The team and I at Ventana Research through development of new research agendas for 2009 have identified business and technology thematic topics that will be critical to all organizations. These topics will be critical for business and IT to be more educated and savvy on how to leverage them for their organizations. These are our assertions and not just predictions for success in this year and we remain optimistic that business can drive significant change in how they use information and technology to advance their processes and people who operate them along with management who need better tools for being effective in their decisions.

No matter what industry, what sized company or if you are in a specific business or IT group the importance of managing to specific performance expectations and goals should be well understood by now. I unfortunately have seen that organizations do not take the basic tenants of performance management seriously. Is it that organizations do not care about the results of their investments or are just lazy and do not want to make it a priority? I do not think that organizations really think this way but certainly do appear to act that way.

I find it hard to believe that we are not able to do better and will require leadership to set the guidelines for the program and processes for managing performance across the corporation along with the specific areas of finance, sales, operations, customer, supply chain of product and services, workforce to name a few. How you establish improvement to these processes will have a big impact to what level of information and technology you decide to establish and improve upon in your organization. In many cases the maturity of the organization needs to be assessed to pinpoint the right focus of your investments. Many are trying to get off spreadsheets and move to a common and integrated planning environment, others are trying to operate from a shared scorecard that provides the key performance indicators (KPI) built from a common library of metrics necessary to guide actions and make decisions.

As you examine what you need to do for making your most valuable business process called performance management operate more efficiently and effectively, examining dedicated applications, tools and platform will be a necessary requirement. It will not be enough to operate from emails and presentations or manage performance in one spreadsheet that is not connected to your people and focus. Examine what you need to avoid spreadsheet hell and establish clarity in strategy and plans, along with your goals and objectives that you need to collaborate and improve along with measure and monitor on a daily if not weekly basis.

There is no shortcut for performance management as it takes time and resources along with leadership and investment that can see the purpose of managing this business process across your organization. If you are not sure what it is all about, write me, or read a book on it as there are plenty, and start to think how you can make your business more reliable in reaching the best possible outcomes from your efforts. I wish you the best for your success in 2009 and hope you enjoy our research and education that can certainly make you and your organization a much better place to work and perform.

Let me know your thoughts or come and collaborate with me on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

Regards,

Mark Smith
CEO & EVP Research