Critical Success Factor (CSF)

Critical success factors (CSFs) refer to specific activities, procedures or areas that a business or organization depends on for its continued survival. Critical success factors are unique to each organization, and will reflect the current business and future goals. An organization’s critical success factors can be identified by applying business analytics.

There are number of software-based solutions designed to help owners and managers determine critical success factor. For example, enterprise decision management (EDM) software analyzes a company’s data and processes to identify CSFs in order to help in decision making.

Many business process improvement systems seek to identify the critical success factors of a product, service or business as a whole. Typical CSFs might be the need to control costs, increase marketing conversions or make a better product.