Business Thinking for Designers

Perspectives of company health
To understand what strategies work, business leaders create 
a variety of objectives, measures, and targets for products 
and teams. To evaluate the overall health of a company, these 
objectives, measures, and targets are set across multiple 
perspectives, with each one focusing on a different aspect of 
the company. 
While these aspects can vary from company to company, 
many approach overall health using four basic perspectives:
• Financial – This is the traditional and cumulative view of 
company success. It looks at the monetary results of past 
decisions.

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Explore business concepts
• Customer – This perspective focuses on the people who 
buy a company’s products and the value provided to them.
• Operational – Efficiency is the focus of this perspective, as 
well as how smoothly processes and teams are running.