Monday June 21, 2010

Topic: Marketing Management

Reference: Borenstein, Gal. S. “Building a Meaningful Executive Marketing Dashboard: A Prerequisite to Corporate Survival and Growth.”MWorld, Summer/Fall 2009. pp. 18-21.

It is imperative to be able to get a quick snapshot of important variables driving your business. Many are still relying on spreadsheets buried on desktops, or compiled from various sources and cobbled together several weeks after important events. For a number of reasons, this information may no longer be timely, or effective in supporting executive decision-making. There are a number of indicators that can be useful to your business, but only a few are critical. Do you know which ones are critical for your business?  If not, now is the time to get specific and design a more effective approach to business review and analysis. In the referenced article the commentator focuses on marketing, but the same things are true throughout the value chain. “You need to measure what really counts. Once identified, these metrics should then be placed in your Executive Marketing Dashboard. It sounds simple, and on one level it is simple, but in general it tends to be just a bit complicated.” The complication arises because of the process of developing the right key performance indicators (KPI’s), the process for evaluating them, and using them to improve operations. The commentator indicates that you don’t have to have special software to do this, but you do need a good process. Specifically, the commentator suggests that you: (1) choose five key performance indicators; (2) identify and add qualitative metrics to assess your five KPI’s; (3) measure your five KPI’s performance; and (4) use your findings to generate innovation and new ideas. I like the concepts asserted here, but believe that software should be used to jumpstart this process. The process of customizing the software and implementing it can help immeasurably with developing the KPI’s. Using the KPI’s for specific action is critical, because following the numbers without revised execution is virtually meaningless. It is hard work to make the numbers work for you, especially if they are telling you that your strategy or execution is wrong. The real value is management’s response to the numbers whatever they may be. Almost nothing else is as important.

Comments

Add New Search

Write comment
Name:
Email:	do not notifynotify
Title:
	Please input the anti-spam code that you can read in the image.

Powered by !JoomlaComment 3.23

3.23 Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved."