Many of the Business Intelligent projects I have worked on have been exceedingly challenging. The challenge is not the technology; it is often determining what should be measured that proves to be the problem. Many managers do not seem to have a clue, when it comes to determining the key metrics that can be used to establish the performance of their organisations operational units. There is also the other side of the coin, where management focuses at a too detailed a level, and cannot link operation performance back to the higher key performance indicators of the business.
There is no need to re-invent the “wheel”. Several frameworks are available that can be used to accelerate a Business Intelligence project. I have used a Balanced Scorecard approach and the Supply Chain Councils SCOR framework on some of the projects I have worked on. These can be used at a more detailed level in conjunction with Six Sigma and Lean principles. Most frameworks are similar in their approach and rely on the decomposition of organisational goals and objectives into more detailed activities and tasks. This approach provides a framework for assigning responsibility and ownership of the performance metrics. As an example of process decomposition we consider the cash-to –cash cycle time which is made up of three other key processes:
1. Days Payable Outstanding (Accounts Payable)
2. Inventory Days of Supply (Inventory Management)
3. Days Sales Outstanding (Accounts Receivable)
The three sub-processes can be further decomposed to involve other parts of the organisation i.e. Planning, Procurement, Manufacturing, logistics and Sales etc. Which when applied tightly integrates the organisation breaking down barriers of communication.
Using pre-defined performance frameworks accelerate the successful implementation of Performance Management Projects. They also provide a means of benchmarking an organisations performance against others in similar industries.
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