efficiently connecting strategy to action. He avoids the common trap of proposing an all new "silver bullet" strategy process or tool and instead provides the context within which to connect existing theories and methodologies in a simple and straightforward way. - David McCormick, Corporate Strategy, Royal Dutch Shell plc

This book effectively communicates the core of modern thought on the management of intangibles in a strategic context. It is accessible and simple, but not superficial or simplistic. It is a good overview of the central themes in modern performance management and it integrates fields such as management control, strategy, and intangibles. Bernard Marr outlines a strong framework for the management of businesses in the modern economy. - Jan Mouritsen, Professor, Copenhagen Business School, Denmark

This book provides comprehensive guidelines of how to develop a strategic performance management system. With his step-by-step approach, illustrated by real life examples, Bernard Marr ensures that organizations identify, measure and manage the essential value drivers that really matter.
Professor Dr Peter Horvath, IPRI - International Performance Research Institute, Stuttgart, Germany