Business Intelligence 4

From ‘Performance Management in the Midmarket’ by the Aberdeen Group…

During the current economic downturn, Businesses are feeling pressure to access, review, analyze and act upon events and information in order to become more agile as they work to meet day-to-day operational and financial performance goals.

They interviewed over 300 companies and identified their top pressures in this order:

1. Lag times and inaccuracy of operational business decisions
2. Need to understand operational performance drivers
3. Poor executive visibility to the business
4. Executive mandate to find operational efficiencies
5. Need to improve customer intelligence
6. Need to improve response to customer demand
7. Increased cost due to operational inefficiencies
8. Declining customer retention

My Thoughts…

This Week’s Topic – Executive mandate to find operational efficiencies

In my blogs, I have been trying to help companies come out of this recession as winners.  I have been saying over and over that ‘with the economy in its current state, now is the time to look for ways to become more efficient.  Why?  Efficiency will lower costs which should result in higher profits’. 

Here is yet another article pointing to operational efficiency as a ‘step’ to breaking out of the recession as a winner.

In this article, they say that performance drivers are characterized by their immediacy.  This is another way of saying that the squeaky wheel gets the oil.  I say that there is an 80/20 rule in place here – efficiency in 20% of your business processes will get you 80% of the benefits.  So, have you identified your 20%, your most immediate processes, your high value processes or your squeaky wheel?

Improving and automating your high value processes can reduce your costs significantly.  I have performed many returns on investment analyses and most of them are over 100%.  The savings are well worth the effort.

The economy may be turning around, but it is not likely to happen quickly.  And, the world after it is unlikely to resemble the one before it.  Increase your chances of coming out if this recession as a winner by addressing efficiency this year.

Your Thoughts…

Has your company identified its high value processes?