You wouldn’t drive your car with your eyes closed. So how do you steer your business to outperform if you can’t see emerging problems? How can you improve performance information isn't complete, clear, relevant and easily available? Whatever your growth strategy -- whether winning new markets, improving yields in old ones or integrating an acquisition -- management will excel if it can constantly monitor concrete performance indicators. It is not enough to wait for monthly sales meetings or quarterly financial statements.  A good “early warning” system based on factual information helps you make smooth tactical adjustments before shortcomings turn to crisis.

This is not a technology problem

Technology advancements have made it possible to collect enormous amounts of business data, and to put it at the disposal of the managers in the form of an executive dashboard or other tracking system. However, the value of such systems are dependent on what is collected and how it is organized. It is all too easy for managers to become overwhelmed by data clutter even as vital information goes missing. It is even easier to collect data after the fact, when it is too late to be of much help to the management team.

Solving problems before they hit your bottom line

For example, most  sales executives and managers are extremely diligent about collecting and quantifying data about sales results. While such data is useful, it is even more important that managers be able to track and improve performance before all the sales numbers come in.

IGNYT's Knowledge Management professionals believe that these Performance Metrics must be identified, collected, quantified and put in perspective so that a manager can tell at a glance if his business is performing optimally and where problems are likely to emerge. A well designed system should help a manager identify a solution to a potential problem before that problem has begun to impact the business. For example, a sales tracking system should highlight pre-sales metrics which can predict success or warn of pending trouble in time to make needed changes.

Keep the process simple and productive

There are a lot of technologies and systems out in the marketplace. However, more than a few of these systems are expensive to implement, cumbersome to use, and really do not collect the information needed to anticipate problems or resolve them in a timely manner.  Many simply recapture data other systems in your business are already collecting. Few are designed to allow you to change the metrics you are trying to capture without extensive and expensive re-work. Fewer still are able to integrate these metrics with broader industry data or to share information with key business partners.  Each business is unique. The best system for developing and tracking your critical performance metrics needs to fit your business model, your budget and your priorities, even as they change over time.

The benefits

A well designed system for gathering, organizing, and benchmarking business performance metrics should pay for itself almost immediately.  A well designed system should:

Igynt's skilled knowledge management processionals have developed systems for collecting and organizing business and economic information for businesses and organizations as diverse as Lucent Technologies, The Canadian Wheat Board, Cisco Systems, Unilever, Bombardier, Sprint, Duke Energy, ExxonMobil, Fujitsu, SBC Warburg Dillon Reed as well as many small-to-medium businesses across Europe and North America.