Metrics_ How to Improve Key Business Results - Martin Klubeck [144]
So, after research and metrics gathering, Organization 2 decides that it will change its support model to be more like Organization 1. It believes it will have the success that Organization 1 has. Organization 2 wants the positive press that having a US-based support unit brings and the leadership believes the smaller support-to-customer ratio will build better relationships with customers and improve customer satisfaction.
So Organization 2 spends a lot of resources to change its support model and move its operations back to the United States. It also hires more IT support staff to meet the example of Organization 1. The changes take 18 months to complete.
And Organization 2 sees gains from the change and is happy with it.
At about the same time, Organization 1 announces that it has moved its IT support function overseas. The leadership of Organization 1 had looked carefully at its closest competitor (Organization 2) and decided it wanted the economy of scale that the other company had. By supporting more customers with fewer workers and moving support services overseas, Organization 1 expected to see cost savings that it could return to its customers. It hoped this would generate higher levels of customer satisfaction. It also hoped more customers would try its services since they would be able to offer a more competitive price (like Organization 2—before it changed its model).
Organization 1 is also happy with the change.
Far-fetched? Not really. Sports teams do it, companies do it, institutions of higher education do it. But the ones that can weather the storms are the ones who embrace their uniqueness and believe in themselves.
Rather than look for benchmarks to determine what is good, you have to be able to determine what is good based on your organization's values, principles, and purpose. If you independently determine what good is, then you can find others who meet your criteria. This will allow you to learn from others; not copy or use their root questions and their metrics. But it will allow you to leverage their experiences.
To be truly successful, you have to define success for yourself. You have to embrace your uniqueness.
Recap
It's OK to be unique. While it would be nice if we could find our exact match, our organizational twin, it is unlikely to happen. And if it does, chances are our mirror image will not have all of our metrics questions answered.
We have to embrace our uniqueness and create metrics that fit our specific and special needs. We can and should leverage any existing metrics we can find—but we have to do it with the purpose of using them as a guide rather than a set of ready-made answers.
If we can focus on our unique strengths and weaknesses, we will create metrics that have meaning in our environment.
Conclusion
Organizations are complex living organisms. If your metric program is intended to help your organization improve, you will have to embrace your organization's uniqueness. It is your organization's uniqueness that will give it the opportunity to excel.
A P P E N D I X
Tools and Resources
Tools can be (and often are) confused with resources. I'll use a simple delineation between the two. Tools are items that can be used to do—to actually design, create, analyze, and publish metrics. An example is Microsoft Excel.
On the other hand, resources are reference in nature and provide information that provides guidance or knowledge used for designing, creating, analyzing, and publishing metrics. Rather than an analysis tool (like Minitab), resources include textbooks on how to use software or perform statistical analysis, how-to videos, articles, blogs, books, and discussion groups (such as those found on networking sites like LinkedIn). There are also organizations (new and