{"id":12443,"date":"2011-12-29T14:51:33","date_gmt":"2011-12-29T14:51:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/definition\/critical-success-factor\/"},"modified":"2012-09-26T16:45:41","modified_gmt":"2012-09-26T16:45:41","slug":"critical-success-factor","status":"publish","type":"definition","link":"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/definition\/28029\/critical-success-factor-csf","title":{"rendered":"Critical Success Factor"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><span id=\"what_does_critical_success_factor_mean\">What Does Critical Success Factor Mean?<\/span><\/h2>\n<p>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\u2019s critical success factors can be identified by applying business analytics.<\/p>\n<p>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\u2019s data and processes to identify CSFs in order to help in decision making.<\/p>\n<h2><span id=\"techopedia_explains_critical_success_factor\">Techopedia Explains Critical Success Factor<\/span><\/h2>\n<p>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. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What Does Critical Success Factor Mean? 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\u2019s critical success factors can be identified by applying [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7813,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"definitioncat":[231,238,261],"class_list":["post-12443","definition","type-definition","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","definitioncat-it-business-alignment","definitioncat-buzzwords-and-jargon","definitioncat-project-management"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v23.8 (Yoast SEO v23.8) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>What is a Critical Success Factor (CSF)? - Definition from Techopedia<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"This definition explains the meaning of Critical Success Factor and why it matters.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/definition\/28029\/critical-success-factor-csf\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Critical Success Factor\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"This definition explains the meaning of Critical Success Factor and why it matters.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/definition\/28029\/critical-success-factor-csf\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Techopedia\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/techopedia\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2012-09-26T16:45:41+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@techopedia\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/definition\/28029\/critical-success-factor-csf#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/definition\/28029\/critical-success-factor-csf\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Margaret Rouse\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/#\/schema\/person\/f5dd538e31ee352d105b8af36c4268a5\"},\"headline\":\"Critical Success Factor\",\"datePublished\":\"2011-12-29T14:51:33+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2012-09-26T16:45:41+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/definition\/28029\/critical-success-factor-csf\"},\"wordCount\":143,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/#organization\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/definition\/28029\/critical-success-factor-csf#respond\"]}],\"articleSection\":\"\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/definition\/28029\/critical-success-factor-csf\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/definition\/28029\/critical-success-factor-csf\",\"name\":\"What is a Critical Success Factor (CSF)? 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