Business Performance

"The greater danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it,
but that it is too low and we reach it."

Michelangelo Buonarroti
1474-1564, Italian Renaissance Painter and Sculptor

Business Performance is a function of People + Process + Technology.

Any one weak link, will weaken the entire corporate capability chain. A strong chain will allow the business to make rapid decisions with the confidence that it does so with the strength of knowledge, and to perform upon those decisions.

Until recently, corporate performance was measured mostly in terms of financial performance. But with the need to be more integrated into the market, be socially and environmentally friendly and ensure the enterprise is capable of quickly adapting to changing needs, the measures of corporate performance have become more holistic.

Measuring Corporate Performance

Taking our three core components of performance, we must ensure that not only is each equipped to do the job, but that its performance is capable of being measured:

People

Human Resource performance is measured in terms of:

Ability to perform a set of duties to an acceptable level of quality
Job Satisfaction
Collaboration
Learning
Innovation

Process

Processes are measured in terms of:

Effectiveness of contributing to a corporate objective
Efficiency in which the process, or parts of the process can be performed
Ability to self measure, through data capture, business intelligence tools and monitoring and alert functions

Technology

Technology is typically measured in terms of its capability to:

Support the enterprise in terms of size and processing power
Support the user in terms of ease of access and response to requests
Perform within SLA performance levels
Integrate with the enterprise architecture
Be extensible in function and scaleable in size
Low cost of maintenance
Contribute to supporting the enterprise in meeting its objectives

Performance Measurement Guidelines

Executives today are expected to both understand and react to changing business environments in a timely manner. In many instances, this means in real time.

This time sensitivity has resulted in many organisations reassessing how they obtain and interpret data. The day of monthly reports to managers, analysts and senior management are gone, if businesses want to stay competitive.

Instead, employees, line managers, and executives all need access to up-to-date information pertaining to how their key performance indicators are performing against corporate goals and objectives.

The aim of Corporate Performance Management is to meet this challenge, by providing processes and technology to help:

Transform strategy into an actionable plan - balanced scorecards | Business Plan | Marketing Plan
Aligned day-to-day tasks with key performance indicators - process design and KPI development
Increase rapid business decision capability - using businesss intelligence tools
Move away from purely financial reporting to an holistic view of organizational performance - performance dashboards
Assign ownership to key metrics, increase accountability and ensure employees are focusing on tasks essential to strategy - business process re-engineering
Improve investor and stakeholder confidence with enhanced transparency and corporate governance - governance policies
Benefit from the integration of multiple operational systems presented in a unified view - data warehouses
Access on-demand reports with up-to-the-moment timeliness and accuracy - reporting portals, such as sharepoint
Access drill-down reports that show the details and documents behind the numbers - analytics applications
Integrate business intelligence with normal desktop applications - Microsoft Server 2005, PerformancePoint, MS Office 2007
Distribute critical performance information using delivery methods that include: web, email, wireless and print - elearning and collaboration