Most organizations today are making significant investments in developing capabilities to measure ‘Productivity’ in areas that either directly or indirectly affect their bottom line. The methodologies that have been become popular have acronyms such as BPM (Business Process Management), CPM (Corporate Performance Management) or EPM (Enterprise Performance Management).

The core objective of all these initiatives is pretty straightforward, quantify operational efficiency (gain/loss), provide information back to managers in a ‘closed loop’ manner to enable quick and prompt remedial action where needed and to measure the effectiveness of action taken.

While most CEOs today agree that objective Performance/Productivity Management Systems are required to remain competitive, maintain operational efficiency and make decisions based on facts and not emotion, questions arise: where does one begin, what impacting factors does one measure and how can the information collected be shared and disseminated amongst stakeholders?

Metrics that create both short and long term value (for the organization), provide measurable feedback to stakeholders and improve performance are the ones that usually get the CEOs attention.

Customer Profile: No business process area in an organization provides a better opportunity to measure organization performance. Most customer centric organizations are rewiring their information technology network so they can respond quickly to customer needs and business opportunities. Customer processes such as segmentation and sales are the cornerstones of any successful business and the trends and behavioral patterns provide critical insights into the future.

Segmentation is the process of looking at a potential market, gathering data on customer characteristics and aligning the organizations strengths to maximize market share (in that niche segment).

Table 1 – Metrics / Objectives