BI can get you more cash…

How would you know what to improve in your business? If you have never measured your processes, if you have no transparent view on your functional teams and how they are performing against key functional metrics – how would you know where to start making business process improvements? Your starting point for 2010 is to measure your performance. As Stephen Covey says, “the main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing”. So what is your main thing in 2010 and what can you improve on to help you achieve your main thing. Start by identifying the things that will help you achieve the main thing and then measure your success against recognised external or internal benchmarks, and then use a Business Intelligence strategy to provide you with the visibility of your progress. Once you have this visibility, and you retain focus on your main thing, you can make calls on improvements against your benchmarks and make proactive and constructive interventions. Need an example, why not look at your debtors days? Cash is king and in these tough economic times your debt collection processes need to be slick and your targets need to be clear. Do you have a metric on debtors days? Do you know the impact of not achieving these targets on your cash flow? Setting these key metrics up is the starting point but then accurately measuring and reporting on them is vital to the lifeblood of your business – cash.