Sustainability is no longer something found in only a handful of environmentally conscious companies. The health and performance of organizations today is judged by how well they take care of the planet as well as how well they take care of customers, employees and shareholders. Forward-thinking companies are also measuring and managing sustainability as another key performance dimension.
Publicly traded companies issue annual reports that increasingly look like magazines. Almost all organizations publish a brochure with glossy pictures that describe what their organizations do. In either case they are very traditional, and many look the same. What is needed is a new idea – a better way to communicate their branding and positioning message in a similar way that international countries’ government tourist agencies promote their nations to attract tourists.
Follow us on a chronological “tour” with our “tour guide” Gary Cokins, who will explain how this fictional company, Mesdup (get it? as in Messed Up) relaunched itself into a successful brand by incorporating EPM measures.
How do executives expect to realize their strategic objectives if all they look at is financial results like product profit margins, return on equity, earnings and interest before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA), cash flow, and other financial results? These are really not goals – they are results. They are consequences.
It has been more than three years since the global economic crisis battered investors, consumers and businesses alike. While there are signs of stabilization, the environment continues to be full of surprises, as witnessed by the recent battles over the U.S. debt ceiling. The situation in Europe offers little relief, with a series of sovereign debt concerns casting doubt on the fate of the Euro and the ongoing solvency of the European Union’s weaker participants. With slow growth and high levels of employment in the United States, the outlook is for more uncertainty.
At a recent conference of the Association for Operations Management (APICS), where I was a presenter, I attended a provocative talk by Alan G. Dunn, president and founder of GDI Consulting and Training Company. He questioned if leaders are born or can be grown. It is the classic “nature versus nurture” debate. It got me to thinking about whether analysts can be more than a support to others. Can they be leaders? I share some of Alan’s thoughts.
Is mobile BI top of mind for your organization? In the latest results from Gartner’s annual survey of IT executives, BI and mobility topped the list as the 2012 CIO technology spending priorities.
“The market for corporate performance management (CPM) suites continues to grow rapidly,” declared Gartner in its latest Magic Quadrant for CPM suites. Why? Gartner explains: “because CPM has helped to manage cost optimization efforts and is now increasingly employed in supporting growth-based strategies.”
That certainly was what led the AAA in west/central New York to opt for CPM from Prophix Software. “We’re able to provide our executive team with business information faster than ever before and do analysis on the information so they can see why something is up or down,” said Kristy Chapman, the auto club’s financial planning and reporting manager.