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I want to update our monthly management reporting processes. I am interested in using metrics to measure, track, and predict performance. Can anyone suggest any resources or direct me to information or examples of metrics that companies might use for these processes?
Anonymous
Response:
We identify re-issues or errors found after release as well as cycle time for reporting.
We survey customers annually on ease of use and clarity. We have also measured accuracy of sales forecasts.
Robert Fetterman (robert.fetterman@sentrysafe.com )
Response:
One resource we have used extensively is CEO Tools, a book by Kraig Kramers. This may be helpful as part of your monthly management reporting updates. We are using a “trailing 12 months" graph every month and picked up some of the key performance indicators Kraig suggests.
Please feel free to contact me if I can answer any questions or be of assistance.
Anita Lewis (alewis@ruddcompany.com )
Response:
In addition to traditional measures of sales, margins, and income, I have found that measuring annual sales dollars per employee allows us to determine how we are performing on a macro basis. It helps us to understand if we are growing our business at a rate that exceeds our headcount and related costs. Many of our "soft" process improvement activities are hard to measure on a stand-alone basis. However, the sales per employee metric seems to capture this, as the savings generally relate to "time", which allows the same people to support increasing amounts of sales.
Additional important measures for us (we are a manufacturer) are inventory turns, on-time delivery, and quality, for which we have several measures. If we are trending favorably in each of these categories, then our customers are happy, and we don’t have to maintain large levels of inventory to achieve that satisfaction. I'm also interested in what others are doing in this area of key performance measurement.
Jeff Stanton (JeffS@labconco.com )
Response:
My advice is to look at sell-side analyst reports for similar companies, such as Oracle or BEA, and see what indicators they track. These indicators are likely to include:
· revenue per employee
· percentage of recurring revenue
· what percentage of revenue is in each month of the quarter (i.e., a high third-month percentage is not good)
· number of new customers; total number of customers
· percentage of sales through own sales force versus resellers; percentage influenced by partners
Bill Overell (boverell@yahoo.com )
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