The Performance Manager: Turning Information into Business Performance

THE PERFORMANCE MANAGER
Turning Information into
Higher Business Performance
THE PERFORMANCE BOOK ABSTRACTMANAGER SERIESINTRODUCTIONThe new business book, The Performance Manager, can help you turn thegrowing information-intensity of your job from a challenge to a competitiveadvantage.
The Performance Manager, Proven Strategies for Turning Information intoHigher Business Performance examines the partnership between decision-makers and the people who provide them with information to drive betterdecisions. It offers suggestions for 42 decisions areas, or information sweetspots, taking into account the need to not only understand your data, butalso plan and monitor your performance.
These 42 decision areas are organized by the eight major functions of acompany. These eight functions provide the core structure of the book:Finance, Marketing, Sales, Customer Service, Product Development,Operations, Human Resources, Information Technology, plus an over-arching section for Executive Management.
Each chapter introduces key challenges and opportunities companies face inthe specific function. The Performance Manager then dives into eachdecision area, illustrating the core content of the corresponding informationsweet spot. These are organized into two types of measures (goals andmetrics); the hierarchical set of dimensions that allow you to look at theinformation from a variety of vantage points; and the plans that would beassociated with functional goals.
Each decision area then offers advice on who beyond the specific functionwould benefit from seeing the information (e.g., Marketing should see Salespipeline targets) to make better performance a truly cross-organizationalexercise. We hope you see the value in this white paper and choose to takeour offer for the whole book, The Performance Manager.
2Why the Performance Manager?The Changing Value of Information
Research by McKinsey Quarterly confirms what most Looking at the U.S. labor market, McKinsey drewof us have known intuitively for some time. Our jobs several conclusions.have become more and more information-intensive- First, tacit work has increased the most since 1998. Itless linear and more interactive, less rule-based and now accounts for 70 percent of all new jobs, andmore collaborative-and at the same time we are represents more than 40 percent of total employment.expected to do more in less time. While technology has The percentage in service industries is even higher. Forhelped in part, it hasn't achieved its full potential. example, it's nearly 60 percent in the securities industry.1McKinsey has followed a trend that directly relates to Second, over the same period investment in technologythe better performance dialogue we started a decade has not kept pace with this shift in work. Technologyago. Based on the research, McKinsey distinguishes spending on transactional work was more than six timesamong three primary forms of work and business greater than spending on tacit work. This reflects the pastactivity: decade's efforts in re-engineering, process automation,1. Transformational work - Extracting raw and outsourcing. It makes sense: linear, rule-basedmaterials and/or converting them into finished transactional processing is the easiest to improve.goods. (Taking wood and making a chair) But McKinsey's third finding is the most important:2. Transactional work - Interactions that unfold in competitive advantage is harder to sustain when it isa rule-based manner and can be scripted or based on gains in productivity and cost efficiency inautomated (Taking precut wood and building transaction work. McKinsey's research found thatchairs on an assembly line) industries with high proportions of tacit work also have50 percent greater variability in company performance3. Tacit work - More complex interactions than those industries in which work is morerequiring a higher level of judgment involving transaction-based. ambiguity and drawing on tacit or experientialknowledge. (Managing the sales of wooden chairs In other words, the gap between the leaders andfor the eastern US) laggards was greatest in industries where tacit work wasa larger proportion of total work.
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