Organizations that have survived the recent deep economic downturn have done so by working their balance sheets to squeeze costs and re-engineer processes so more can be done with less. There is growing recognition, however, that for longer term viability, organizations must adopt management tools that can provide data driven analytics and measures to enable leaders to identify strategic priorities in the increasingly complex operating environment. While financial data and analysis are plentiful and sophisticated, high quality measures and analysis of non financial data are often weak or not available. Yet, Gallup’s research shows that over 54% of employees in an average organization are ‘disengaged’ with a direct impact of about $300 billion in lost productivity alone in the US. Customer churn is at record levels in almost all but a few sectors driven by declines in spending and the plethora of choices. To position themselves to win, organizations must develop their competency in measuring and managing assets likely to have the highest impact on achieving their full potential i.e. employee morale, customer loyalty, key supplier or partner relationships.

Since the mid ‘90’s tools like Total Quality Management, Six Sigma, Balanced Scorecard, Net Promoter Score, Customer Loyalty/ Retention, Employee Engagement/ Commitment have been adopted by organizations to support leaders in making informed choices on strategic priorities likely to maximize shareholder value over the longer term. The fact that these tools are almost always abandoned after 3 to 5 years should not be viewed as a verdict on the quality or effectiveness of the tools. Our experience indicates that lack of broad based organizational support and understanding of how to deploy these tools in the day to day task of “managing the business” is the key reason why these tools are set aside, often perceived as not delivering the promised value.