Activity System Map

Analyze your organization's strategic positioning and competitive advantage

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Visualize and analyze your organization’s strategic positioning with pre-made templates for activity system maps, strategy maps, strategic group analysis, five forces analysis, and more
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More Activity System Map Templates and Examples

IKEA Activity System Map

Activity System Map

Porter's Five Forces Analysis

Porter's Diamond Model Example

Porter's Generic Strategies

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Guide and Best Practices

The activity system map was developed by the strategist Michael Porter in 1985. It is used to show how a small set of core competencies of an organization, along with specific management and policies that are in support of those competencies, come together to create a favorable strategic positioning. The activity system map illustrates the links between the clusters of activities and the processes that support the core competencies, hence representing how the activities pursued by an organization fit with and reinforce each other. According to Porter the extent to which the organization’s activities and policies lock together help determine its competitive advantage.

How to Create an Activity System Map

Creating an activity system map begins with gathering the necessary information from documents such as annual and monthly financial statements, the mission statement, bylaws, vendor guidelines, news releases, and other relevant reports on the organization’s activities and policies.
The next step is analyzing the information collected. Examine the information to identify specific statements related to the aspirations and objectives of the organization, especially how the organization is differentiating itself from the competition. Recurring statements can be categorized under a broad theme. Also single out the activities and the policies that support the core competencies of the organization and identify how they relate to one another.
List the management activities and the policies under each broad theme that they seem to support.
Convert the analysis into an activity system map. Using Creately’s mind map or concept map shape library, you can quickly create your activity system map. Share the Creately visual workspace with the rest of your team to collaborate with each other in real-time.
The broad themes under which you listed the organization’s objectives, mission, what it did well and wanted to do well, etc. are the core competencies. The identified management activities and policies should be linked back to each of these core competencies on the map.
Share your activity system map with stakeholders; gather their feedback with comment discussion threads or add them to reports and documents with a secure document embed link.