The art of assembling people and harnessing resources required to achieve a specific goal is referred to as Management. Performance Management is a vital part of a business that channel available resources to achieve benchmark goals within a predefined time frame. The evaluation of performance management considers the various management criteria in relation to the set targets. These different metrics which indicate business performance fall into a wide range of categories such as marketplace metrics and internal factors that affect the performance of a business.
Metrics Used in Assessing the Business’s Performance
Financial
Financial performance numbers are a vital metrics in the evaluation of performance management. These financial metrics include sales, profits, and costs. A vital metric that is valuable to a business owner is the comparison annual sales from one year to the other. This is an indicator that shows an increase of decline in sales. In a scenario where the sales are decreasing, it should be investigated. The more important factor is the comparison of net profit from one year to the other because it is possible for the sales to decline while the profit increases. Keeping cost metrics such as overhead costs (rent, power, labor, supplies and utility bills.) down can lead to an increase in profits when sales are not impressive
Customer
The income of businesses is primarily derived from the customers. Therefore, the measure of the customer satisfaction of a business can be a vital indicator of the health of a business as well as management performance. A large and increasing customer base is a positive indicator for a business. Other important metrics include customer retention and pertinent trends derived from customer surveys.
Internal
An important factor can influence the long-term success of a business is the working environment. A management can be regarded as successful when there are minimal disruption and the workers’ salaries in tandem with standard obtainable in the country. Other indicators of an effective management are low disciplinary incidence, high employee retention, and optimal employee productivity. These are important factors that indicate the quality of management of a business. It is common to see small business scoring higher in these metrics due to the fact that the management is close to the workforce.
Strategic
There are specific strategies used by companies to achieve short-term goals and be positioned at a vantage position to achieving long-term goals. A strategic performance management evaluation makes an appraisal of the effectiveness in the execution of the strategies outlined by the management. The strategies are measurable actions that the management has outlined with an expectation to yield the desired result. The evaluation checks the implementation of these strategies to determine if the actions are executed as planned and if it did yield the desired results. The metrics derived from this kind of evaluation is an indication of management success.
Compliance
The last factor to be considered in the evaluation of business performance management is the extent of compliance. The management should demonstrate a high level of compliance with the standards of different regulatory bodies regarding financial reporting, environmental standards, and employment regulation. The absence of a government sanction is an indication that a company is in full compliance with applicable regulations. The compliance metric computes the number of times a company is compelled to react to an official sanction. A similar metric indicates how quickly and effectively a company attained compliance mandated by the sanction.
