By Ahmed al-Akber/Manama
As we are into the third month of the year, many business executives have already started working hard to achieve the targets they and their companies have set for themselves. The problem is there are literally hundreds of things you can measure to assess performance, which can confuse executives as to what is more important.
We also need to keep in mind that the process of measuring takes time. If your team is measuring and reporting hundreds of measures, then when will they get the time to do the work they are actually being expected to do? What’s needed here is simplification: what results matter most that adequately highlight business performance? According to Jason Jordan, author of Cracking the Sales Management Code, the answer lies in three sets of results:
1) Financial results: Financial measures are those accounting-related measures that measure revenue and profitability. They are the life-blood of any company, and the measures that most keep senior executives up at night. Monitoring these types of measures are critical to ensuring that the business runs smoothly, and grows in lines with expectations. Without them, the company would become chaotic: how would the company know if it had the money to pay employee salaries, suppliers, or the rent? The answer is it wouldn’t.
2) Satisfaction results: Satisfaction measures help determine how the company is doing in terms of perceptions from its customers, employees and other stakeholders. Knowing what customers think is important to ensuring they will continue to buy from you and rectifying any flaws in your product or service delivery. Keeping track of measures like employee engagement is important to ensuring that they are not only satisfied at work but willing to go the extra mile to achieve the tough results that are set for the business. It’s wise to also keep a finger on the pulse of your relationships with the public, government, and other stakeholders to ensure continuity of business as well.
3) Market share results: You achieve market share growth when you capture a bigger percentage of the market opportunity your product or service competes for. Companies should care about gaining a foothold in a growing market as it signals obtaining a first mover advantage – it will turn into financial rewards as the market grows and the company grows its share of it.
In the mature consumer goods industry, market share is just as important as financial results, and companies compete to maintain their same share of the pie.
The next time you are not sure of which things to look at when judging performance, remember that only these three things matter when it comes to results. They signify how healthy the company looks in comparison to its peers and ultimately determine how well the company is doing.
♦ Ahmed al-Akber is the managing director of ACK Solutions, a firm that helps companies to improve their marketing and sales results by offering more effective ways attracting customers and significantly better products and services. Ahmed has worked internationally in marketing, sales, and strategic planning at companies such as the Coca-Cola Company, Philip Morris International and Dell. Questions or comments can be sent to Ahmed on [email protected]
Ahmed al-Akber
