A lot of time and energy is often expended by companies in
measuring their performance but now you have all this data how can you use it
to improve performance?
Too often Business Units or Areas that are ‘perceived’ as
performing badly are kicked and told to improve, or the Executive Management
Team will look at results and raise the bar for everyone to reach next year.
Does setting a high target mean you will achieve improvement?
Performance improvement is not a financial goal; you can’t set
improvement forecasts and stretch targets like you can with revenue targets.
Performance Improvement can take time; it could mean major process or culture
change. Setting high performance targets may have a demoralising effect on
morale, especially to those units who are already ‘below the bar’ and will be
daunted by the effort required to reach the new goal.
The key to achieving quick performance wins is to interpret
your data in a way which allows ‘knowledge sharing’ activities across your
company. Using the ‘know-how’ that already exists within your business to
bolster improvement is easier and cheaper than setting high targets. This
should only come once the whole of your business is consistently achieving the
same results.
This link will take you to “How to Use Company ‘Know-How’ to Achieve
Quick Wins” a simple example on how to use your data to achieve quick
performance wins:
