Source: Pingdom, 2010
References
Pingdom (2010), Google facts and figures (massive infographic), available at http://royal.pingdom.com/2010/02/24/google-facts-and-figures-massive-infographic/ (accessed on 29 March 2010)
Performance measurement and reporting for control is not the sole purpose of tracking results against targets. One of its very important dimensions is that of enhancing accountability towards stakeholders; in private-owned organizations, reporting is directed mostly to shareholders and managers, whereas in governmental institutions, communication is directed towards the entire community served.
Usually, government accountability and reporting comes in the shape of annual performance reports, made public on the various agencies’ or local cities’ websites. smartKPIs.com – KPIs in practice section – includes various such annual reports, the ones below being only a part of the tens of governmental reports contained:
However, more complex initiatives are on their way, governments seeking not only to release a descriptive report covering one year’s activity, but also put in place more user-friendly reporting tools, with increased usability, based on Performance Management Dashboards.
A pioneer in this area seems to be the District of Columbia, which developed an online application called TrackDC, where citizens can visualize Key Performance Indicator results in graphs, check Budget distribution and spending, have access to permanent news and learn more about agencies and their Performance Plans and Accountability Reports.
Source: District of Columbia, 2010
The website contains individual pages for all the 53 agencies, with agency profile section, the annual Performance Plans and Reports, Performance Indicators, Customer Service data and Budget & Operational information.
For a complete picture, you can access for example the District Department of Transportation page:
Source: District of Columbia, District Department of Transportation, 2010
The Department’s 2010 Performance Plan includes performance measures in areas ranging from Finance, Contracts and Customer Service, to People, Properties and Risk. Several examples are the following:
You can see that the Agency Responsiveness Quality Assurance Result for Q4 was of 97,09 %, against a 87,47 % Citywide Average.
You can also check the daily Website Traffic Dashboard, covering website traffic numbers for the last month’s period.
The Key Performance Indicators vary from one agency to another, being broken down from the objectives and initiatives each individual agency identifies. However, reporting is the same for each agency, covering the sections mentioned above.
References
District of Columbia (2010), “Track.DC”, available at: http://track.dc.gov/ (accessed 15 March 2010).
Since its launch on a Windows platform in 1987, Microsoft Excel has gradually become omnipresent on business desktop environments. It is widely used in businesses of all sizes for data management, analysis and reporting. In a way, it can be considered the first Business Intelligence (BI) software product mass marketed.
Almost since its launch, Excel’s position in the market has been challenged by various products with advanced data integration and analysis functionality. Together, they formed the basis of the today’s BI market, by going through several successive phases:
In recent years, a trend that starts to get wide acceptance in the market is the move from desktop installed products to online service delivery. Software as a Service (SaaS) is largely facilitated by technology advancements such as cloud computing.
There are indeed products in the market with more features, more robust and integrated. However, considering the estimated number of 500 million users, Microsoft Excel can still be considered the most popular performance management and business intelligence tool in use today.
So what makes it so popular?
The main drawbacks of using Excel as a BI tool are:
This is the traditional way of assessing Excel, by looking at its reporting functionality, through the BI lens. Some of the additional benefits of using Excel form a Performance Management perspective are:
Overall, due to its versatility, Microsoft Excel is here to stay. Its availability in an online format and the upcoming release of the 2010 version of the software are interesting new developments in this success story.
Stay smart! Enjoy smartKPIs.com!
Aurel Brudan
Performance Architect,
www.smartKPIs.com
One of the skills we have as humans is the ability to find, create and select the appropriate tools to assist us in our activity. One way of grouping tools is by their form: physical or conceptual.
Performance Management as a human activity concerned with the achievement of desired outcomes makes no exception. It uses both types of tools. Physical tools can be considered the plans, reports and software system used as a business intelligence tool. Conceptual tools are performance measures, grouping of measures in scorecards and dashboard and the structure of performance management systems. More often than not, these tools are used in combination, as they complement each other: you need reports to make performance measures relevant same as you need performance measures and scorecards to populate a business intelligence system otherwise empty of content.
Some of the more talked about tools in Performance Management are the business intelligence software tools. At a conceptual level, the most popular so far proved to be the Balanced Scorecard.
But there is a tool that doesn’t get the level of attention it deserves compared to its benefits and utility.
It doesn’t benefit from big advertising budgets of the software giants of the world. It doesn’t get much media coverage, the attention of research analysts or user conferences. It is not a recipient of worldwide executive management exposure through the publications of Harvard Business Publishing. It doesn’t support an industry of consultants. There are no training courses available for users and no user certification is available.
However, it is simple. It is cheap. It is easy to use. It has an impact. It works.
So who is this “Cinderella tool” of Performance Management and Business Intelligence?
Many years ago I worked as a recruiter for a small consulting company. One of the rituals we had each day was updating our scores on the whiteboard: number of active requisitions, preselected candidates, submitted candidates and placed candidates. A few months ago, while visiting an office I came across a similar table on a whiteboard: number of phone calls, number of meetings and number of sales completed. A few weeks ago, while taking to a friend, the whiteboard emerged again as a useful tool for keeping track of important performance measures.
What makes it so special?
It doesn’t have the bells and whistles of the latest generation analytical software tools. But it does plenty with less. And considering the number of small businesses, the level of usage and sales at international level, whiteboards might also be some of the most used Performance Management tools.
Stay smart! Enjoy smartKPIs.com!
Aurel Brudan
Performance Architect,
www.smartKPIs.com
A useful resource for assessing the market of Business Intelligence (BI) Platforms is The 2010 Magic Quadrant for Business Intelligence Platforms, released on 29 January 2010, by Gartner. The report provides a comprehensive evaluation of the main software vendors for the BI platforms, as well as defining the BI market and its trends. An eagerly expected publication in BI circles, this year’s report was authored by four Gartner analysts: Rita L. Sallam (ex Oracle), Bill Hostmann (ex IBM – Informix), James Richardson (ex Hyperion, now Oracle) and Andreas Bitterer (ex IBM).
“In 2009, megavendors held almost two-thirds of business intelligence platform market share. But impatient business users increasingly turned to pure-play BI platforms, particularly those of small innovative vendors, to fill usability and time-to-value needs unmet by the larger vendors.” the report states.
The Business Intelligence Market
According to Gartner’s 2010 BI Magic Quadrant report, the market for BI platforms will remain one of the fastest growing software markets despite the economic downturn. Organizations will continue to turn to BI as a vital tool for smarter, more agile and efficient business. Gartner’s annual survey of CIO technology priorities reflects that BI remained among the top five priorities in 2009, while being No. 1 in each of the previous four years.
Evaluation Criteria for the BI Vendors
Gartner used 8 criteria for evaluating each BI vendor present in the Magic Quadrant for Business Intelligence Platforms. The criteria are presented in the table bellow:
For further reading:
Gartner Publication, 29 January 2010, The Magic Quadrant for Business Intelligence Platforms
Featured products
![[no image]](http://www.smartkpis.com/libs/phpThumb/phpThumb.php?src=/photos/products/coperti-Call-Center-2-photo-50.jpg&wl=90)
![[no image]](http://www.smartkpis.com/libs/phpThumb/phpThumb.php?src=/photos/products/Cover-KPIs-for-Real-Estate-Agency-Scorecard-photo-39.jpg&wl=90)
![[no image]](http://www.smartkpis.com/libs/phpThumb/phpThumb.php?src=/photos/products/coperti-Call-Center-3-photo-51.jpg&wl=90)
![[no image]](http://www.smartkpis.com/libs/phpThumb/phpThumb.php?src=/photos/products/smartKPIs-photo-41.com-performance-measurement-audit.jpg&wl=90)
![[no image]](http://www.smartkpis.com/libs/phpThumb/phpThumb.php?src=/photos/products/cover-HR-scorecard-photo-32.jpg&wl=90)
![[no image]](http://www.smartkpis.com/libs/phpThumb/phpThumb.php?src=/photos/products/cover-HR-toolkit-photo-34.jpg&wl=90)
![[no image]](http://www.smartkpis.com/libs/phpThumb/phpThumb.php?src=/photos/products/img-premium-ad-right-photo-47.jpg&wl=90)
![[no image]](http://www.smartkpis.com/libs/phpThumb/phpThumb.php?src=/photos/products/coperti-5-photo-13.jpg&wl=90)