Archive for February, 2011

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Book review: Marketing and the Bottom Line by Professor Tim Ambler – Part 2 of 2

Monday, February 28th, 2011

Continuing the review of Professor Tim Ambler’s book, Marketing and the Bottom Line, we now focus on a very interesting topic in the context of marketing performance measurement, in particular and performance measurement, in general, which is the process of performance assessment itself.

Whenever describing a performance measurement or management system, it is of crucial importance to determine the level of maturity of the system, in order to have a clear image on the expectations from the assessment and what can be done to improve the system itself and take it to a next level of complexity.

Professor Tim Ambler identifies five possible stages of marketing performance assessment, as follows (Ambler, 2003):

1.  No assessment at all

This characterizes companies in which the idea of marketing performance assessment has not yet even risen, the possible causes being the fact that marketing is not seen as something that needs attention from top management or that things are going so well for the company that there is no place for changes or critical marketing review. However, what these companies neglect is that market conditions may always change impromptu, taking the company by surprise and causing serious damages.

2.  Marketing assessment from a financial point of view

In this case, top management is mostly preoccupied with the financial figures, determining that marketing, as well as other functions, is evaluated by means of revenue, profits and, in some cases, brand valuation. The weak point in this context is that financial evaluation lacks the assessment of the sources for cash flow and it only reflects effects, and not causes for that effects.

3.  Mix of financial and non-financial metrics

In this stage, management has realized that financial indicators alone are not enough, thus a multitude of non-financial metrics are introduced across the company’s functions, including marketing. Although offering a larger perspective on performance, this situation usually involves the lack of finding a balance for the volume of metrics to be employed. If not treated with caution, measurement can lead to new demands and questions being raised, new metrics being introduced and so on, until the system becomes overwhelming and confusing, the value it adds being limited considering the efforts.

4.  Development of a market focus

At this point, the overwhelming variety of metrics (both financial and non-financial) are being streamlined by management, and a collection of indicators are selected in order to give a single coherent view on the market. While projecting a more focused and rationalized approach, the problem in this stage remains the question of whether these metrics are the “right” ones. The author argues that it can happen that marketers hold tight to familiar indicators, which can be a good thing if aiming to maintain comparable data, but also a bad thing if not accurately analyzing the relevance of those metrics for the particular case of the company.

5.  Adoption of a scientific approach to measuring performance

This stage involves an even more rationalized and refined process of selecting the performance measures, by applying mathemathic and qualitative analysis to the database of past and current metrics in order to provide the shortest and most relevant list. Where possible, this analysis would reflect which metrics used in the past were best to predict current performance, and although it cannot be guaranteed for sure that they would predict future performance, it would be a good starting point for preparing the pool of the most representative metrics for top management to choose from.

The five stages of marketing performance assessment

Source: adapted from Ambler (2003)

Reference

Ambler, T. (2003), Marketing and the Bottom Line. The marketing metrics to pump up cash flow, Second edition, Prentice Hall, London, UK.

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Measuring the organizational impact of learning with KPIs

Friday, February 25th, 2011

Measuring the impact of learning is one of the biggest challenges for learning organizations due to its intangible and hard to quantify nature. Regardless of the key performance indicators used to measure the impact of learning programs, it is essential to ensure they convey meaning and value.

A recent Aberdeen Report, conducted by Lombardi and Bourke between September and October 2010, examined the use, intentions and strategies of nearly 400 organizations to achieve their learning and business performance objectives.

According to the research findings the performance indicators used to measure  the impact of learning on organizations are similar for both line of business and HR / talent management / learning professionals. Differences appear mostly in terms of priority. While HR professionals put more emphasis on internal facing metrics such as employee engagement,  employee performance and retention of key talent, the line of business gives more value to external facing metrics such as profit and customer retention.

Source: Lombardi & Bourke (2010)

Measuring learning progress should be an ongoing activity for organizations. The Aberdeen study mirrors that one of the reasons for which Best-in-Class organizations (top 20% of the enterprises surveyed) outperform their peers is their unique approach to learning.

  • 26% of Best-in-Class companies measure their learning program effectiveness after every course or program compared to only 17 % of all others;
  • 22% of Best-in-Class companies assess the performance on the overall learning and development strategy at least quarterly, while 8% review it on a monthly bases;
  • 50% of Best-in-Class companies are more likely to work with key stakeholders for developing meaningful learnig metrics compared to 23% of Laggards.

Reference

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Learning and development – key enablers of organizational performance and success

Thursday, February 24th, 2011

The world is increasingly knowledge centric. Rapid technological developments coupled with the ever more challenging economic conditions characterized by fierce competition, increased financial uncertainty and changing customer needs and expectations force organizations to consider learning and development activities as critical for their organizational performance and success.

An Aberdeen Group research, conducted by Lombardi and Bourke between September and October 2010, examined the use, intentions and strategies of nearly 400 organizations to achieve their learning and business performance objectives.

According to research findings, best in class organizations (top 20% of the enterprises surveyed) clearly outperformed their peers in all analyzed performance criteria:

  • % Organizational Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and Management by Objectives (MBOs) targets met (89% for best in class – 59% for *laggards);
  • % New hires meeting their first performance milestones on time (86% for best in class – 55% for laggards);
  • % Employees rated as “exceeding expectations” in their most recent performance review (75% for best in class – 22% for laggards).

* Laggards are the bottom 30% of the organizations surveyed.

Performance on other key performance indicators clearly shows that top organizations that effectively execute their learning strategies are better off than all other organizations:

  • % Customer retention (93% for bets in class – 89% for all others)
  • % Employee engagement (77% for best in class – 60% for all others)
  • % Bench strength (56% for best in class – 44% for all others)
  • % Change in revenue per FTE (11% for best in class – 4% for all others)

Among the top pressures identified as needing to be addressed through learning are:

  • Business changes require reeducation and realignment;
  • Lack of key skills in the marketplace, and
  • Changing customer needs and expectations

Source: Lombardi & Bourke, (2010)

One of the key priorities for organizations in order to address these issues remains to focus their efforts towards continually communicating information to their employees about the organizational strategy and the key strategic directions that need to be followed, as well as any shifts in priorities.

Despite the fact that Aberdeen’s Talent Acquisition Study from August 2010 clearly revealed that “learning must be driven by strategy, and measured by the impact on business results”, organization are still facing critical challenges in executing their learning strategies. Among the most common pressures identified by the organizations surveyed are:

  • Supporting learning and formal learning events;
  • Linking learning programs to business results;
  • Assessing competency / skill levels to determine gaps, and
  • Keeping agile and responsive business needs.

Source: Lombardi & Bourke, (2010)

Top Strategies for learning

The Aberdeen research results show that organizations who recognized the critical role learning plays in enabling the execution of business strategy are balancing three key strategies:

  • Define organizational leadership competencies;
  • Link learning programs to business goals, and
  • Strive for more consistent development throughout the lifecycle.

Source: Lombardi & Bourke, (2010)

On an internal base, the focus of learning is about nurturing the skills that will enable individuals to be more effective leaders, make better decisions and better execute the strategies. However for most of the top organizations learning is more than that, and it is seen as a way to:

  • Improve product knowledge;
  • Improve satisfaction with product / services;
  • Increase brand awareness;
  • Generate revenue from learning programs, and
  • Gain insights into customers and partners.

Source: Lombardi & Bourke, (2010)

As the Aberdeen report results show, learning is today a key enabler or organizational performance and success. Without a balanced mix of employee skills and knowledge to innovative and the right learning strategies to enact them, organizational performance is deemed to be compromised.

Reference

Lombardi, M. & Bourke, J. (2010), Learning & Development 2010. Bridging the Gap between Strategy and Execution, Aberdeen Group, October 2010, available at http://www.aberdeen.com/aberdeen-library/6743/RA-learning-leadership-development.aspx

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Emerging green economy performance measurement

Wednesday, February 23rd, 2011

The recently launched report, State of Green Business 2011 (Makover et al., 2011), at its fourth annual edition, aims to measure the impact of the emerging green economy, highlighting the main trends for 2011 regarding corporate sustainability efforts.

This year’s report indicates a dramatic shift occurring in mainstream business, as companies are thinking bigger and longer-term about sustainability. Even during economically challenging times, companies invest more and more in their sustainability activities, making important commitments in this area:

  • FedEx committed to improve vehicle fuel efficiency by 20% by 2020;
  • Panasonic unveiled a three year plan “Green Transformation 2012″ – laying the groundwork for it to become the world’s leading “Green Innovation Company”, by 2018, on Panasonic’s 100th anniversary;
  • Walmart pledged to sell $1 billion of fresh produce sourced from 1000 small- and medium-sized farmers;
  • Nec Corp., the largest PC maker from Japan, indicated investment plans of $1.1 billion over eight years in battery and smart grid technologies;
  • Procter & Gamble made a commitment to power all of their factories with renewable energy within the next ten years.

The impact of these efforts will only be known in the years to come, green and clean innovations being considered the path forward to growth and perhaps, to long term profitability.

For measuring performance of emerging green economy, the GreenBiz Index is used  as a representative selection of indicators that reflect in aggregate, the progress of U.S. companies in 20 aspects of environmental performance – from operational efficiency to employee commuting to investments in clean technologies (Makover et al., 2011).

The GreenBix Index: Summary

Source: Makover et al. (2011)

The progress compared to targets is indicated through the colored icons: “swimming” – making progress, “treading” – standing still and “sinking” – falling behind. The results regarding the GreenBiz Index, indicate that while some green practices are strongly swimming (paper use, recycling, investments in clean tech), there are many others that are simply treading water or sinking.

For more insights on Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and performance measures for Environmental Care, please visit the smartKPIs.com library of KPI examples.

Reference
Makover et al. (2011), State of Green Business 2011, available at: http://www.greenbiz.com/business/research/report/2011/02/01/state-green-business-report-2011 (accessed 20 February 2011)

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Book review: Marketing and the Bottom Line by Professor Tim Ambler – Part 1 of 2

Tuesday, February 22nd, 2011

Professor Tim Ambler from the London Business School is one of the leading authorities in marketing performance measurement and investigating the impact of marketing on finance. In his 2003 book, ‘Marketing and the Bottom Line’, he explores aspects such as marketing metrics, performance of the marketing mix, innovation performance and brand equity.

Source: commons.wikimedia.org (2008)

One of the topics analyzed in detail is the concept of brand equity and brand equity measurement. Ambler discusses the confusion around these terms, brand equity being ‘such a big concept that people have difficulty describing it’ (Ambler, 2003: 41), using the metaphor of an elephant.

This metaphor is suggestive in illustrating why top managers have such a difficulty in giving the proper attention to brand equity: ‘one has little perspective of an elephant if one is riding it’ (Ambler, 2003: 43). Just like an elephant in combat, brand equity is the means to gain more and more territory or market share, while it is very easy to ignore or overlook the well-being of the elephant itself.

Aiming to put some light into the confusion around brand equity, the author argues that brand equity is the asset itself, while brand valuation, market share etc. are the metrics that can be used to measure and quantify the asset (Ambler, 2003). While brand equity is mostly associated with dimensions such as brand loyalty or brand awareness and intellectual property assets (i.e. trademarks), why is it so important from a financial point of view? The answer to this question relies in the definition of brand equity from an accountant’s perspective: ‘brand equity is the accumulated intangible asset from past marketing that has not yet been taken into profit’ (Ambler, 2003: 47). This is why many current brand valuation methods are based on discounting future cash flows that are estimated to be generated by the marketing or brand investment.

Referring to brand valuation methodologies, the author makes an analysis of some of the most popular methods used to measure brand equity, such as the BrandAsset Valuator developed by Young & Rubicam or the Brand Evolution model from Ipsos-ASI. However, the author emphasizes the difficulty to measure brand equity in a direct manner, by investigating customer attitudes towards the brand by means of surveys or other similar techniques, as it is quite difficult to look into customers’ minds and ‘count the brand synapses’ (Ambler, 2003: 62). Moreover, such measurements must be treated with caution in terms of accurate data interpretation and subjectivity of the respondents.

The author then proposes the use of proxies that would give a more reliable and complex image of the brand value. These proxies would be of three categories – inputs, intermediate measures and behaviors – and would include aspects such as:

  • Marketing mix metrics, such as amount of advertising (as input);
  • Brand awareness, perceived quality, customer satisfaction (as intermediate measures);
  • Value of sales or customer retention (as behavioral metrics).

An interesting idea that emerges from Tim Ambler’s argumentation on brand equity is that this asset makes the distinction between marketing and sales. While marketing is about investing resources with the expectation that at a future point in time these will generate sales, selling is mostly about rapid gaining of revenues and profits. From this difference of perspectives can emerge one of the most dangerous mistakes in assessing marketing performance – measuring the latent benefits of the marketing investment before its actual impact on the sales figures.

To sum up, we can draw the following conclusions from Ambler’s argumentation on brand equity:

  • Do not confuse the asset (brand equity) with its measurement (brand valuation);
  • Brand valuation should be done with cautions, in order to have a multidimensional perspective and overcome the limits of customer surveys;
  • Timing is vital, in order to accurately capture the impact of marketing investment on brand valuation, sales and the bottom line.

Reference

Ambler, T. (2003), Marketing and the Bottom Line. The marketing metrics to pump up cash flow, Second edition, Prentice Hall, London, UK.

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Performance Prism at a glance

Monday, February 21st, 2011

Performance management systems (PMS) represent information-based routines and procedures formally expressed that managers use to maintain or alter patterns in organizational activities (Simons, 2000). More and more organizations are implementing new and alternative performance management systems in order to obtain better results. These systems focus on reproducing financial and non-financial information that is relevant for decision making and managerial action. Some of the better known performance management systems are the Balanced Scorecard and the Performance Prism.

The Performance Prism sets out to be a holistic performance measurement framework (Neely, Adams & Kennerley, 2002). It addresses the key business issues, asking critical questions for decision makers to think through the links between the indicators used (Neely, Adams & Crowe, 2001).

Being a three dimensional model, in five perspectives, it addresses all of an organization’s major stakeholder groups:

  1. Investors;
  2. Customers & intermediaries;
  3. Suppliers;
  4. Regulators;
  5. Communities.

A key principle behind the Performance Prism is to have a limited number of indicators in order to give clarity to what the organization is trying to achieve (Centre for Business Performance, Cranfield School of Management, 2009).

The five facets of the Performance Prism

• Stakeholder Satisfaction (Who are the key stakeholders and what do they want and need?)

• Strategies (What critical processes do we require if we are to execute these strategies?)

• Processes (What capabilities do we need to operate and enhance these processes?)

• Capabilities (What contributions do we require from our stakeholders if we are to maintain and develop these capabilities?)

• Stakeholder Contribution (What strategies do we have to put in place to satisfy the wants and needs of these key stakeholders?)

Origins

The Performance Prism measurement framework has been developed in close co-operation by the Centre for Business Performance at Cranfield School of Management (formerly at University of Cambridge) and the Process Excellence Core Capability Group of Andersen Consulting.

Implementation

Seen by its authors as a comprehensive measurement framework, the Performance Prism was designed to assist performance indicators selection – the vital process of picking the right measures from a different perspective than that of other performance frameworks such as the better known Balanced Scorecard (Neely, Adams & Crowe, 2001). Thus it looks first at the needs of the major organisational stakeholder groups and secondly it analyses the best strategies that need to be employed to satisfy those needs.

Source: Neely, Adams & Crowe, (2001)

Performance Prism vs. Balanced Scorecard

Oftentimes the Performance Prism is compared with Balanced Scorecard (BSC), as it is considered to present solutions to the limitations of the BSC.

By addressing stakeholder value, rather than shareholder value, the Performance Prism aims to minimize the key flaw of the Balanced Scorecard (Smith, 2005). Also, it allows to link external performances expected by stakeholders with internal performances of the organisation. Moreover, having the measures aligned with cross-functional “end to end” processes is considered to be a valuable advantage for Performance Prism (Ducq & Kromm, 2009).

Further reading – Case studies:

  • Anderson, W. (2007), Speaking the Language of Management: Applying the Performance Prism to Public Relations Assessment, Vol. 15, No. 2, pp. 120-130.
  • Centre for Business Performance, Cranfield School of Management, (2009), A literature review of performance management and measurement, available at: http://www.idea.gov.uk/idk/aio/306299.
  • Ducq, Y. & Kromm, H. (2009), Design and implementation of performance measurement system in an international surfwear company, in 6th International Conference on Theory and Practice in Performance Measurement and Management, New Zealand.

References:

  • Centre for Business Performance, Cranfield School of Management, (2009), A literature review of performance management and measurement, available at: http://www.idea.gov.uk/idk/aio/306299 (accessed 12 December 2010)
  • de Waal, A.A. (2003), THE ROLE OF BEHAVIORAL FACTORS IN THE SUCCESSFUL IMPLEMENTATION AND USE OF PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS, Management Decision, Vol. 41, No. 8, pp.668-697.
  • Ducq, Y. & Kromm, H. (2009), Design and implementation of performance measurement system in an international surfwear company, in 6th International Conference on Theory and Practice in Performance Measurement and Management, New Zealand.
  • Neely, A., Adams, C. & Kennerley, M. (2002), The Performance Prism: The Scorecard for Measuring and Managing Business Success, Financial Times Prentice Hall , Great Britain.
  • Neely, A., Adams, C. & Crowe, P. (2001), The performance prism in practice, Measuring Business Excellence, Vol. 5, No. 2, pp.6-12.
  • Simons, R. (2000), Performance Measurement and Control Systems for Implementing Strategy: Text and Cases, Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ.
  • Smith, M. (2005),  Performance measurement & management: a strategic approach to management, SAGE Publications Inc.

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Over 6300 Key Performance Indicator (KPI) examples on www.smartKPIs.com

Friday, February 18th, 2011

Registered members of the www.smartKPIs.com community can now select their Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) from over 6300 performance measures documented and published in the online repository. The smartKPIs.com research team focused over the last few days on publishing examples from the Supply Chain, Procurement, Distribution and  Human Resources functional areas. Examples from the Infrastructure Operations, Transportation, Manufacturing and Telecommunication / Call Center industries were also added.

The functional areas with the highest number of KPI examples are:

The industries with the highest number of documented performance measures are:

Example of a documented performance indicator: # Answer seizure ratio (ASR)

smartKPIs Premium

The ‘gold standard‘ in KPI documentation is now available on smartkpis.com. At the core of smartKPIs Premium is a set of over 1,200 KPI examples preselected by the eab group’s research team as the most relevant for practice across functional areas and industries. These were thoroughly documented in over 30 fields, 3 times more than the standard used for most other KPIs.

Example of a performance measure that was documented for smartKPIs Premium section: # Inventory to sales ratio (ISR)

Registered member experience on http://www.smartKPIs.com

  • Learn: To learn more about performance management and Key Performance Management visit the Resources section.
  • Explore: To explore the library of KPI examples by navigating the functional area and industry directory, visit the Browse KPIs section.
  • Customize: To build your customized KPI library by saving favorite examples for later use, visit the My KPIs section.
  • Contribute: To propose a new example of KPI, visit the Submit KPIs section.
  • Collaborate: To collaborate with other users and to discuss KPI examples, add comments on each KPI description page, ask questions on smartKPIs Answers, or contribute to the smartKPIs Forum.
registered members

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Ranking Start-Up Opportunities for 2011

Thursday, February 17th, 2011

A recent report by IBISWorld presents the top 5 and bottom 5 investment opportunity rankings to start up a business in Australia in 2011. The rankings are based on both historical records and predictions of five industry performance indicators. They are:

  • % Revenue growth
  • % Enterprise growth
  • # Level of competition
  • # Investment requirement
  • # Level of regulation

Source: IBISWorld

Of the industries in top 5, the accounting service industry comes the first because of the 5.6% expected growth in revenue during 2011-12 and the increasing demand for compliance with regulatory requirements. On the other hand, the automotive fuel retailing industry is predicted to be less promising among the bottom 5. The business revenue is low and sensitive to fluctuation in fuel price. New enterprises in this industry also suffer from low enterprise growth, high level of competition and demanding regulation requirements.

Reference:

IBISWorld 2010, IBISWorld Reveals the Top 5 Start-up Opportunities Set to Fly and Fall in 2011, available at http://www.ibisworld.com.au/pressrelease/pressrelease.aspx?prid=241(accessed 17 Feb 2011)

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Strategy Communication and Risk Management as enablers of organizational success – Insights from Dr. Robert Kaplan

Wednesday, February 16th, 2011

A recent interview conducted by Bruno Aziza, Director – Worldwide Strategy Lead – Business Intelligence at Microsoft with Dr. Robert Kaplan “Baker Foundation Professor” at Harvard Business School, co-creator of the Balanced Scorecard concept, reveals several interesting insights on the key enablers of strategy execution and organizational success.

Strategy should be understood and executed by all the employees

According with Dr. Kaplan the role of the senior management teams is to plan, formulate and manage the strategy, while its execution should be the responsibility of all employees throughout an organization. Dr. Kaplan acknowledges also that one of the main reasons for which strategies fail is because 90 to 95% of employees don’t know what the strategy of the organization is and in consequence they can’t understand and implement it. According to him, one of the roles of the Balanced Scorecard system is to overcome this problem by translating the strategy into a clear visual representation of the strategic objectives and their related performance indicators through the Strategy Map and Balanced Scorecard.

Strategy communication is key for organizational success

Formulating and translating the strategy into easily understandable visual tools such as the Strategy Map or the Balanced Scorecard is not enough when it comes to actually implement the strategy. Creating awareness about the strategy and main strategic directions throughout the organizations is one of the most critical aspects that need to be overseen when implementing a new strategy no matter of the system used to translate it with. Therefore communication is vital in this process and the strategy needs to be communicated to employees if necessary “seven times in seven ways”.

Volkswagen Brazil – a leading example in strategy communication

One of the leading examples of how a strategy can be effectively communicated to employees enabling its successful implementation is according with Dr. Kaplan the case of Volkswagen Brazil. The company decided to implement a new strategy focused on innovation and growth.

In order to effectively communicate and implement their new strategy the company took several actions:

1.       They translated the strategy into a simple, very easily to understand Strategy Map, representing a core set of interlinked strategic objectives;

2.       They represented the financial and customer perspectives of the Strategy Map in the national colors of Brazil in order to outline the idea of performance and success as a reminder of the World Cup successes;

3.       They put a Strategy Map on the walls of every room of the company’s four manufacturing plants, so everyone can see it;

4.       They facilitated training sessions, they introduce games and they even created a robot called Giga in order to engage employees and communicate the strategy.

As a result of these efforts, some 16,000 of new innovation ideas were captured from the 22.000 employees, the employee morale and engagement boosted exponentially and in two years time the company grew its revenue from $6.7 billion to $9 billion recapturing the number one spot in Brazil in terms of market share.

Risk Management – a critical function for organizations in the current economic environment

In the context of the global financial crisis, as well as other exceptional events such as the environmental disaster caused by BP’s Deepwater Horizon rig explosion and subsequent oil spill, Dr. Kaplan considers that risk is one of the most unexplored areas in most of the organizations and one of the main causes of companies’ failure.

Subsequently he recognizes that risk is one of the most difficult measurement problems encountered, as it is hard to capture. Therefore Dr. Kaplan catalogs Key Results Indicators (KRIs) to be the really leading indicators of future performance. While talking about the importance of anticipating and mitigating risks in the context of strategy management, the risk management system is considered by him complementary but different from the strategy execution system.

For more insights on the topics briefly outlined above, watch below the video interview with Dr. Robert Kaplan:

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KPIs in practice: METRO performance results

Tuesday, February 15th, 2011

A recent article published in the Victorian daily “The Age” by Royce Millar and Clay Lucas (2011) widely debates the first published performance results of METRO, the newest operator of Melbourne’s franchised rail system.

According with the authors, “the train operator METRO posted a $20 million profit in its first seven months of operation, despite failing every month to meet punctuality targets set by the Brumby governments”.

Despite poor profit figures and performance penalties constantly paid for being unable to meet the agreed contractual targets, METRO chief executive officer is confident that the company performance will ramp up in 2011.

As the chief executive officer reveals, important steps have already been made in that direction, with operational performance showing significant improvements in the first seven months of the contract as compared with its predecessor registered performance figures for the same period a year ago.

One of the most sensible performance indicators that need to be met in order to avoid any future penalties is:

% Punctuality – Target: 88% of trains must be run within 5 minutes of scheduled time

Another important performance indicator is:

% Delivery -Target: 98 % of planned services delivered

As both indicators are key drivers of the company’s service reliability and performance, impacting customer satisfaction and ultimately the company financial performance / profit, they are calculated daily as an average of the last 28 days of data and published on the company homepage as can be seen from the image below.

Source: www.metrotrains.com.au

Other indicators tracked by the company are:

# Six carriage trains operated: 150

# Network length: 830 km

# Train kilometers covered per year: 30 million km

# Customer journeys per year: 200 million

# Customers per day: 400.000

# Track lines operated: 15

# Train stations operated: 212 (METRO, 2011)

The Metro report outlining the use of their Key Performance Indicators can be viewed by accessing the KPI in practice section on smartKPIs.com.

To view more Key Performance Indicators from the Transportation and Infrastructure Operations industries , smartKPIs.com offers in its KPI examples section a wide selection of such KPIs.

References

Royce, M. & Lucas, C. (2011), Metro on track, if not on time, with $20m profit, The Age, available at http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/metro-on-track-if-not-on-time-with-20m-profit-20110117-19u16.html, (accessed 19 January 2011)

METRO (2011), About us, available at http://www.metrotrains.com.au/About-us/Overview.html, (accessed 19 January 2011)

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States and nations infographic – Matching Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and Population size

Monday, February 14th, 2011

One of the most commented blog articles on The Economist is an dynamic infographic that maps state economies part of the US to their equivalents from around the world in terms of $ GDP and # Population size.

While “The Economist proves itself to be imaginative and interesting in its way of illustrating how our world works” as one of the article commentators is acknowledging, what proves to be really interesting from a performance measurement perspective, is the  interest expressed  by the article viewers to visualize  a comparison between America’s States and rest of the world in term of other performance indicators. As it results from a quick analysis of the opinions expressed in the comments section, the most popular  suggestion is  $ GDP per capita.

Other suggestions for comparison picked out from the article comments section are in terms of:

  • $ Median income
  • # Life expectancy
  • # Child mortality
  • # Geographical size
  • # Resources
  • % Debt from GDP

Source: The Economist, 2011

References

The Economist (2011), US equivalents – Which countries match the GDP and population of America’s states?, available at http://www.economist.com/blogs/dailychart, (accessed 22 January 2011)

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