Performance Magazine: Printed Edition May 2017

Issue No. 8 May/2017

INTERVIEWS ACADEMICS. CONSULTANTS. PRACTITIONERS. Insights from practice AROUND THE WORLD VIETNAM A story about ambition and growth performance THE STATE OF TEXAS Fostering transparency for government performance ARTICLES HR PERFORMANCE AT APPLE, GOOGLE AND STATOIL WHY LIVE CHAT IS THE BEST CUSTOMER SERVICE RIGHT NOW HOW APPLE USES THE BALANCED SCORECARD A GLIMPSE INTO THE FUTURE OF EMPLOYEE PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT + LIFESTYLE, HARDWARE & SOFTWARE, AND RECOMMENDED RESOURCES

PORTRAIT

FABIÁN MORA

Planning, Measurement and a never-ending thirst for Improvement

INDEMNITY STATEMENT

Š 2017 The KPI Institute Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

ID Number: TKI0172051 ISBN-13: 978-1546713449 ISBN-10: 1546713441 An appropriate citation for this magazine is: The KPI Institute, Performance Magazine, Printed Edition, no. 8, vol. 4/2017, May, 2017, Melbourne, Australia Indemnity statement: The KPI Institute has taken due care in preparing the analysis contained in this publication. However, noting that some of the data used for the analysis has been provided by third parties, The KPI Institute gives no warranty to the accuracy, reliability, fitness for purpose, or otherwise of the information. The KPI Institute shall have no liability for errors, omissions, or inadequacies in the information contained herein or for interpretations thereof. The opinions expressed herein are subject to change without notice.

Published by:

Headquarters: Melbourne Office Life.lab Building, 198 Harbour Esplanade, Suite 606 Melbourne Docklands, VIC 3008, Australia Telephone Headquarters: +61 3 9028 2223 Middle East Division: +971 4 563 7316 European Division: +40 3 6942 6935 South East Asia Division: +60 3 2742 1357 E-mail: office@kpiinstitute.org www.kpiinstitute.org MAY 2017

1

CONTENTS

EDITOR’S NOTE

3

NEWS

6

COVER STORY Top 5 cities with the best quality of life in the world

INTERVIEWS

KPIs

55

12

May's smartKPI: % Overall equipment effectiveness (OEE)

55

12

Operational Performance

58

14

Improving the sustainability of operations within the tourism industry

58

Why live chat is the best customer service right now

60

15

Marwan Mohammed Malibari

17

Paul Moroney

19

Rahma Himid

21

Ahmad Haji

22

Ali Khursheed Ahmad

24

Hosni Mahjoub

26

Self-control. The key to staying productive

64

30

The key effects of training and detraining

65

30

Travel hacking. Tips and tricks to become a professional traveler

67

FabiĂĄn Mora. Planning, Measurement and a never-ending thirst for Improvement

AROUND THE WORLD

36

ASK THE EXPERTS How to measure the performance of your accounting department

LIFESTYLE

HARDWARE

62 62

64

70

Monitoring governmental performance in Pakistan

36

The Dell 27 Ultra HD 4k Monitor

70

The revolutionary blueprint of post-oil Saudi Arabia

38

Nima

70

The state of Texas. Fostering transparency for government performance

40

XOEye Smartglasses

71

42

Kingston's DataTraveler Ultimate GT

Vietnam. A story about ambition and growth performance

71

ARTICLES

MAY 2017

46

Mohamed Zairi

PORTRAIT

2

ARTICLES

46

Performance Improvement

46

America's swimming program. An excellence study

46

Individual Performance

47

A glimpse into the future of employee performance management

47

HR performance at Apple, Google and Statoil

49

Organizational Performance

51

Achieving and managing performance in coffee shops. The Starbucks experience

51

Strategy and Business Planning

52

Discovery driven planning. A different and unconventional plan

52

How Apple uses the Balanced Scorecard

54

SOFTWARE

72

Tableau

72

Slack

73

LivePlan

73

RECOMMENDED RESOURCES

74

Books: Must-haves for your 2017 reading list

74

Catch me if you can. Hustling at its finest

75

Aurel Brudan CEO, The KPI Institute Andrei Costea Head of Publishing & Media

EDITORIAL TEAM Maria Juncu Andreea Vecerdea Danial Sonhanzadeh Teodora Oltean-Gocan Ana Lechințan Andrea Minelii Adelina Chelniciuc Adela Tudorache Cristina Tărâță Ana Maria Sabău

DESIGN Javier Rocha Head of Graphic Design

MARKETING Valentina Matei Head of Marketing

GUEST CONTRIBUTORS Colin Cieloha

With these thoughts in mind, we proudly announce the launch of our eighth issue of PERFORMANCE Magazine. PERFORMANCE Magazine is The KPI Institute’s prime resource for insights into the discipline of Performance Management.

The content published in PERFORMANCE Magazine pursues high and wide for some of the best, latest and most pressing topics of discussion in Performance Management and in adjacent areas of interest.

EDITOR’S NOTE

STAFF EDITORIAL COORDINATION

Encompassing The KPI Institute’s experience, research and expertise, PERFORMANCE Magazine – Printed Edition provides its readership with first-hand how-to, resources, and insights from practice, so as to assist them in their performance endeavors and in becoming state-of-the art professionals.

This edition provides details on the subjects of KPIs, the Balanced Scorecard, Strategy Planning, Individual Performance and HR Performance, among others.

Flip through pages of interviews with renowned experts, extensive research studies, concept presentations, insights from practice, alongside software or hardware reviews, and books and movie recommendations, all related to performance management.

In our 8th issue of PERFORMANCE Magazine, we explore the professional development path of Fabian Mora, Director at Lighthouse PM Consulting, Costa Rica. Having worked in shared services and the outsourcing business world for over 12 years, often finding himself part of operations, but mostly working in the Quality and Performance Management divisions, with Service Levels of Agreement and KPIs, Fabian has amassed a sizeable amount of experience when it comes to understanding the intricacies behind measuring and improving the performance of an organizational entity. Our interview highlights some of the more important elements within Performance Management, which Fabian considers can truly make or break a business.

Take part in public sector implementation processes from various countries and nations, as each edition will feature extensive analyses on the subject, compliments of our Business Research Analysts. Also, best practices, alongside the latest trends, will be offered for a wide variety of performance-related sub-domains, from KPIs, to the Balanced Scorecard, and from Strategy and Operational Performance, to Individual and Organizational Performance.

Last, but not least, the magazine features recommended resources for professionals interested in combining leisure and professional development, such as books and documentaries.So now we invite you to take part in a world dedicated to integrating performance and all that is comprised in the search for improvement, in its smallest details. Enjoy this May’s PERFORMANCE Magazine!

As we are always interested in gaining insights from practitioners who activate in a multitude of environments, contact us at editor@kpiinstitute.org if you are interested in becoming a Guest Post Editor, or having your interview featured in PERFORMANCE Magazine.

Andrei Costea Head of Publishing & Media, The KPI Institute MAY 2017

3

SCHEDULED COURSES IN 2017 Upcoming 2017 Training Courses Americas

City

Date

Certified KPI Professional

Certified Performance Audit Professional

Peru Santiago Toronto Toronto Washington DC

20 - 22 June 25 - 27 September 26 - 28 June 6 - 8 November 18 - 20 July

Asia Pacific

City

Date

Certified KPI Professional and Practitioner Certified KPI Professional

Certified Data Visualization Certified Balanced Scorecard Management System Professional Certified Customer Service Performance Professional Certified Performance Audit Professional and Practitioner

Kuala Lumpur Kuala Lumpur Sydney Kuala Lumpur Hong Kong Kuala Lumpur Kuala Lumpur Kuala Lumpur Singapore Kuala Lumpur Kuala Lumpur Singapore

24 - 28 July 20 - 22 November 20 - 22 November 11 - 13 September 13 - 15 September 15 - 17 November 19 - 21 July 9 - 11 October 14 - 16 August 13 - 15 December 14 - 16 August 20 - 22 November

Europe

City

Date

Certified KPI Professional Certified Performance Audit Professional and Practitioner

London London

10 - 12 July 5 - 7 July

Middle East

City

Date

Certified KPI Professional and Practitioner

Abu Dhabi Doha Dubai Jeddah Riyadh Tehran Dubai Riyadh Tehran Dubai Riyadh Dubai Dubai Riyadh Dubai Dubai Tehran Dubai Jeddah

12 - 16 November 5 - 9 November 10 - 14 September 27 - 31 August 22 - 26 October 13 - 15 August 8 - 10 October 19 - 21 November 4 - 6 December 8 - 10 October 10 - 12 December 5 - 7 November 15 - 17 October 22 - 24 October 5 - 7 November 12 - 14 November 17 - 19 July 29 - 31 October 21 - 23 November

Certified Strategy and Business Planning Professional Certified Employee Performance Professional Certified Data Analysis Professional

Certified KPI Professional Certified Strategy and Business Planning Professional

Certified Performance Management Professional Certified Customer Service Perfomance Professional Certified Employee Performance Professional Certified Supplier Performance Professional Certified Balanced Scorecard Management System Professional Certified Benchmarking Professional

4

MAY 2017

For more details visit our store at: marketplace.kpiinstitute.org/scheduled-courses

THE KPI INSTITUTE’S PROFESSIONAL CERTIFICATION PROGRAMS

Framework v 2.0 2015

This program is meant to improve the practical skills in working with KPIs and developing instruments like scorecards and dashboards. Participants will acquire a sound framework to measure KPIs, starting from the moment they are selected, until results are collected in performance reports.

Certified Performance Improvement Professional

C-PM

PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT

Framework v 1.0 2015

This course offers insights and best practices for improving performance in different scenarios, from data analysis and reporting, decision making and initiative management, to building a performance culture.

Certified Employee Performance Management Professional

C-EPM

EMPLOYEE PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT

Framework v 1.0 2015

Attendees will gain exposure to best practices and key concepts and will learn how to establish and use criteria for performance evaluations, from implementation to improvement and maintenance of the company’s employee performance management system.

Certified Personal Performance Professional

C-PP

PERSONAL PERFORMANCE

Framework v 1.0 2015

The two-day interactive program will help you understand personal performance, by explaining the benefits and clarifying the process of measuring it. It focuses on identifying ways to boost your performance outside working hours.

Certified Data Visualization Professional

C-DV

DATA VISUALIZATION

Framework v 1.0 2015

An exclusive framework that provides insights on effective visual communication, through a rigorous approach to creating visual representations of vast information, techniques of standardization and tailored data visualization tools.

C-DA

Attendants will understand through practical learning how to effectively collect, analyze and interpret data by enabling managers/ analysts to draw insights from both quantitative and qualitative data, based on historical statistics and trend analysis.

Certified Benchmarking Professional

BENCHMARKING C-B

C-KPI

KEY PERFORMANCE INDICATORS

Framework v 1.0 2015

Framework v 1.0 2015

Benchmarking methodological uniqueness is represented by the identification and analysis of the processes that lead to a superior performance of a company, offering the opportunity to compare an organization’s performance against industry competitors.

Certified Supplier Performance Professional

SUPPLIER PERFORMANCE C-SP

Certified KPI Professional and Practitioner

DATA ANALYSIS

Framework v 1.0 2015

Participants’ skills in managing supplier performance and developing a strategic approach to procurement will be developed by enabling the identification of performance gaps and implementing action agreements with suppliers.

Certified Customer Service Performance Professional CUSTOMER SERVICE PERFORMANCE C-CSP

Framework v 1.0 2015

The course will help improve the business planning process and long-term organizational performance, through the use of strategic planning tools that will ultimately lead to smarter and quicker strategic decisions.

Framework v 1.0 2015

Participants will not only understand the importance and implementation phases for the Customer Service Excellence standards, but they will be given the necessary tools to implement it internally and measure its impact externally.

Certified Performance Audit Professional

PERFORMANCE AUDIT

C-PA

C-SBP

STRATEGY & BUSINESS PLANNING

Certified Data Analysis Professional

Performance Maturity Model Framework v 2.0 2017

This educational program presents a rigorous approach to diagnosing and auditing the maturity of performance architectures for 5 capabilities: strategic planning, performance measurement, performance management, performance culture and employee performance management.

Certified Balanced Scorecard Management System Professional

BALANCED SCORECARD MANAGEMENT C-BSC

Certified Strategy and Business Planning Professional

Framework v 1.0 2015

The course focuses on delivering all the information needed to fully comprehend the value of the Balanced Scorecard, as well as on developing the necessary skills for a successful implementation.

To browse through our upcoming training courses visit our online store at: marketplace.kpiinstitute.org/scheduled-courses MAY 2017

5

NEWS

NEWS

for large projects. Although in doing so, he disclosed pack pricing, he avoided adding the costs of hardware, shipping and installation, which can vary from project to project and can oftentimes amount to more than half the total bill.

> Tesla’s Highly Ambitious Battery Plan This year has started for Tesla in full force and it seems to continue this way with Elon Musk boldly stating that he could solve Australia’s energy crisis with 100 megawatts of batteries installed in 100 days or less.

His wager has caused quite a stir and led to phone calls between Musk and leading Australian politicians, including prime minister Malcolm Turnbull.

Everything started when Mike Cannon-Brookers, cofounder of Sydney-based software company Atlassian Corp., approached Musk about providing 100 MW worth of battery power. After estimating how many hours for each megawatt Tesla’s battery project can supply, one can assume that South Australia’s MW project would require a 400 megawatt-hour battery installation. Musk revealed on Twitter that Tesla’s pricing for battery packs will be $250 per kilowatt-hour

> Bassita Making Social Change a Breeze Clickfunding is a very simple and ingenious way of providing source funding for charities and campaigns. If you are unfamiliar with this term, it’s because this form of fund raising is still in its infancy having been created only 2 years ago. The Egyptian startup company known as Bassita, which means “simple” in Arabic, was launched by two French nationals, Alban de Ménonville and Salem Massalha.

They both felt that Africa provided a great opportunity for a startup and after moving there, the concept of clickfunding was born.

Just like the company’s name, the idea of clickfunding came about from a desire to make the creation of funds as simple as possible.

The clickfunding model is tightly connected to the culture of social media. If there was no social media, with people constantly sharing and liking articles, videos or images with other people, then this model would have never existed.

“What Bassita does is create a short video highlighting a campaign or promoting a cause and a sponsor agrees to a certain number of 6

MAY 2017

South Australia has begun placing a great deal of importance on the battery storage industry, as it gets 41% of its energy from renewable energy. Last year and at the beginning of this year, Australia has announced signing 220 MW of storage deals, which will be provided by ZenEnergy.

South Australia’s government plans to solve this energy shortage through the construction of a state-owned 250 MW gas plant, along with $75 million in grants and 75$ in loans as a means to fund energy storage.

All in all, Tesla’s project is thought of as very profitable for South Australia. Bloomberg’s New Energy Finance calculations have foreseen an internal rate of return between 18% and 29% for such a project. However, these returns are mostly dependent on how fast it can enter the market.

The good news is that Tesla has already begun battery cell and pack production and the company wants to produce 50 gigawatt hours of battery packs, more than enough to build Australian-size projects a year. This is proof of the fact that Tesla’s promise was not in vain and that the company is truly capable of deploying large battery projects on a three months’ notice. shares or likes that must be met for it to then fund the campaign”, Enu Afolayan of Africa M.E. This gives people the opportunity to be directly involved in campaigns they like or are interested in, allowing them to feel that they are making a difference. By simply clicking ‘like’ on Facebook, by commenting on a video, or by sharing it online, they can contribute to the funding of a project.

Co-founder, Alban de Ménonville states that, “It’s easy for the cybernaut – by clicking on an appealing project, she’s helping fund change that is good for her community or society.”

The Baraka Optics campaign was Bassita’s very first project. The campaign aimed to provide 1,000 underprivileged workers in Egypt with eyeglasses. Baraka Optics promised to fund this if the video they created amassed 10.000 views on YouTube. A feat which was easily accomplished. Since then, with the help of UNICEF, Bassita was able to provide 1,000 new clean water connections to homes in Upper Egypt.

What is more, the start-up has already won a Young Innovators Award and a 2015 Orange Prize for African Social Ventures, and in April of this year it received 60,000 Egyptian Pounds worth of funds from Injaz’s Startup Egypt prize. The future of clickfunding looks extremely promising and Bassita’s team truly believes that in the near future, this concept can really impact our way of thinking about social and environmental change.

NEWS

> Cybercrime The Digital Enemy of the 21st Century

> Mobile Banking Digital Innovation in the Banking Industry

Data integrity is essential for any business and in any industry. Fake data, cyber theft and altered databases & documents have become a real concern nowadays.

Mobile banking is the de facto solution of the 21st century when it comes to banking-related problems. Mobile banking apps have been slowly but surely changing the way people manage their money, and they are giving them the assurance of not having to pay billions in bank charges.

Jason Hart, from the security firm Gemalto, explains that for example, changing centrally held figures for a key metric, such as soil fertility, which many arable farmers use to organize their planting schedules, can have dire consequences. The sabotaged data could lead to long term disasters, as people could end up with failed crops, food shortages and, in a worst-case scenario, famine.

Unfortunately, this is not the only damage cybercrime can do.

Other scenarios include hackers interfering with automated stock market trading, triggering mass sell-offs and economic instability, or tempering with supply chain data so that the wrong supplies go to the wrong stores.

Abe Smith of Dealflo, a company that helps financial firms automate transactions, believes that businesses are vulnerable to this type of cyber sabotage because they inherently trust the data and documents they produce.

However, the economy might suffer greatly if people start undermining the authenticity of that data. That is why, John Safa of Pushfor, a company that designs secure ways for firms to share data and other content, claims that “Trust in all of this process is critical…If that trust is lost then the entire process breaks down.”

The good news is that there are a few technical ways to secure data and documents. Many companies use Digital Rights Management (DRM) systems, which restrict editing to a select few and impede other attempts to make changes.

This explains why blockchain technology is gaining momentum as a way to authenticate contracts and transactions. Stuart Barr, chief strategy officer at workflow system firm HighQ, strongly believes that “Scrambling data, allied to techniques that generate unique identifiers for important files, could go a long way towards preventing attacks on data integrity”.

Although cyber threats and data integrity represent a source of real concern, one must not forget that there is always a way to counteract crime, no matter what shape or form it comes in.

Azimo, an international money transfer service, has discovered that people using mobile banking apps can convert currency more quickly, which helps them avoid overdraft charges.

Another example of good practice in this area is M-Pesa, a mobile phone-based money transfer, financing and microfinancing service, which has recently celebrated its 10th anniversary and was launched

by Vodafone Safaricom in 2007 and now it has about 25 million users in 10 countries. M-Pesa was established in several Africa countries, as traditional banking structures were inaccessible to most people. It was mobile or bust.

If we were to look at other regions of the world, like Europe, Asia and the US, mobile banking has begun drawing attention because of how convenient smartphone technology has turned out to be.

“Now that fintech [financial technology] companies can obtain a banking licence and compete on an equal footing, technology innovations in mobile make this possible,” says Megan Caywood, Chief Platform Officer at Starling Bank.

By 2018, digital banking platforms will be able to position themselves between banks and customers and offer a full money management service, bringing together products from a range of providers. A whole swath of providers has sprung up and are ready to take on the banking industry, giving it a literal run for its money. Monzo, Starling, Atom, Tandem and N26 are new-mobile first banks, that have started targeting younger generations and linking up with other app-based service providers.

For example, Germany-based SolarisBank has developed a platform that any company can plug in to and instantly offer financial services, from peer-to-peer payments to gift cards. nPeople have started turning to smartphone banking as it makes their lives easier and less expensive. For this reason, more traditional banks need to embrace innovation, partner with start-ups and focus on their development, if they do not want to become obsolete in what is an ever-changing banking industry.

MAY 2017

7

NEWS

> Urban Vertical Farming The Latest Trends in Agriculture The farming industry has stumbled upon a different path that could signal the beginning of a new era in the farming world. This path can be found in Brooklyn, New York, and it has taken the shape of a 320-square-foot metal crate owned by Tobias Peggs and Kimbal Musk. Tobias Peggs is the co-founder of Square Roots – “a startup that coaches and equips would-be urban farmers with growing materials in repurposed 320-square-foot metal crates”.

Together with food and tech entrepreneur Kimbal Musk, the younger brother of Tesla and SpaceX’s Elon Musk, Peggs decided to launch this somewhat futuristic venture. At first, Square Roots was The Kitchen LLC’s protégé, another one of Musk’s ambitious projects, that focuses on providing eateries with fresh and natural products. Now, this business can proudly stand on its own feet, having conquered the bumpy road to new beginnings.

The start-up is based on the concept of growing high-quality products indoors. Growing indoors comes with a heap of benefits: Farmers don’t need pesticides or herbicides to ward off unwanted pests; They evade droughts, temperature shifts, strong winds and pelting rains; They are free from environmental contaminants.

Nevertheless, there are some critics who claim that Square Roots’ model still has several issues that haven’t been solved yet. One of the main issues they are referring to is the limitation of the indoor farming’s potential, like the costly electricity bills that implicitly increase the prices of the greens. Stan Cox, a lead scientist at the Salina, Kansas-based research nonprofit The Land Institute, is among the more vocal vertical farming skeptics. He points out the fact that anyone who intends to invest in this farming business must face high energy costs, the high price point associated with vertically grown produce and the limited selection of crops that can effectively 8

MAY 2017

be grown this way. What is more, he claims that “the reliance on artificial light severely limits indoor farming’s output compared to that of a reasonably productive traditional farm.”

The bright side of this is that Square Roots is aware of the downsides that come with vertical farming and is trying to find ways to make its greens available to low-income buyers as well. Paul Philpott, a Square Roots enrollee, is working to achieve this by implementing a service that charges certain customers an extra fee, to cover deliveries to those who live in public housing in a Bronx neighborhood, where fresh produce is extremely rare.

Although this new age farming practice has some major issues, Carl Zulauf, an agriculture professor at Ohio State University, believes that the discovery of a feasible model might be just around the corner, considering that this idea is sustained by ambitious entrepreneurs like Musk and Peggs.

NEWS

> A 4-Step Process to Better Prioritize Decisions Dealing with a continuous stream of decision-making problems can turn out to be an overwhelming and stressful experience for a leader and his team. No matter how prepared and experienced they are, they can end up making hasty calls and wasting their time.

Strategic Decisions that have considerable analytical complexity such as large, often-incomplete data with considerable ranges of uncertainty.

Significant Decisions that require a solid business case. Typical significant decisions include: sourcing, new products, and make-or-buy IT investments.

High-impact decisions require a controlled process. That is why a leader and his team must adopt a process through which they can prioritize decisions and determine what methodology to use for each of them. The process consists of the following four steps:

Quick Decisions that score low on both organizational and analytical complexity, and that can be solved through procedures that describe the approach needed or that have well defined rules, regulations & checklists.

1. Compile a list Create a list with the decisions that must be made in the upcoming months, regardless of their importance – everything, from major capital investments to promotions, to when to hold the next allhands meeting.

4. Understand timing Once the decisions are defined and categorized, a team can clearly 2. Understand decision characteristics see when each decision needs to be addressed. This way, decisions The ensuing decisions must then be characterized according to that are not urgent can be addressed at another time, while the very four criteria - magnitude, organizational complexity, analytical urgent ones can be taken on immediately. complexity, and subject-matter challenge.

Senior teams need to know and understand when, where and on 3. Sort decisions into three categories what to focus their attention. To do this, they can create and manage Based on what they get, the team can then assign each decision to a decision agenda. This way, they can treat secondary decisions as a one of three categories, each of which requires a distinct decision- workflow, which they can periodically review and update, freeing making process: more time for attention to primary strategic, influential decisions.

> Small Business Optimism is as High as Never Before Lately, U.S. small businesses have been experiencing a sudden burst of optimism and their increased confidence has led to a hiring and spending frenzy. If in late 2015, only 61% of firms with 100 or fewer employees declared that their businesses were doing well, now, according to an Allstate/USA TODAY survey of 2,790 such enterprises, more than 64% of respondents said that their businesses are doing better than expected.

one of their biggest problems. Another factor that has contributed to this wave of optimism is the disappearance of economic headwinds that persisted even after the Great Recession ended in 2009. More than half of the respondents said that their businesses have experienced an increase in revenue in the past year and just as many admit that it has grown exponentially during the three months prior to the survey.

But why is that?

It seems that the business owners' perceptions have been brightened by the election of President Trump, who has vowed to cut taxes and regulations. As these taxes and regulations have been one of the main obstacles to growth, most small firms view Trump’s intentions as a godsend and a guarantee of future success.

Some other factors that might have contributed to this upbeat attitude of small businesses could be the rise in oil prices, which has sparked a rebound in the energy sector, the raise in the average U.S wage, as the 4.5% unemployment rate has forced employers to bid up to attract the remaining available workers, and the greater accessibility of business loans due to the spread of online, non-bank lenders.

Although Trump has not taken any concrete action yet, 55% of the small businesses surveyed described the current regulatory environment as reasonable, up from 40% in late 2015. And just 45% see it as taxing, down from 60%. What is more, only 19% of respondents mentioned taxes as

All these factors have contributed to this sudden rise in optimism, but for most small businesses Trump’s election is the most relevant one, as his election foretells a better future for the newly empowered small business world.

MAY 2017

9

INTERVIEWS

NEW TOP 25 KPIS REPORTS SERIES – 2016 EXTENDED EDITION

ARE YOU USING THE LATEST KPIS? Freshly launched, 2016, the Top 25 KPIs Reports Series brings you a selection of KPIs, researched and refined, that can help you strengthen your performance measurement and management framework.

BENEFITS OF ACQUIRING THE NEW AND IMPROVED TOP 25 KPIS REPORTS

POPULAR KPIS

DETAILED DOCUMENTATION

COMPLEX ARTICLES

Obtaining access to extensive

Gaining insight into the thorough

Accessing valuable resources that

collection of the most popular KPIs,

analysis of each KPI, according to

address performance management

across various functional areas

smartKPIs.com documentation form

and measurement challenges.

and industries;

and standards;

MAY 2017

For more details visit our store: marketplace.kpiinstitute.org

BUILD A PERFORMANCE CULTURE THROUGH INTEGRATED STRATEGY COMMUNICATION SOLUTIONS FROM THE KPI INSTITUTE Planning Strategy Messaging Workshops Strategy Reporting Workshops Strategy Communication Campaign Plan Implementation Roadmaps Upskilling Strategy Communication Toolkit Standardized Communication Templates Strategy Communication Training Live In-House Masterclass Presentation Evaluation Strategy Communication Dashboard Performance Culture Audit Data Visualisation Audit Staff Surveys Print Visual Displays Roll-ups Popup-Spiders Posters Flyers Customized Infographics

Strategy Communication Content Strategy Communication Internal Newsletter Targeted Strategy and Performance Emails Cartoon Series Mascot Design Fact Sheets Team Engagement Strategy Communication Information Sessions Strategy Ambassadors Network Strategy/Performance Internal Community of Practice Resources Library Strategy and Performance Portal Organisational Performance Library Best Practice External Resources Strategy/Performance Tool Redesign Personalised Strategy Maps Scorecard/Dashboard Design Performance Reports Design

Digital/Video Strategy Explainer Videos Videodoodles Online Banners Presentation Slides Advertisements

GET SMARTER AT BUILDING A STRONG PERFORMANCE CULTURE

COVER EVENTS STORY

TOP 5 CITIES WITH THE BEST QUALITY OF LIFE IN THE WORLD MARIA JUNCU

M released its 19th annual Quality of Living survey. This survey

ercer, one of the world’s largest HR consultancy firms, has

produces worldwide quality-of-living rankings, revealing which cities provide the best quality of life.

Political and social environment (political stability, crime, law enforcement, etc.).

Economic environment (currency exchange regulations, banking services).

Socio-cultural environment (media availability and censorship, limitations on personal freedom).

Medical and health considerations (medical supplies and services, infectious diseases, sewage, waste disposal, air pollution, etc.).

Schools and education (standards and availability of international schools).

This is an annual ranking that helps multinationals and governments “not only to compensate employees appropriately, but also to provide a planning benchmark and insights into the often-sensitive operational environment that surrounds their workforce”.

Unlike last year, this time city infrastructure is ranked separately. This change has come about because city infrastructure has become an essential aspect, in recent years, that can influence where multinationals decide to establish locations abroad and send expatriate workers.

Mercer assesses the living conditions of more than 450 cities worldwide, which are analyzed by taking into account the following metrics: 12 MAY 2017

Public services and transportation (electricity, water, public transportation, traffic congestion, etc.).

Recreation (restaurants, theatres, cinemas, sports and leisure, etc.).

Consumer goods (availability of food/daily consumption items, cars, etc.).

Housing (rental housing, household appliances, furniture, maintenance services).

Natural environment (climate, record of natural disasters).

COVER STORY

This year’s list includes 230 countries, but we will take a closer look at the top 5 cities with the best quality of life in the world.

1. Vienna, Austria Occupies first place for overall quality of living for the 8th year in a row. It is the capital of Austria and the 7th-largest city populationwise within the European Union.

The city has a thriving economy, a stable political system and both its countryside & cultural diversity contribute to its high ranking. It is a truly imperial city filled with palaces, gardens and historical sites.

It has an excellent public transport network of underground trains, trams and buses, well-organized public services, a clean environment and excellent transportation options, and its educational facilities are efficient and available to everyone.

Overall, the country has a well-preserved environment and cultural landscape, excellent air quality levels, natural resources, meadows, crystal-clear water and much more. Industrial and economic progress have not blocked but rather facilitated an overall improvement of these elements. What is more, Austria has the highest proportion of biological agriculture compared to other countries in Europe.

2. Zurich, Switzerland Retains second place below Vienna. The city’s natural landscape and urban-style living, as well as its cultural and gastronomic diversity, have consecrated it as the country’s economic and cultural hub.

Other factors that have contributed to it being awarded “city with the world’s best quality of life” 7 times by Mercer, are its safety, prosperity and the genuine openness of the population.

It is a leader in the world’s financial industry as well as the center for development and scientific research with two world-class universities within its boundaries. The city has an excellent public transportation system and offers an exceptionally high quality of life.

Apart from its good infrastructure, public transportation and high safety levels, the city also offers workers high income opportunities and visitors an easy access to nature. Moreover, education is of a very high standard and it is free at compulsory levels, with remarkably low tuition fees for academic study.

3. Auckland, New Zealand Boasts the third-best quality of living standard in the world, for the third time in a row, its overall safety being a key determinant.

Auckland is New Zealand’s largest city and the country’s commercial hub, with a population of approximately 1.5 million people. It is a safe, clean, multicultural and vibrant city that offers an excellent quality of life.

Its beaches, food, festivals, village people and volcanic cones have contributed to its popularity, as well as its free business environment and its high ratings in healthcare and environmental quality. The city illustrates a “stable infrastructure, increased availability of

housing on the city fringe and lifestyle choices that are particularly appealing to the younger generation.”, according to Mercer mobility leader Lorraine Jennings. “The consistent performance of New Zealand cities, particularly Auckland, in Mercer’s Quality of Living Index illustrates the appeal of the region in providing a stable base for employees and their families,” she added.

4. Munich, Germany Is the highest ranked German city, as well as the third largest city in Germany. Referred to as “the village with a million inhabitants”, it has a vibrant café and restaurant scene, an excellent publictransportation system, the Oktoberfest as an annual highlight, and an excellent health system.

Munich has a lot to offer in terms of free-time activities, both in regards to sports and cultural sites. What is more, the Bavarian education system enjoys a very good reputation, and there are also many international schools one can choose from.

Apart from this, the city also has a strong background in multiple industries, and is now a center for software and biotechnology. It’s also the second largest publishing center in the world and a perfect home for sports and nature lovers, because of the Bavarian Alps, and FC Bayern Munich, one of the most successful football teams in the world.

5. Vancouver, Canada Maintains its fifth place in the ranking and it is the only North American city that has reached the top ten. The city is one of Canada’s densest, most ethnically diverse cities, with 52% of its population not having English as its first language.

The city is one of Canada’s largest industrial centers and has a highlydiversified economy. Vancouver’s scenic location ensures that the tourism industry is healthy. It is clean and very livable due to a combination of naturally beautiful physical surroundings and the government’s strong environmental focus. Vancouver offers a variety of options for public transit as well, from buses and ferries to commuter rail services, so you can easily get wherever you need to be. What is more, its large downtown core offers an affluent arts scene, as well as being the main location for many food and sporting events.

With its picturesque mountains, high-rise buildings and ethnic neighborhoods, Vancouver has succeeded in surpassing every other North American city in Mercer’s rankings. The city ranks high in cleanliness as well and it is slowly becoming a powerhouse in industries like software, film and biotechnology.

Slagin Parakatil, Principal at Mercer and responsible for its quality of living research believes that “the success of foreign assignments is influenced by issues such as ease of travel and communication, sanitation standards, personal safety, and access to public services.”

That is why Mercer’s survey is a requisite for all multinational companies that “need accurate and timely information to help calculate fair and consistent expatriate compensation”.

MAY 2017 13

INTERVIEWS

EVENTS INTERVIEWS

Mohamed Zairi CEO/Executive Chairman, Excellence Tetralogy/European Centre for Best Practice Management and Zairi Institute The integration of PM across the board is becoming more significant as a trend, because nowadays organizations are regarded as open systems.

Paul Moroney Chief Product Officer, ActiveOps Limited

KPI Portfolio Manager, Vision 2030 Realization Office The integration of PM at all levels is one of the key elements to ensure the success of integrating Performance Management in any organization, to ensure that strategic goals will be achieved in time.

Rahma Himid Founder & CEO/Regional Director, Grace & Garbo PR Consultants/BGIA

If the PM system does not align from the organizational to the employee level, then any correlation between what the organization is driving toward and individual actions is mere coincidence.

Working with one model for years doesn’t make it holy. It makes it familiar. We need to challenge ourselves more to see what else is out there and try it out.

Ahmad Haji

Ali Khursheed Ahmad

Performance Manager, Corporate Strategy & PMO, GASCO, National Gas & Industrialization Company I think organizations should put together and use a well-designed individual performance measurement system, which measures employee performance against certain objectives derived from their strategic objectives.

Hosni Mahjoub Group Head of Strategy and Performance, Batelco Group Performance Management should play the role of an organizational navigational instrument, showing how we are progressing in real time and if your business is on the right track or not.

14 MAY 2017

Marwan M. Malibari

Group Performance Manager, FHG It's extremely vital to link the organizational performance goals with those at the departmental and eventually employee level.

This way - everyone gets to know what he/ she is exactly contributing to with respect to the bigger picture.

INTERVIEWS

One big challenge is to provide a mindset that comprehends the fact that measurement is not about tracking numbers or having intelligent dashboards, but that it is a mindset, a philosophy that has to be driven top-down.

Academic Mohamed Zairi CEO/Executive Chairman, Excellence Tetralogy/European Centre for Best Practice Management and Zairi Institute In 2017, the Performance Magazine editorial team interviewed Mohamed Zairi, CEO of Excellence Tetralogy and Executive Chairman at the European Centre for Best Practice Management and Zairi Institute, United Kingdom. His thoughts and views on Performance Management are detailed below.

Which were the most significant 2016 key trends in Performance Management, from your point of view?

The most significant trends continue to be in the area of intangible measurement, particularly measuring intangible assets, such as human capital and the new distinctive capabilities for adaptation and competitiveness.

What are your thoughts on the integration of Performance Management at the organizational, departmental and employee levels?

The integration of PM across the board is becoming more significant as a trend because nowadays organizations are regarded as open systems. There are lots of concepts which look at where value is captured, where it is created and put forward for the customer, in both discrete areas and larger, strategic areas. Some of this integration is also extending externally, because more and more organizations are expected to behave as open systems through digital connectivity.

Which will be the major changes in managing performance, in the future?

Insofar as the major changes in managing performance are concerned, they are going to be mostly related to the outcomes and impacts, with more emphasis either on the major leaps towards competitiveness - using international indices, or on the impact that happiness has on the customer.

What aspects of Performance Management should be explored more through research?

As far as research is concerned, there are multiple areas which should be explored, that look at the discipline holistically, joining together the measurement of distinctive capabilities and the way in which these become distinctive, as an example of the best way to compete. Moreover, it will be important to look at causal relationships between one aspect of measurement - from a capabilities viewpoint (i.e. the how to and where) - and the impact on outcomes, to which I alluded previously, where one aspect of measurement is to look at the significance of outcomes.

Which organizations would you recommend to be looked at, due to their particular approach to managing performance, and their subsequent results?

I think the emerging thoughts on performance measurement are related to the government sector. For instance, some of the work we are doing in the UAE is really innovative.

We're talking here about smart service design, customization of services, with consumers and citizens being involved in creating and measuring the impact of said services, both from an excellence & effectiveness or efficiency point of view, and through measuring the impact this design has on happiness.

Which of the existing trends, topics or particular aspects within Performance Management have lost their relevance and/or importance, from your point of view?

Which of the existing trends, topics or particular aspects within Performance Management have lost their relevance and/ or importance, from your point of view?

Which are the main challenges of Performance Management in practice, today?

One big challenge is to provide a mindset that comprehends the fact that measurement is not about tracking numbers or having intelligent dashboards, but that it is a mindset, a philosophy that has to be driven top-down. We are still far behind on this and many organizations are too distracted with tools and dashboards, without a clear understanding of how measurement and its pervasiveness can impact the whole organization.

What should be improved in the use of Performance Management tools and processes?

This, I believe, is really a matter of “horses for courses�, as the saying goes, making sure that the language of measurement, of the general philosophy, is what matters, and not the need to have gadgets and tools that are colourful and which tend to be a distraction, and not real enablers.

What would you consider as a best practice in Performance Management?

The intent to achieve, the driveability of strategic initiatives to realize strategic objectives and the impact of outcomes measured at the highest possible level, are the best practices in Performance Management.

Again, this is something that is happening in the government sector, as opposed to the private sector.

MAY 2017 15

INTERVIEWS

The intent to achieve, the driveability of strategic initiatives to realize strategic objectives and the impact of outcomes measured at the highest possible level, are the best practices in Performance Management.

Which aspects of Performance Management should be emphasized during educational programs?

I'd recommend looking at organizations as ecosystems, instead of using Performance Management from a micro perspective, linked to processes and being blinded by the aforementioned equilibrium of efficiency, optimization and effectiveness.

What is your opinion on the emerging trend of measuring performance outside working hours?

The work-life balance is an agenda of wellbeing & happiness.

The modern philosophy of measurement is that the psychological, emotional, physical and perhaps even spiritual strengths can help people produce the best quality work and perform to their highest level of creativity and innovation.

What personal performance measurement tools do you use?

We primarily defer to tools and instruments that revolve around the work-life balance & the state of wellbeing, in order to maintain these in a healthy condition.

What personal performance measurement tools do you use?

I used to use Oracle, but nowadays I use a simple Balanced Scorecard, for me and my team, which in my opinion is highly effective for tracking performance.

16 MAY 2017

I'd recommend looking at organizations as ecosystems, instead of using Performance Management from a micro perspective, linked to processes and being blinded by the aforementioned equilibrium of efficiency, optimization and effectiveness.

We are developing a database of subjects/ degrees in Performance Management. What are your suggestions relevant to the database (i.e. subjects/degrees such as the Masters in Managing Organizational Performance)?

I suggest a Masters in Performance Management, that looks at intangible assets, at organizations as ecosystems and perhaps that focuses more on the emotional or happiness impact.

What are the processes and tools you look at, in order to differentiate a successful performance management system, from a superficial one?

I believe that this area is still under the microscope and that there are no significant tools that really look at measuring things from an emotional or happiness impact point of view.

There are some algorithms that are currently being developed and any of them, if they were used, would do the job just fine.

Which were the recent achievements in generating value from performance management in your organization?

Our recent achievements can be indexed from the work we do for the UAE government. We have seen significant leaps in performance, as emphasis is now placed more on driving performance for the future through disruptive thinking and driving performance by looking at capabilities from a relative standpoint, than on stabilizing the ship and creating a constancy of purposes, through consistency and predictability of performance, from a static perspective.

INTERVIEWS

Organizations are going to go head to head in order to increase performance levels in their own entity, by comparing it to other different companies in either their field of expertise or even other industries!

Consultant Marwan Mohammed Malibari KPI Portfolio Manager, Vision 2030 Realization Office In 2017, the Performance Magazine editorial team interviewed Marwan Mohammed Malibari, KPI Portfolio Manager in the Vision 2030 Realization Office, Saudi Arabia.

His thoughts and views on Performance Management are detailed below.

Which were the 2016 key trends in Performance Management, from your point of view?

As I am the KPI Portfolio Manager in the Saudi Vision 2030 Realization Office, I would like to mention that Implementing KPIs in the Saudi Government sector is one of the biggest news & trends of 2016. The entire process of taking actions and making decisions based on the outcomes of KPI results is simply fascinating and a trend that is strongly growing.

If I may, I would like to give you a brief background regarding this particular job for the Government of the KSA, to see just how important of a trend it is here. The main feel people got from this project was a negative one, as most Saudis believe that government jobs are more about having a relaxing environment, where people like to stay in their comfort zone, not having to change their ways and mentality.

But as soon as news reached that we were implementing a KPI methodology, with actions based on results, the people saw that the government sector is moving forward and has a vision that must be achieved.

What are your thoughts on the integration of Performance Management at the organizational, departmental and employee level?

This is one of the key elements to ensure the success of integrating Performance Management in any organization, to ensure that strategic goals will be achieved in time, be of high quality and within budget, whilst minimizing the risk of losing organizational assets.

I would like to highlight the benefits this brings, in two different areas:

A greater study of how we can use & structure benchmarking studies and the information covered in its constituent data survey Which organizations would you recommend to be looked at, due to their particular approach to managing performance, and their subsequent results?

As far as benchmarking entities are concerned: Toyota Apple Al Baik Restaurant

Middle/top management level: it ensures they obtain maximum performance from their employees

As far as implementers are concerned: The KPI Institute Adaa.gov.sa

Entry management level: it ensures they can showcase their strengths to the top/middle management levels

Which of the existing trends, topics or particular aspects within Performance Management have lost their relevance and/or importance, from your point of view?

I see many organizations not taking further actions when issuing the result of their performance reports, regardless of whether it is positive or negative.

Which will be the major changes in managing performance, in the future?

One of the big changes in managing performance in the past was head to head competition, trying to increase performance to that of other similar organizations. But in the future, organizations are going to go head to head in order to increase performance levels in their own entity, by comparing it to other different companies in either their field of expertise or even other industries!

What aspects of Performance Management should be explored more through research?

How important it is to make the right call, based on the right result, related to the goal that is being measured Emphasize why any of the collected information must be from reliable resources and be relevant to the organizational environment

This leads to a loss of trust in the seriousness of implementing Performance Management among employees, which leads them to unfollow their KPIs, which in turn leads to inaccurate data and that leads to wrong decision being made.

We know that PM is here to stay, and we also know very big companies in the world apply it, so from my point of view, the uncertainty of whether a company wants or does not want to implement PM should have disappeared by now or will disappear. You either do it or you do not, there is no middle ground.

Which are the main challenges of Performance Management in practice, today?

MAY 2017

17

INTERVIEWS

I see many organizations not taking further actions when issuing the result of their performance reports, regardless of whether it is positive or negative. This leads to a loss of trust in the seriousness of implementing Performance Management among employees.

Maintaining high levels of customer satisfaction, because this depends on data that may involve internal behaviors & emotions, feelings and so on Having the honesty to publish performance outcome results, even when they are low and/ or decreasing Utilizing Performance Management without making decisions based on end performance reports, which will look very much like a car without tires – it will simply be a shiny picture to show the organization’s prestige in the market, but will have nothing practical attached to it What should be improved in the use of Performance Management tools and processes?

The integration of tools and processes, at multiple levels, needs to be improved, better explained, as there aren’t a lot of options to use PM software with other Enterprise Resource Planning systems in SAP, Oracle and so on.

What would you consider as a best practice in Performance Management?

In my opinion, benchmarking alongside continuous improvement equals operational excellence.

Which aspects of Performance Management should be emphasized during educational programs?

Having a professional certification that allows an individual to practice the implementation of Performance Management and its constituent elements, the BSC, KPIs etc.

Having courses that focus more on practical exercises and knowledge-sharing of others’ experiences in practice 18 MAY 2017

What are the limits that prevent practitioners from achieving higher levels of proficiency in Performance Management?

The biggest limit, in my opinion, is that top management does not always support practitioners by giving them authority. A lot of times they simply lose interest and confidence in a practitioner’s work, simply because they were not satisfied by the end results or the results of the report. But they miss out on the main point: if the practitioner had had the necessary authority to fully conduct his research, he could have given them more data, a clearer image of the whole situation and individualized suggestions for each of the identified problems.

What is your opinion on the emerging trend of measuring performance outside working hours?

This showcases people’s awareness regarding the importance of PM and its strength in generating better results for both your professional and personal life. And just like you and anyone else can see, we are today much better off than we were some years ago and I believe PM and measuring personal performance played a role in that.

What personal performance measurement tools do you use?

KPIs Benchmarking tools Performance appraisal tools What are the processes and tools you look at, in order to differentiate a successful performance management system, from a superficial one?

The most important elements I look at are the KPI reports and KPI dashboard.

Which were the recent achievements in generating value from performance management, in your organization?

Our most recent achievements first off, generating and clearly understanding the results behind our KPI reports and secondly, using this information as a foundation on which we have built our next steps.

The biggest limit for practitioners is that top management does not always support their cases by giving them authority.

INTERVIEWS

More and more data will be available to determine where employees are spending time. The challenge is to make good use of this data, otherwise 'busyness' will (continue to be) mistaken for a valuable contribution.

Consultant Paul Moroney Chief Product Officer, ActiveOps Limited In 2017, the Performance Magazine editorial team interviewed Paul Moroney, Chief Product Officer at ActiveOps Limited, United Kingdom.

Her thoughts and views on Performance Management are detailed below.

Which were the 2016 key trends in Performance Management, from your point of view?

The two most significant trends I observed are: The challenge to the current performance management framework, including the use of annual objectives and bell curves, as a significant input to performance ratings; does this process actually add value, when looking at the resource costs and stifling of innovation that it delivers?

A break from the annual review and CPI movements being linked to pay increases. This is being replaced by more transformations based on changes related to an individual’s contribution and capability.

What are your thoughts on the integration of Performance Management at the organizational, departmental and employee level?

If the PM system does not align from the organizational to the employee level, then any correlation between what the organization is driving toward and individual actions is mere coincidence. There must be an alignment for the organization to be effective. The challenge is to identify how the PM system needs to

change, objectives and measurements-wise, between levels.

This is particularly true of the support functions within organizations, which need to ensure they are contributing 'fit for purpose' solutions for their organization, not just the 'best of breed' from their specialist function.

Usually, this is not a disaggregation of the organizational targets that the individual needs to contribute to. It takes effort and creativity to determine what the appropriate deliverable of staff will deliver a successful company outcome.

Which will be the major changes in managing performance, in the future?

More and more data will be available to determine where employees are spending time. The challenge is to make good use of this data, to identify what was achieved in the time spent, not simply record where the time went. Unless actions are taken, 'busyness' will (continue to be) mistaken for a valuable contribution.

More organizations will challenge the current approach of annual and quarterly objectives, in favor of more agile approaches.

Organizational metrics such as Net Promoter Score will continue to be used at individual levels, even where the individual has little control over what drives the score.

What aspects of Performance Management should be explored more through research?

The trend toward removing bell curves and traditional PM systems is growing.

The performance of organizations that have taken this approach, coupled with an understanding of what replaced the 'traditional' system would be an excellent

area of research. Recognizing limitations is good, finding a better alternative is more difficult.

Then, another aspect would be the impact of gamification as part of or alongside the PM system, and how these things work together to drive good performance.

Which organizations would you recommend to be looked at, due to their particular approach to managing performance, and their subsequent results?

Organizations that have moved away from 'traditional' PM. Therefore, companies such as IBM, Microsoft, KPMG, Accenture, Deloitte and PwC. Which of the existing trends, topics or particular aspects within Performance Management have lost their relevance and/or importance, from your point of view?

I have an interest in the decline of the Bell Curve. I have long held the view that for most large organizations, across large pools of people, with differing performance levels, it was self-explanatory that it worked. The challenge lies in the fact that organizations want the math to work at a team level of perhaps 10 people, along the lines I mentioned in answer to the interview’s second question.

This produces skewed results in two ways: generating good performance from average (or lower), and not recognizing great performance where four outstanding performance sources are on the same team.

Sound logic, poor execution.

Which are the main challenges of Performance Management in practice, today?

The increase in automation will continue to MAY 2017 19

INTERVIEWS

Best practice Performance Management is light in administration, great at recognizing 'real' performance, and realistic regarding the impact of factors which lie outside of the individual’s control.

remove more straightforward work (initially at least). This will cause the remaining roles to be more complex in nature. The more complex and diverse the role, the more challenging to see 'what good looks like'.

What should be improved in the use of Performance Management tools and processes?

The ability to aggregate output in a meaningful way to demonstrate the contribution of individuals.

Even data that is only materially correct is still more powerful to base performance conversations around than 'gut feel and observations'. Data is not the answer, but it provides a framework for constructive conversations and comparisons.

What would you consider as a best practice in Performance Management?

Best practice PM is light in administration, great at recognizing 'real' performance, and realistic regarding the impact of factors which lie outside of the individual’s control.

People providing discretionary efforts and good results aligned to organizational goals and values are rewarded and retained.

Those who are not are provided the support to improve. If this is not successful, they need an opportunity to find a more suitable pursuit, even if it means changing organizations.

Which aspects of Performance Management should be emphasized during educational programs?

The need for PM systems to be fit for purpose, to encourage organizational goals to be met whilst treating staff with respect. People will do what the PM system rewards, not what you ask them to do and not what you think they should do. Set PM systems up with this in mind!

20 MAY 2017

What are the limits that prevent practitioners from achieving higher levels of proficiency in Performance Management?

Historical views of what 'good' looks like.

This is despite evidence that for many organizations, traditional PM systems have become an industry of deadline-driven, form-filling exercises that have little to do with what needs to be done.

Enough process to be useful, and no more!

it add value, will they sustain interest? I personally think these will have a relatively short shelf life, but the people being attracted to counting performance in different ways will continue for many generations to come.

What personal performance measurement tools do you use?

I use Office365 Outlook for capacity management, to do lists for what I need to achieve, Word and Excel templates to record goals and objectives.

I am currently experimenting with a host of Apps that help make all of this easier!

There is a need for PM systems to be fit for purpose, to encourage organizational

What are the processes and tools you look at, in order to differentiate a successful performance management system, from a superficial one?

We look for the organizational linkage and context to determine what is important. We want departments and teams to know what role they play and how to effectively and efficiently deliver customer outcomes.

Then we want the individual to:

goals to be met whilst treating staff with respect.

What is your opinion on the emerging trend of measuring performance outside working hours?

It seems most things can now be turned into 'points' or other measures and people care about them. Think FitBit, SnapChat and Candy Crush Saga and many more. Does

Have the opportunity to develop the rights skills, which change over time Be provided with enough work and challenge to keep them gainfully occupied Identify where the person 'does not want to be here' and help them find a way to change that attitude or move on. Life is too short for both that person and their teammates!

With all of the above working as intended, differentiate to reward and encourage discretionary efforts and excellent achievement!

INTERVIEWS

Many organizations are moving away from the traditional bell curve, so as far as I see it, the sooner more follow, the better.

Consultant Rahma Himid Founder & CEO/Regional Director, Grace & Garbo PR Consultants/BGIA In 2017, the Performance Magazine editorial team interviewed Rahma Himid, Founder & CEO of Grace and Garbo PR and Regional Director at BGIA, United Arab Emirates.

Her thoughts and views on Performance Management are detailed below.

Which were the 2016 key trends in Performance Management, from your point of view?

We surely saw more organizations becoming more focused on their performance cycle, in order to manage the ever-changing market conditions. For example, companies making redundancies had to revamp existing roles, restructure departments and teams, and reset the whole performance process from scratch for those who survived the cuts.

What are your thoughts on the integration of Performance Management at organizational, departmental and employee level?

Such vertical integration is essential to the success of most organizations, especially those with traditional hierarchies. Until even the most junior person fully understands how his/her role affects the achievement of the strategic objectives and vision, the company is at greater risk of higher turnover due to lack of commitment for the workplace.

Which will be the major changes in managing performance, in the future?

Line managers still don’t allocate enough time to sit down and take a good hard look at their direct reports during the year. We only see the challenges and the conflicts at

the time of evaluation. Line managers blame the super-fast paced business environment here, which is understandable, but a lack of regular reviews and coaching comes at a cost.

What aspects of Performance Management should be explored more through research?

Performance-related pay - PRP. There are still different school of thought out there and clients always ask us what do you think we should do, and while no one-size-fits-all exists, we believe more research in this area is needed.

Which of the existing trends, topics or particular aspects within Performance Management have lost their relevance and/or importance, from your point of view?

Many organizations are moving away from the traditional bell curve, so as far as I see it, the sooner more follow, the better.

Which are main challenges of Performance Management in practice, today?

The line manager/employee relationship and the evaluation of competencies, which always causes conflict, as there is an element of subjectivity.

What should be improved in the use of Performance Management tools and processes?

One crucial element that should be given more attention is the internal communication of the integration of strategic objectives down across all levels.

Which aspects of Performance Management should be emphasized during educational programs?

Coaching as a skill. It is imperative that performance-related conversations are conducted in a coaching manner that boosts confidence and loyalty.

What are the limits that prevent practitioners from achieving higher levels of proficiency in Performance Management?

Sticking to what they learnt 15 years ago!

Change is the only consistent element in life and surely the same is true in research and education. Working with one model for years doesn’t make it holy. It makes it familiar. We need to challenge ourselves more to see what else is out there and try it out, even on a small scale in the beginning.

What are the processes and tools you look at, in order to differentiate a successful performance management system, from a superficial one?

I generally look at turnover ratio, the company’s overall performance and the employer’s brand, as these elements offer me the best information to assess how well a system works.

One crucial element that should be given more attention is the internal communication of the integration of strategic objectives down across all levels.

MAY 2017 21

INTERVIEWS

Technology will absolutely play a vital role in creating a performance culture by utilizing the advantage of systems visualization, data gathering, analysis and benchmarking.

Practitioner Ahmad Haji Performance Manager, Corporate Strategy & PMO, GASCO, National Gas & Industrialization Company In 2017, the Performance Magazine editorial team interviewed Ahmad Haji, Performance Manager, Corporate Strategy & PMO at GASCO, National Gas & Industrialization Company, Saudi Arabia. His thoughts and views on Performance Management are detailed below.

Which were the 2016 key trends in Performance Management, from your point of view?

In line with the Kingdom's vision 2030 to build a society of economy and knowledge, by providing opportunities for entrepreneurs, SMEs and the government sector to diversify the economy and achieve sustainability, creating a performance management system and identifying key performance indicators has become a trend in the market to improve competition, diversify services and raise quality.

In addition, the vision of 2030 will play a wider role in creating a business environment that supports entrepreneurs in transforming their research into technical products and helping them establish startups.

What are your thoughts on the integration of Performance Management at organizational, departmental and employee level?

I think organizations should put together and use a well-designed individual performance measurement system, which measures employee performance against certain objectives derived from their strategic objectives. It will help employees 22 MAY 2017

understand how their performance is going to be evaluated on annual basis and how to improve.

Which will be the major changes in managing performance, in the future?

Technology will absolutely play a vital role in creating a performance culture by utilizing the advantage of systems visualization, data gathering, analysis and benchmarking, which will connect management with continuous ''actual result" gains that will improve development.

In addition to this, technological intervention will help management engage individuals across the organization to support different approaches of translating strategic objectives into performance measures and direct KPI implementation from the corporate & departmental level into the individual level, both from top-bottom and/or bottom-top.

What aspects of Performance Management should be explored more through research?

Eligibility for promotion, incentive and bonus schemes which seek to reward high performing individuals in alignment of achieving business goals and objectives.

Identify the individual training and development requirements that ensure corrective actions can be taken continuously, to further enhance a company’s performance through the individual.

Develop more solutions for grievance and appeal processes and procedures, for unsatisfactory annual performance results.

Engage employees with planning and setting the objectives that increase job satisfaction, productivity and commitment, and promote the feeling that their work is recognized and valued.

Which organizations would you recommend to be looked at, due to their particular approach to managing performance, and their subsequent results?

Performance management is on-going subject, if we categorize the performance management cycle into three categories: strategy, company performance and individual performance.

From my point of view, between these, you will find some organizations success at strategy & company performance, but struggle with individual performance, when other organizations success in the individual department and simply fill in the slots with what energy is left for the other two, yet this might not be accurate since each organization builds their system according to their needs and status-quo.

GE abandoned its forced rankings about a decade ago—a system that required managers to rate each worker’s performance using a number that compared them with peers.

Those scoring in the bottom 10 percent were typically fired. But in August 2015, GE also reportedly decided to scrap formal annual reviews for its 300,000 employees entirely, replacing these evaluations with more frequent conversations and introducing an app to help employees, managers and teammates offer feedback.

Deloitte has announced that it’s experimenting with a new program that eschews rankings, evaluates workers incrementally throughout

INTERVIEWS

The biggest challenge a practitioner might face during the implementation and development of key performance indicators at different levels is to ensure full alignment exists between corporate performance and the strategic plan of departmental achievements.

the year and relies on only four simple questions, two of which require mere yes or no answers.

Microsoft chucked its stacked rankings almost two years ago, as have Adobe, Gap and Medtronic. In the 18 months following Adobe’s March 2012 announcement that it would replace stacked rankings, shares in the software company rose 68 percent.

Therefore, I think building a comprehensive performance management system is a journey that continuously matures and shapes an organization as it is on its way towards progress.

Which of the existing trends, topics or particular aspects within Performance Management have lost their relevance and/or importance, from your point of view?

There are a lot of activities need to be considered when developing performance management systems, aside from reconciling and cascading a company's strategic objectives to individual levels, which is the most important aspect in the complete cycle.

I think there are two more aspect that need to be reconsidered and re-analyzed: encouraging the nurturing of a high performance culture that create continuous learning and professional development opportunities, and develop better communication channels between the individual or employee and his line manager, to encourage fairness, accuracy, proactivity and effective feedback that develops and enhances employee performance, instead of just waiting to analyze whatever failures happen at the end of the year.

Which are main challenges of Performance Management in practice, today?

The biggest challenge a practitioner might face during the implementation and development of key performance indicators at different levels is to ensure full alignment exists between corporate performance and the strategic plan of departmental achievements.

In addition to this, there is always the perennial challenge of understanding the industry/business nature and what needs to be assessed in order to set a clear foundation for measurement and ensure one brings real contribution to a company's strategic objectives.

What should be improved in the use of Performance Management tools and processes?

Establishing a clear connection between on-the-job performance and incentives such as annual increase, promotions and training and development, as well as improving the process of developing key performance indicators at the individual level, to increase employees’ productivity and efficiency.

What would you consider as a best practice in Performance Management?

I would say the best performance management practice should bring together the strategic objectives, the short term main focus (success factor) and all the relevant key performance indicators at the corporate, department and individual levels, which should of course be aligned with the company’s vision and strategy, to enable managers and other stakeholders to see how the company measures up in comparison to its own previous performance and in comparison to other companies.

Which aspects of Performance Management should be emphasized during educational programs?

It's very important for any educational program to increase participants’ business intelligence to a level where they can identify key factors in the strategy, to come up with the most meaningful measures and best set of matrices that are really essential and critical for the effective running of any organization.

What are the limits that prevent practitioners from achieving higher levels of proficiency in Performance Management?

Performance practitioners need to have advanced knowledge of certain capabilities like consulting skills, to move from receiving orders to business partnership; in addition to this, strong strategic thinking competencies to understand how a company can reach proficient levels of development implementation, alongside the ability to translate high level objectives into operational practices are two other key traits.

One other notable professional trait that should be worked on is business acumen, which helps any practitioner to work across organizational boundaries, allowing him to provide in-depth performance recommendations and obtain the leadership team’s buy-in.

What is your opinion on the emerging trend of measuring performance outside working hours?

On a personal level, I normally set a knowledge target growth at the beginning of the year and try to develop my network, skills and awareness in related areas of interest by reading books, meeting with professionals, participating in forums and summits to stay updated and connected to the industry.

What personal performance measurement tools do you use?

MAY 2017 23

INTERVIEWS

Working with KPIs at the employee level is going to be a bit of a challenge ‘till people get used to the idea of being measured by metrics.

Honestly, I use no particular tools to measure personal progress. However, I think there are some training sessions, certificates, books, projects and new networks that can show how knowledge and capabilities are developed and could prove useful to some.

Which were the recent achievements in generating value from performance management in your organization?

After developing a complete performance management system, our management team was able to oversee the organization’s strategy execution periodically, as well as monitor, analyze and evaluate corporate and individual performance. By using an internally developed platform, we are currently able to cut costs, utilize current assets, increase efficiency as well as performance, while on the individual level, our system will give valuable input to develop the employee – appropriate pay, training, development opportunities and so forth.

Performance practitioners need to have advanced knowledge of certain capabilities like consulting skills, to move from receiving orders to business partnership.

24 MAY 2017

Practitioner Ali Khursheed Ahmad Group Performance Manager, FHG Business Group In 2017, the Performance Magazine editorial team interviewed Ali Khursheed Ahmad, Group Performance Manager, FHG, Saudi Arabia. His thoughts and views on Performance Management are detailed below.

Which were the 2016 key trends in Performance Management, from your point of view?

We have been talking a lot about Performance Management in the last couple of years and I find this an interesting shift of focus for companies and professionals alike. I believe the most important trend to be noticed was that we started focusing on Employee Performance Management in addition to Corporate Performance.

What are your thoughts on the integration of Performance Management at the organizational, departmental and employee level?

It's extremely vital to link the organizational performance goals with those at the departmental and eventually employee level.

This way - everyone gets to know what he/ she is exactly contributing to with respect to the bigger picture.

Which will be the major changes in managing performance, in the future?

Working with KPIs at the employee level is going to be a bit of a challenge ‘till people get used to the idea of being measured by metrics. Engaging employees with a Performance Program is another topic which would need some attention!

I believe the most important trend to be noticed was that we started focusing on Employee Performance Management in addition to Corporate Performance.

What aspects of Performance Management should be explored more through research?

There is so little research on Employee KPIs - trust me - we need to do a lot more here!

Which organizations would you recommend to be looked at, due to their particular approach to managing performance, and their subsequent results?

Every organization has its own way of dealing with performance challenges and programs.

But I hear that companies like Toyota are doing really well with their approach to PM. Which of the existing trends, topics or particular aspects within Performance Management have lost their relevance and/or importance, from your point of view?

The once-a-year appraisal is fast losing its sheen and I wouldn't be surprised if many more companies move to a more continuous assessment and feedback model like Adobe recently did.

INTERVIEWS

I have conducted dozens of workshops with different members of the management fraternity and hence, strongly believe that communication is critical to making all PM programs successful.

Which are the main challenges of Performance Management in practice, today?

Employee engagement with the PM program is the biggest challenge. It just can't be a topdown project!

What should be improved in the use of Performance Management tools and processes?

I have conducted dozens of workshops with different members of the management fraternity and hence, strongly believe that communication is critical to making all PM programs successful. And this included two-way feedback and 360-degree communications.

What would you consider as a best practice in Performance Management?

All year-round performance feedback is a best practice to adopt - now!

Which aspects of Performance Management should be emphasized during educational programs?

The link between corporate goals and individual goals is an area which can be emphasized and looked into being explained further, in greater detail.

What are the limits that prevent practitioners from achieving higher levels of proficiency in Performance Management?

Engagement with the Line Management team is a huge limiting factor. People still believe in the notion of treating all PM programs as a vehicle supposed to bring increments, bonuses and financial rewards.

Real Performance Management is so much more than that!

What is your opinion on the emerging trend of measuring performance outside working hours?

It is a very new trend and we have to wait and

watch how successful it is across the globe, in several regions, before issuing an opinion.

What personal performance measurement tools do you use?

Automation is key to the success of Performance Management these days. We have partnered with Halogen TalentSpace for our Performance Management delivery service and are thrilled with the results. We are currently using KPIs, Competencies and IDPs as our tools for employee performance measurement - in addition to ongoing feedback.

Which were the recent achievements in generating value from performance management, in your organization?

We have saved millions in the last run - on account of better on-the-ground delivery, when we started cascading targets to everyone in the work chain. Employee Performance Management is here to stay and we are glad to be doing what some of the best companies across the globe are currently doing!

The once-a-year appraisal is fast losing its sheen and I wouldn't be surprised if many more companies move to a more continuous assessment and feedback model like Adobe recently did.

What are the processes and tools you look at, in order to differentiate a successful performance management system, from a superficial one?

The presence of strong systems and policies.

MAY 2017 25

INTERVIEWS

An important practice is to reinforce the commitment and capabilities of managers in order to have regular and qualitative discussions with their teams.

Practitioner Hosni Mahjoub Group Head of Strategy and Performance , Batelco Group In 2017, the Performance Magazine editorial team interviewed Hosni Mahjoub, Group Head of Strategy and Performance at Batelco Group, Bahrain. His thoughts and views on Performance Management are detailed below.

Which were the 2016 key trends in Performance Management, from your point of view?

I think the emphasis on data analytics is the most important trend which allows organizations to predict employee performance and behavior.

The second major trend is related to knowledge sharing and virtual collaboration. Today, many systems allow employees to be in different countries and work together with maximum cost-effectiveness and agility.

What are your thoughts on the integration of Performance Management at organizational, departmental and employee level?

I think big organizations have appropriate Performance Management departments for their size, however, the integration level in such a structure remains different from one company to the other, depending especially on the culture, the governance model that was adopted by the company and the HR practices of that organization.

In many organizations, departmental and employee performance are often perceived as being part of the bigger picture. They will succeed or fail depending on the others.

Consequently, I think that the best way to improve performance management integration at different levels is to align the organization, the 26 MAY 2017

department and the individual by cascading SMART (Specific- Measurable- Agreed uponRealistic- Time-related) performance indicators from top to bottom and across all activities.

Those indicators should be created from the company’s strategy and the strategic initiatives.

Meanwhile, Performance Management should play the role of an organizational navigational instrument, showing how we are progressing in real time and if your business is on the right track or not.

Which will be the major changes in managing performance, in the future?

Traditional Performance Management often ranks employees in relation to other colleagues, but this can lead to unhealthy comparisons and competitions, resulting in disengagement and the undermining of collaborative efforts and teamwork.

As a result, I think that future performance management will emphasize more and more the importance of interactions between colleagues and their overall work environment ecosystem (peers, bosses, maybe even clients) and their input in relation to it. I am convinced that the more individuals improve the way they interact, the better the overall performance of the business will be.

What aspects of Performance Management should be explored more through research?

Well, my perception is that research should further explore how companies manage their financial and strategic performance, by better controlling the high risks of the external environment. Today, many companies are transforming their businesses due to the pressure of competition, the financial crisis, political issues, digital disruption and so on.

Thus, I really would like to encourage researchers to create performance management systems

and approaches that take into consideration key external risk factors, which are shaking up many industries. Also, research needs to be done on how to make employees more motivated in their work environment and how to enhance their productivity.

Moreover, the link between strategy and execution remains one of the most important aspects where many organizations fail, so many employees have no idea how their everyday work contributes to the execution of the company’s strategy and how it enhances its overall performance. Worse, individuals don’t see how their goals connect to their personal success.

Another key point that needs to be addressed is related to the level of motivation and engagement of some managers to improve the company’s performance, particularly those who have been in the same role for an extended period and who feel uninspired about their future. I think that a sense of growth and progress is essential for high engagement and high performance.

Which organizations would you recommend to be looked at, due to their particular approach to managing performance, and their subsequent results?

I worked for a tier 1 multinational automotive provider, that produces cable systems for automotive manufacturers such as VW, Peugeot and Scania. There, all processes and goals are managed by specific KPIs and the culture of performance excellence is the organization’s key principle. The automotive manufacturers allow their Tier 1 providers to set lean work processes and to efficiently manage performance management. Any under-performance can impact the ranking of the supplier and can decrease his chance to obtain new business deals.

I would like to refer you to the organizations inside the automotive industry.

INTERVIEWS

I think that the best way to improve performance management integration at different levels is to align the organization, the department and the individual by cascading SMART performance indicators from top to bottom and across all activities.

Which are the main challenges of Performance Management in practice, today?

There are a number of challenges that can prove to be an obstacle to effective performance management. Those challenges are mostly related to strategy, the organization itself and performance measurements: Lacking alignment: The link between Strategy development, Budgeting and Operational planning is developed by different groups of people with different frameworks. The performance management system lacks alignment between individual performance, departmental performance and organizational delivery and so all systems default back to financial measurements.

Writing a poorly structured strategy Failing to communicate the strategy to stakeholders and staff Failing to achieve buy-in of the strategy Not measuring progress Not adapting to changing circumstances Not giving the team the necessary authority or tools to accomplish their jobs Lacking measurements: poor measurements are developed at different levels of the organization, in many cases targets are set but no relevant measurement method/tool is put in place.

Managing the performance system: performance management is managed daily and reported at certain times through reviews and appraisals.

What should be improved in the use of Performance Management tools and processes?

In many cases, performance management systems are not well aligned with an organization’s processes. So, the more complicated the processes are, the more difficult it is to measure its KPIs, thus making the performance management system more and more isolated. The best way to ensure an efficient performance management system is to simplify processes and build a lean organization that might facilitate people’s roles and missions.

changing job environment. I strongly believe that there is a real gap between the educational program and reality.

What would you consider as a best practice in Performance Management?

There are a lot of best practices in performance management. One important practice is to reinforce the commitment and capabilities of managers in order to have regular and qualitative discussions with their teams. I believe that setting up regular meetings to measure performance is better than having only one meeting per year. Those meetings should be shorter and more focused.

What are the limits that prevent practitioners from achieving higher levels of proficiency in Performance Management?

Some important reasons hinder practitioners from achieving higher levels of proficiency in performance management. A couple of those reasons are the lack of understanding in regards to the behaviors of key employees or how certain core functions operate. Likewise, some organizations don’t understand what Performance Management means; for them, Performance Management is just a set of KPIs. I strongly encourage practitioners to communicate more with their organizations, beyond topics related to KPIs.

I also think that senior leaders play an important role in ensuring that performance management aligns the corporate strategy and objectives to individuals, so that employees know how their work fits with the organization’s overall strategy.

Which aspects of Performance Management should be emphasized during educational programs?

I think that one of the Performance Management topics which should be emphasized during educational programs is how to improve knowledge and develop leadership in order to better manage performance management in the amazing

That is why the educational program needs to be revisited more frequently and the best way to do so is to focus on internship programs. This is the best way to understand the different cultures of all organizations, their work environment challenges, the key performance indicators used within each department and functions, as well as how their performance management processes work.

Fortunately, Performance Management is a vast topic, where we can bring a lot of valuable ideas to the fore, such as: Business Process redesign, trend analysis and value added recommendations, people or market behavior predictions, performance benchmarking, knowledge management via virtual collaboration and e-learning, cost optimization analysis, corporate investment and risk management and so on. Another reason why practitioners encounter certain MAY 2017 27

INTERVIEWS

Best practice Performance Management is light in administration, great at recognizing 'real' performance, and realistic regarding the impact of factors which lie outside of the individual’s control.

limits is due to the fact that performance measurement still represents a complex task due to the organizational changes many companies encounter, in numerous industries.

What is your opinion on the emerging trend of measuring performance outside working hours?

In many cases, performance management systems are not well aligned with an organization’s processes.

So, the more complicated the processes are, the more difficult it is to measure its KPIs.

28 MAY 2017

I don’t believe there is any special emerging trend related to measuring personal performance. Thinking outside the box, learning from each experience and performing amazing things is the best way to build outstanding personal performance.

What personal performance measurement tools do you use?

I don’t use a specific tool for measuring personal performance, however every night I ask myself if I have achieved what I planned for that day, what things I have learned and what things can be improved. This is the best way for me to be more productive the following day.

Which were the recent achievements in generating value from performance management in your organization?

Performance management is a continuous work process, aimed at generating strategic value (i.e. it is about broader issues and longer-term business goals). As a telecom group, we are operating within a challenging and highly competitive market, that’s why we are working to establish a world-class Performance Management System that can support our organization.

For example, we are working to provide an integrated framework, connecting several aspects of the telecom business with processes like people management, measuring and benchmarking performance, aligning group strategy and operational strategies, and offering guidance to improve operational performance. We are also clarifying accountability related to performance expectations and we are creating synergies to optimize costs and improve financial results.

IMPROVED SKILLS IMPROVED PERFORMANCE Skills have a direct impact on productivity.

We support professionals and organisations with business skills development through experiential learning.

UNIQUE VALUE FEATURES

E: romania@kpiinstitute.org | W: www.skills.ac/ro

PORTRAIT EVENTS

FABIÁN MORA Planning, Measurement and a never-ending thirst for Improvement ANDREI COSTEA

F at IBM in Costa Rica, where for 6 years he was part

abian Mora’s earliest links to the business were forged

of the outsourcing business the company had there.

Afterwards, he switched ships at Publicis Groupe, where he worked in the shared services centre, only to return to the outsourcing world in 2012, for WNS. In total, he has amassed 12 years of experience in both shared services and outsourcing, often finding himself part of operations, but mostly working in the Quality and Performance Management divisions, with Service Levels of Agreement and KPIs. Then, in 2016, he started the company known as Lighthouse PM Consulting, which focuses on organizational performance improvement, utilizing all the knowledge gained in his previous years.

Starting his own PI company came naturally, as he has always been very passionate about measuring performance and finding ways to improve it. Going all the way back to when he was in elementary school, he used to review the national football league standings, comparing everything there was to compare: number of goals, points, at home vs away games and so on.

Using this information, he tried deductively assessing which teams had the best performance and that was when a eureka moment struck him and realized that 30 MAY 2017

“Sometimes you see things from a different angle just because someone told you about an experience he had or made a comment about something.”

PORTRAIT

Having your employees rally behind a PM system is one of the greatest things you can achieve, but getting to that point is a long and arduous task.

performance has very many facets and there are lots of ways to measure & understand it.

This was a tiny speck of dust in the grand universe of memories, but it was the spark which ignited the firey interest for Performance Measurement and Improvement, as he quickly realized that he had a proclivity for numbers, measurements and performance.

Fast forward to the his first days of working in the outsourcing business, Fabian remembers that there was never a time when he did not have to work with SLAs and KPIs. Ever since he started working, his professional life was one of constant measurement, improvement and management. The only aspect that began to change was the way he viewed measuring performance, when he moved to quality & performance improvement roles. He then came to the realization that measurements should be used to power decisions, and these decisions should help an organization improve its performance, which is why he believes that his original path was through performance measurement, having moved to performance management only after a few years of learning the ins and outs of the former.

One important aspect to note here is the fact that he has never lost his initial exhilaration for measurement and improvement. Just as measuring football-related data brought joy to him as a child, so does analyzing business data and receiving praise from leaders, directors, CEOs and managers about how his work has

helped their organizations get back on the right track to managing performance bring him happiness and peace of mind, knowing that he has aided another company in finding its balance in today’s business world.

Furthermore, he has never had a particular role model in life, rather he believes that you can learn something from everyone with whom you interact. In his opinion, every time he has had the opportunity to work with a new client, he got to know new people and listen to new perspectives on performance, which has constantly refreshed his vision and understanding of the field.

As he put it, "sometimes you see things from a different angle just because someone told you about an experience he had or made a comment about something. Maybe this person´s intention was not to have a direct influence on you, but in the end his or her comment was so clear and had such strong effects on you that it stuck and influenced your understanding.”

Nonetheless, he acknowledges the fact that Douglas Hubbard’s How to measure anything played a significant role in shaping his understanding of measurement, even though it is not a writing on performance measurement per se, but rather one which is a must-read for any measurement enthusiast.

Also worth mentioning here is his liking for the movie Moneyball, which served to reinforce his beliefs that measurement is an indispensable tool for someone wishing to pursue greater performance levels, as

the movie depicts how measuring your performance helps you better understand your strong and weak spots and how to counteract the latter.

The mandatory state of Performance Management For Fabian, PM means establishing a plan and based on it, you make a series of decisions which ultimately lead you closer to your performance goal. This is what Performance Management in a nutshell means for him and he does not see how any organization can truly prosper without having a well-rounded PM system in place.

One cannot simply achieve performance without analyzing & measuring it, then looking for ways to improve it.

Building on this point, he contends that such a system brings many benefits to those who seek to maximize its usage. You can use it to establish clear-cut goals and have the added benefit of measuring said goals, via the information gathered by the PM system. More than anything though, Fabian emphasizes the fact that the singlemost important benefit you can reap from a PMS is having the people within your organization understand its role & utility, understand the goals set through it and how they are expected to contribute to achieving those goals.

This last point is also one of PM’s most challenging aspects, alongside understanding the factors that cause MAY 2017 31

PORTRAIT

underperformance and those that are behind good or overperformance. From his point of view, having your employees rally behind a PM system is one of the greatest things you can achieve, but getting to that point is a long and arduous task, as measuring performance is often seen as a taboo by many individuals or a personal attack on their level of work involvement. Thus, making performance measurement something easily understood and useable by everyone in the organization is quite the challenging task, but not an unsurmountable one.

In addition, understanding the exact factors that are at the root of various levels of performance is, as mentioned, another great uphill battle. It might seem easy to blame underperformance on employees, when the issue might be manager communication or vice versa – it might be easy to say that you’re underperforming because communication channels are few and far between, when in fact people might not be using them.

Performance is a very delicate subject, which has many more intricacies behind it than meets the eye. You have to delve deeper than usual in order to find that one thing or those few things that need fixing.

Sometimes, this digging is not easily done and here is where Fabian believes tools and software solutions come in handy, as well as process prioritization. If you truly wish to improve your performance, than ensuring your PMS is up to snuff is the first task at hand, and this will only be achieved if all processes within the company are, at first, re-prioritized to focus on this specific aspect.

It will not be an easy feat, as all basic PMrelated aspects will have to be re-evaluated, re-designed, re-defined, so as to guarantee that you do not fall in the same piftalls.

This of course cannot be achieved without strong leadership, which brings us to his last point on this topic – the need for sturdy leaders. Managers, CEOs, directors, officers of all kinds who understand, support, use and help improve the way their organization manages performance are the real MVPs and in his opinion, this should be seen as a standard, never-fading best practice example.

True leaders are people of vision and keenness, who bring strength to the 32 MAY 2017

organization, leading it through difficult times just as a captain mans his ship through a rough storm. If such individuals are supportive of performance measurement and improvement efforts, then everything will fall into place, as there is no second guessing, which will ultimately mean the ship will be in the clear, or in business terms, the organization will improve its performance. People always say one bad apple spoils the bunch, but they seem to forget the fact that one man’s good idea can lead to greatness and if that man is the leader of an organization, then it’s all for the better.

Working as a unit One of the most important things to remember, when looking for ways to improve an organization’s performance, is how its members work together. Fabian believes that a company cannot function to its maximum potential unless the individuals comprising it realize that in order to achieve the organizational goals that were established, they have to join forces. If everyone’s busy finishing different ends, then there will be no actual end to all the work. People need to coordinate, communicate and collaborate; only then will the company truly succeed.

This can be administered through a comprehensive Individual Performance Management system, which links and analyzes several factors, such as the competencies required for each position and the responsibilities each position with departmental/organizational goals & the aspirations of everyone, resulting in a holistic approach.

Such a plan is what sets apart strong entities from weak ones and the truth is it will not come to fruition unless, as mentioned before, everyone learns to work together.

Leaders have to be behind the Performance Management System and clearly highlight that to their employees, while employees must look to understand how the PM system works and how they can bring value to the organization, by maximizing its usage.

All the levels of the organization, from top, mid to bottom, have to be in it to win it, as the saying goes. You cannot have certain people pulling weight in one direction, while others fast forward in another one, with a third

group going their way & not caring about what is happening in the grand scheme of things. Order, direction and logic are the elements that give birth to performance.

A company cannot function to its maximum potential unless the individuals comprising it realize that in order to achieve the organizational goals that were established, they have to join forces.

PORTRAIT

when I am with her - 5 minutes flying a kite are more much significant than 60 minutes watching TV.” This is what he also recommends to professionals seeking to better their careers.

They need to properly understand the work-life balance, as many of them overdo the first part and identify where their gaps are. Gaps in efficiency, in effectiveness, in happiness, even gaps at work. Oftentimes, professionals tunnel vision very hard at work, so much so that they first off, ignore their personal life, second, they start underperforming at work.

Performance Management, as a field which harbours multiple types of specializations, is constantly changing and adapting to current times, therefore there is never a period where the field experiences a dearth of information. Knowledge can be found anywhere and is accesible by anyone. ”Read as much as you can, compare what you read against the reality you see in the organizations you work with, then think of how to best apply theory to real life and finally find gaps; by gaps I mean challenges that those organizations are facing and that are not covered properly by the existing theory.”

Finding gaps and managing life outside work When it comes to measuring performance outside working hours, a trend that has gained traction in the past years, Fabian believes that organizations should let employees to their own devices during their free time and not meddle in it. If an employee wishes to take PM in his daily life activities, then so be it, but otherwise no one should intrude upon someone else’s personal time allocation.

As he himself mentions, his own work-life management system is quite a simple, yet very effective one. He keeps track of how his days went in an Excel file, with dates in the first row and a word that summarizes all

the things that happened during each day in the second row. Then, if he feels that he needs to add a comment to a certain day, like explaining to his future self why he chose a certain word for a certain day, he marks it in a third row. By using this simple tool, he breaks down many things about his days, but it comes in very handy when looking to see whether his work-life balance is in a healthy state.

In addition to the Excel file, he also uses an agenda, where he writes all the things he needs to keep track of, both work-related and personal ones, such as spending time with his 3-year old daugther. In his words, ”spending time with her is really important for me; hours are important, but memories are even more important, so I always try to think of different and funny activities to do

Recognizing, identifying and knowing how to fill gaps in a company and his or her personal life are the steps that set apart a good PM professional from a great one, as this gives you an entirely different perspective on things. Focusing on what’s missing, why it is missing and how you can fill that gap, be it in your work or personal life, is what brings the work-life balance into check, as tunnel visioning on one will yield negative results for the other.

Life is full of gaps and not many people actually focus on identifying them, let alone fill them. One of the best mindsets in life, be it professionally or personally, is to find what’s missing and see what or how we can put something there. Going around it does not solve the issue, it simply leaves it unsolved, for someone else to stumble upon it; you will never run out of gaps to fill, so why not use them to your advantage, by focusing on filling them. By doing this, you expand your knowledge from a point of view shared by few people, which will give you the edge in whatever it is that you are doing.

MAY 2017 33

Explore more on: https://kpiinstitute.org/spl/

PERFORMANCE LABS

THE GO-TO SOURCE FOR PERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENT IN UTILITIES

The KPI Institute has worked extensively in helping Utilities professionals from around the world to measure and improve their performance. This expertise is comprised in all the Utilities related resources gathered in an exhaustive performance lab.

WHAT MAKES US UNIQUE? Through our researchers expertize and flexibility we can provide all our customers with:

A unique experience gained from working with a lot of utility companies

A tailored approach for your organizations’ own needs

Objective analysis

Timely results

In a world where information travels with the speed of light, we acknowledge the importance of taking the time to understand specificity and to create personalized solutions.

2200+

600+

200+

140+

Utilities professionals in our community

Utilities KPIs documented

Utilities participants trained

Utilities companies benchmarked

Access https://kpiinstitute.org/upl/ and take advantage of our utilities sector related resources and expertise.

AROUND THE WORLD

MONITORING GOVERNMENTAL PERFORMANCE IN PAKISTAN ANDREEA VECERDEA

do we know that our government H ow is performing well? Who evaluates

its results? These are questions that have recently arisen in Pakistan, where the federal government is evaluated against a series of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).

The Performance Management Framework which is structured on 25 KPIs was developed by the Pakistan Institute of Legislative Development and Transparency (PILDAT), an independent, not-for-profit authority that strives to “strengthen democracy and democratic institutions in Pakistan.�

The main objective is to understand the areas where actions are required to be taken so that the quality of the democracy in Pakistan can progress further, and the federal authorities can provide their citizens with good governance.

The 25 KPIs used to monitor performance cover all the important areas a Government should be looking at, starting from disaster preparedness and management, to tax collection and investments, education and health, transparency and poverty alleviation.

The entire Scorecard can be seen below, as it is provided by the Pakistan Institute of Legislative Development and Transparency (PILDAT).

Scorecard: Assessment of the quality of governance in Pakistan: First year of the Federal Government, Available at http://www.pildat.org/Publications/publication/Publications.asp 36 MAY 2017

AROUND THE WORLD

The overall score achieved in terms of governance quality was 44%. The areas with the highest results were disaster preparedness and management, which scored 62%, merit based recruitments and promotions, which achieved 61%, and foreign policy management, where the result was 60%. On the other hand, the areas with the lowest results were poverty alleviation, which barely achieved 22%, and transparency with 27%.

that citizens know them. The performance evaluation of the Federal Government of Pakistan did not resume to the overall results obtained at Federal Governmental level. Results were analyzed in details, for each of the 4 provinces: Balochistan, Khyber

Pakhtunkhwa, Punjab and Sindh. In this case, results were as follows: Punjab – with 42%, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa – with 37% and Balochistan and Sindh, both of them with 34%. In the table below, the comparison across the 4 provinces can be clearly seen:

Compared to the results obtained in the 2012-2013 period, the progress was as follows: Improved results for 8 KPIs; Marginal improvement for 4 KPIs; No improvement for 7 KPIs; Declining performance for 6 KPIs. In the report dedicated to communicating the Scorecard results, each of the above mentioned KPIs is further analyzed in details.

Interesting to note that these results required by PILDAT, and provided by the Government, were compared to the results obtained through the Public Opinion Poll conducted by PILDAT within the JulyAugust 2014 timeframe and, in the majority of cases, citizens’ perception of performance was lower than the actual results. To be more precise, for 13 out of 25 KPIs, citizens awarded lower scores, for one KPI the result was the same and, in 2 cases, the results from the public were not made available. This led to a governance quality average of 39% scored in the poll, lower than the 44% result reported by the Government.

This discrepancy between perception and reality is not new. It is something common for companies too, where clients sometimes have a certain opinion about the organization, which may differ from the one the results show. This is usually caused by a lack of transparency, which can be improved by communicating performance results more often, more visibly, so that clients get to know them. This case also stands for Governments. They need to communicate their directions and the actions taken to achieve those directions more clearly, so

Assessment of the quality of governance in Pakistan: Comparative Scorecard: First year of the 4 Provincial Governments, Available at http://www.pildat.org/Publications/publication/Publications.asp

When it comes to comparing actual results obtained in the ranking provided by the poll, the situation is more or less the same as in the case of the Federal Government.

For Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Sindh, citizens evaluated the performance lower than the actual result, while for Punjab and Balochistan, the situation was the other way round – the public provided higher ranks than the results actually achieved.One last aspect to mention is that the goal of these

evaluations and comparisons was not to criticize performance, as this is not the objective of any Performance Management System. Its role is to identify areas where improvement is needed, and take actions to achieve better results in the future.

The Federal Government of Pakistan understood this and it has been striving to provide its citizens with increased quality in the way it delivers its services and it manages to implement democracy across the state.

MAY 2017 37

AROUND THE WORLD

THE REVOLUTIONARY BLUEPRINT OF POST-OIL SAUDI ARABIA DANIAL SOBHANZADEH

T Saudi Arabia, Mohammad bin Salman

he revolutionary leader and prince of

Al Saud, has unveiled his highly ambitious plans for the future of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia: a kingdom that will no longer rely solely on oil for revenue and will be a world leading economic hub by 2030.

First Pillar: Vibrant Society

Second Pillar: A thriving economy

Strategic Direction: Saudi Arabia’s status as the heart of the Arab and Islamic world

Strategic Direction: Saudi Arabia’s determination to become a global investment powerhouse

Desired achievements:

Desired achievements:

To increase capacity, in order to welcome Umrah visitors from 8 million to 30 million every year.

To more than double the number of Saudi heritage sites registered with UNESCO. To have three Saudi cities recognized in the top-ranked 100 cities in the world.

This ambitious, but achievable plan, showcased by Mohammad bin Salman Al Saud, shows us a motivated and determined leader, focused on achieving Performance Management targets. According to the prince, the country should change its strategy, in order to achieve its future goals.

The Saudi prince has obtained approval form King Abdulaziz Al Saud and the Saudi parliament, so that he can start implementing his vision for Saudi Arabia’s future. His vision is based on 3 core pillars, 3 main strategic directions and 24 associated goals.

38 MAY 2017

To increase household spending on cultural and entertainment activities inside the Kingdom from the current level of 2.9% to 6%.

To increase the ratio of individuals exercising at least once a week from 13% of population to 40%.

To raise its spot from the 26th to the 10th in the Social Capital index.

To increase the average life expectancy from 74 years to 80 years.

To lower the rate of unemployment from 11.6% to 7%.

To increase SME contribution to GDP from 20% to 35%.

To increase women’s participation in the workforce from 22% to 30%.

To move from our current position as the 19th largest economy in the world into the top 15.

To increase the localization of oil and gas sectors from 40% to 75%.

To increase the Public Investment Fund’s assets, from SAR 600 billion to over 7 trillion.

To rise from our current 25th position into the top 10 countries in the Global Competitiveness Index.

AROUND THE WORLD

To increase foreign direct investment from 3.8% to the international level of 5.7% of GDP. To increase the private sector’s contribution from 40% to 65% of GDP. To raise global ranking in the Logistics Performance Index from being the 49th to the 25th and ensure that the Kingdom is a regional leader.

To raise the share of non-oil exports in non-oil GDP from 16% to 50%.

Third Pillar: An ambitious nation

Prince Mohammad bin Salman Al Saud also presented the programs which will help achieve the 2030 goals: The Government Restructuring Program The Strategic Directions Program The Fiscal Balance Program The Project Management Program The Regulations Review Program The Performance Measurement Program The Saudi Aramco Strategic Transformation Program The Public Investment Fund Restructuring Program

The Human Capital Program The National Transformation Program The Program for Strengthening Public Sector Governance The Privatization Program The Strategic Partnerships Program After Saudi Arabia has registered diminished oil production rates, which nonetheless account for 45% of GDP and 85% of export earnings, the KSA Vision 2030 will prove to be an excellent strategy in order to deviate from the current strategic approach.

Changes in Saudi Arabia crude oil production and WTI crude oil prices % change

million barrels per day (year-on-year)

Strategic Direction: Transforming Saudi Arabia’s unique strategic location into a global investment hub, connecting three continents: Asia, Europe and Africa.

Desired achievements: To increase non-oil government revenue from SAR 163 billion to SAR 1 Trillion.

To raise the rank in the Government Effectiveness Index, from the 80th to the 20th.

To raise in the E-Government Survey Index rank, from our current position of 36th, to be among the top five nations.

To increase household savings from 6% to 10% of total household income.

To raise the non-profit sector’s contribution to GDP from less than 1% to 5%.

To rally one million volunteers per year (compared to 11,000 now).

U.S. Energy Information Administration, Available at https://www.eia.gov/finance/markets/crudeoil/supply-opec.php

Furthermore, as the government has expressed increased interest for performance measurement, effective use of clear and specific objectives and action plans, this positions KSA as a best practice example among Middle Eastern countries. In order to achieve the desired goals, the Saudi government needs to focus on population engagement, which

is facilitated through its high quality public services and transparency. To support this, its bureaucracy needs to be at its highest level, accompanied by the support of the private sector. The vision of Prince Mohammad bin Salman Al Saud could be an interesting turn of events for Saudis, enabling the country to change its future economic path.

MAY 2017 39

AROUND THE WORLD

THE STATE OF TEXAS FOSTERING TRANSPARENCY FOR GOVERNMENT PERFORMANCE TEODORA OLTEAN-GOCAN

T evolving over the last several years. Gone

he role of the government has been

are the days when agencies simply served as administrative bodies that did little more than set and enforce regulations, collect, process and store information. Citizens now expect better, more convenient services and programs from their federal, state and local entities.

Taking into consideration that the government agency is an organization which operates on a tight budget, there is an impetuous need for effectively managing the allocation and utilization of the available funds. Besides that, another major problem which governments need to face is that their spending is often seen as enigmatic and impenetrable. However, taxpayers have the legitimate right to know how their money is spent, so governments should ultimately be held accountable.

Transparency in government is not a new issue. John Adams, 2nd president of the United States, once wrote: “Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people, who have a right and a desire to know.”

Openness at this level provides a muchneeded check and balance against corruption and misuse of government assets.

Thus, governments are expected to post all 40 MAY 2017

financial and public information online in real or nearly real-time and in an organized, searchable and sharable manner.

A best practice example in terms of fostering transparency for government performance is the online platform launched by the State of Texas. The first positive effect of developing this platform came in quickly – duplication of state contracts was discovered and merged, saving the government $4.8 million, and an additional $3.8 million on unexpected improvement opportunities.

Seeing as this solution brought significant benefits and took the administration’s efficiency management to another level, Texas was awarded the GFOA Award for Excellence in 2009. The platform Texas uses is split in 5 major dimensions, which cover the most important topics in government performance.

The first three dimensions provide insight into the financial aspects of government performance, starting with the binomial revenue-spending. The State Revenue dimension is complemented by dimensions of state spending, budget and finance to provide a overview on the financial execution of public resources.

By granting the general public access to financial data, by enabling visualization of revenue and spending KPIs and,

furthermore, by providing citizens with carefully selected lookup tools and detailed reports, the State of Texas is set to ensure that it actively promotes the application of transparency as a fundamental criterion for open source government and democratic empowerment.

The fourth dimension covers the main activities of individual agencies and institutions as supervised by the state government. Thus, the central government cannot only constantly evaluate the work of the institutions within its reach, but the public can also gain insight on whether which governmental activities are conducted in their best interest.

Finally, the fifth dimension provides for a more technical approach to performance.

It is entitled Open Data Tools and Information and it provides information on the way data is collected, stored and shared for wider access.

Furthermore, it allows responsive citizens to make their own assessment of government performance by enabling access to data sets, and engaging them to use dashboards for data visualization.

Each of the above-mentioned domains provide a series of carefully selected KPIs for measuring the performance in that field:

AROUND THE WORLD

Dimension 1: State Revenue % Tax collected on time $ Tax collected $ Road user charge collected $ Household income % Uncollected penalties

For an even more detailed view on performance, the platform additionally generates dashboards which organize and

present KPI information in a way that is easy to read and use, as seen in the following example: The data presented in these charts are based on the most current fiscal month for the given fiscal year.

Dimension 2: State Spending

Figures presented in these charts are preliminary, have not been audited and are subject to change.

$ Managed expenditure (ME) % National public spending expenditure on services % Purchasing share of public sector spending $ Net expenditure per head of population $ Net spending per capita on sport, recreation and entertainment activities Dimension 3: Budget and Finance # Sacrifice ratio # Terms of trade % Fixed asset financing # Fixed asset turnover $ Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita Dimension 4: Local Government % Unemployment rate # Recruit to hire ratio for job placements # Pest control exterminations performed % Hotel occupancy # Recycled waste Dimension 5: Open Data Tools and Information # Node paging hierarchy – scan rate % Data centre availability # Disk service time % IT asset efficiency % Data centre infrastructure efficiency (DCIE)

Besides providing dashboards with live information on the transactional level, the platform can also generate custom reports and present extensive data sets.

All the aforementioned aspects lead to the conclusion that technology-enabled

transparency does not only improve the performance of government, but also reestablishes trust in the public sector. As much as digital autonomy is imperative in order to guarantee freedom of expression, so is governmental transparency a vital requirement for a stable and functional democracy.

MAY 2017 41

AROUND THE WORLD

VIETNAM A STORY ABOUT AMBITION AND GROWTH PERFORMANCE ANA LECHINȚAN

V Southeast

ietnam is not merely a country in Asia. Given its tumultuous past, Vietnam embodies traits such as a fierce struggle for survival, which, against all odds, ends in victory. And due to this fighting spirit, it keeps on conquering its internal strife against misfortune, poverty, corruption.

Now, according to global economics experts, the country holds the world’s highest growth potential. All these make Vietnam quite the warrior, so what are the secrets of such an impressive growth performance?

Vietnam today What are the first images your mind’s eye sees when you hear Vietnam? Because for a large part of the world, these mental images were shaped by the entertainment industry and are not portrayed in their true form. Do you perhaps think about an undeveloped country, maybe partially destroyed? Do you

42 MAY 2017

see wide rice fields and a poorly dressed peasant working, with a straw hat hiding his wrinkled face? Or rather a shabby hut with a straw roof, lonely in the wild rainforest?

Either way, it is pretty unlikely that you first think of the majestic skyscrapers dominating the landscape of Vietnamese cities like Saigon or Hanoi.

Vietnam is the perfect example of performance increase and development success. Not too long ago, the country was one of the poorest in the world and now, according to the World Bank, it has astonishingly boosted its per capita income from around $100 a quarter century ago to $2,100 by the end of 2015.

The extreme poverty rate dropped drastically from over 50% in 1990 to a mere 3% in the present. Furthermore, the Vietnamese are better educated and have a higher life expectancy than most inhabitants of countries with a similar per capita income.

Vietnam tomorrow All these improvements and the country’s current economic situation have earned Vietnam the highest place in the so called 3G list developed by Citigroup, which contains 11 states identified as possessing the highest growing potential in the world, thus offering promising opportunities for investments: Bangladesh, China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Iraq, Mongolia, Nigeria, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Vietnam.

3G stands for Global Growth Generators, a term coined by global economy experts who developed the 3G Index which is used to calculate growth potential with the help of six growth drivers: investment, demographic prospects, health, education, quality of institutions and policies and trade openness.

The first variable is a measure of domestic saving/ investment that is calculated by

AROUND THE WORLD

looking at gross national savings and gross fixed capital formation. The second one, the measure of demographic prospects, relies on the average annual change in the working age population (people aged between 15 and 64 years), while the health component is measured by inversing life expectancy at birth.

Education is determined by checking primary school gross enrolment rate, with the second to last variable being a simple average of five indicators of institutional and policy quality. Last, but not least, when we say trade openness, we mean looking at exports, imports, GDP, all the while controlling for population size and landmass.

Vietnam, as mentioned, topped all other countries with a 3G score of 0.86, closely followed by China with 0.81. Other noticeable results are India’s – 0.71, Indonesia’s – 0.70 and Mongolia’s – 0.63.

Not directly connected to these results, but definitely worth mentioning, is the fact that the experts predict China to become the worldwide leading economic force by 2020, overtaking the U.S.A. and later on being itself dethroned by India, around the year 2050.

The key to an excellent growth performance So what are the main factors that produce such a growth, similar to that of Vietnam? The Citygroup experts, who intensively studied long-run growth performance and economic convergence, present us with the answers.

Most of them could be applied to other organizational levels besides the state one, like in the case of some business ventures.

They provide advice both for countries which have a rough start and for those with a respectable head start. Concerning the latter, growth is increasingly harder to achieve, according to economic convergence theory, which states that poorer economies develop at a faster pace than richer ones.

For countries which are behind, such as Vietnam, some of the main favorable growth factors include: Investing in human capital, having their workers as educated as possible – with some of the best ones being sent to study abroad; Avoiding personalized autocracies;

Having a young population and implicitly, a large amount of people of working age that can take care and provide for the economically inactive inhabitants; Supporting foreign direct investments and accommodating foreign businesses and professionals; Striving for a strong and focused economy, that has limited public spending in sectors like infrastructure, health care and education.

The fact that Vietnam’s rapid growth is partially due to the economic convergence phenomenon does not belittle the Southeast Asian country’s merit of playing their cards so well, despite the poor starting hand they received. The mere fact that an economy is needy does not in any way guarantee a rapid growth performance.

Considering all these, we can safely conclude that the story of Vietnam, despite its dreadful beginning, is heading towards sunny horizons.

Today, instead of wild and uncontained forest growth, modern skyscrapers will populate the country’s skyline, given that the rainy monsoons of history have long since passed.

MAY 2017 43

THE KPI INSTITUTE MEMBERSHIP BENEFITS

Research content smartKPIs.com platform smartKPIs.com is an online portal containing the largest collection of well documented KPI examples, supported by a community of tens of thousands of members.

Top KPI Reports Top KPIs series is an extensive annual collection of reports dedicated to analyzing the most popular KPIs across major functional areas and industries, containing thorough analysis of each KPI example.

Performance Management Toolkits The Toolkit series represents pre-populated templates configured in Microsoft Excel and PowerPoint: Strategy Maps, Scorecards, Dashboards, Portfolios of Initiatives and Employee Performance Plan templates are examples. They are available in editable format and have an instruction manual attached for easy configuration.

KPI Dictionaries Considered the most comprehensive publications released to date by our research team, they include over 8,000 examples of documented Key Performance Indicators, complete with definitions, sub metrics and calculation formulas.

Webinars Designed as one-hour long audio and slide-based presentations, The KPI Institute’s webinars address key topics related to Strategy, Performance, KPIs, Data Analysis, Data Visualisation, Innovation and many others related to Performance Improvement. Experienced analysts, with a track record of research applied in practice present such webinars on a weekly basis. Recording are subsequently made available on The KPI Institute’s eLearning platform.

Research library access A rich repository containing a variety of research publications ranging from global and regional research studies to fact sheets, catalogues, infographics and generic templates. It is regularly updated with new content as released by our research team.

44 MAY 2017

Event discounts Get exclusive discounts to our training courses, conferences and forums scheduled throughout the entire year across 6 continents.

Networking Join your peers! Get and share valuable insights on performance related subjects within The KPI Institute Community.

Professional confirmation Consolidate your personal brand by using our exclusive badge to demonstrate your professional commitment to performance excellence.

Research helpdesk A member of our research team will guide you through our knowledge platforms to identify the best information and resources according to your needs.

Research analyst consultation Benefit from dedicated services provided by our research analysts on 12 practice domains. Find below a list with examples of advisory services covered. Based on your specific needs, customized solutions will be provided.

Advisory services Strategy Performance Improvement Performance Measurement Employee Performance Balanced Scorecard Data Visualization

Data Analysis Benchmarking Customer Service Performance Innovation Performance Supplier Performance Personal Performance

MEMBERSHIP MEMBERSHIP OPTIONS OPTIONS BECOME A MEMBER OF THE KPI INSTITUTE AND GAIN FIRST-HAND ACCESS TO OUR KNOWLEDGE AND EXPERTISE! 

EDUCATION AND EVENTS



Get exclusive discounts to our training courses, conferences and forums scheduled throughout the entire year across 6 continents. 

NETWORKING

80,000+

Receive guidance from our research team to identify the best resources according to your needs and explore The KPI Institute knowledge platforms. 

Join your peers! Get and share valuable insights on performance related subjects within The KPI Institute Community.

RESEARCH HELPDESK

ANALYST CONSULTATION Benefit from dedicated advisory support from The KPI Institute’s research analysts. Customized secondary projects can be developed on demand.

Professionals already trust The KPI Institute for their business performance solutions!

$390/year Event discount: $100 off early bird rate

$2,900/year

$4,900/year

Event discount: $100 off 2 or more participants rate

1 full certification course or conference of your choice

All KPI Dictionaries

All KPI Dictionaries

All Top KPI Reports

All Top KPI Reports

2 Webinars

All Performance Management Toolkits

All Performance Management Toolkits

Preview to Research studies’ executive summaries

All Webinars

All Webinars

All Research studies

All research library resources available

2 KPI Dictionaries 2 Top KPI Reports 2 Performance Management Toolkits

Online guidance for exploring the TKI knowledge platforms

Phone guidance on you knowledge platforms 8 hours of research analyst support 8 hours of customized secondary research

Get exclusive resources as a member of The KPI Institute! Find out more by visiting kpiinstitute.org/membership

Phone guidance for exploring the TKI knowledge platforms 8 hours of research analst support 8 hours of customized secondary research

GO PREMIUM

PERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENT

PERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENT

AMERICA'S SWIMMING PROGRAM AN EXCELLENCE STUDY MARIA JUNCU this day, the U.S.A Swimming Team U phastowon a total of 520 Olympic medals,

220 of which are gold, giving the country a sturdy lead in the international event. The runner-up, Australia, has won only 171 medal.

This great number of medals is the only proof one needs to acknowledge the fact that swimming has been among the most successful Olympic sports for the U.S. for more than 25 years. But the question still remains: How can America be so good at swimming?

You might think that the answer is Michael Phelps, but you would be wrong. The U.S. has been dominant in the sport long before Phelps's first Olympics. What is more, the organization has produced a study that might have found the answer to that question, namely management.

This study is known as the Excellence Study and it closely examined the leadership and structure of America's swimming program and arrived at the conclusion that it is the school and not any individual teacher or student, that drives success.

Finbarr Kirwan, the U.S. Olympic Committee’s high performance director, says that the study rests on the premise that consistency in structure has served American Olympic swimmers better than any one part of the program. The USA Swimming's motto is: “Build the base, promote the sport, achieve competitive success”.

46 MAY 2017

Based on this motto, Kirwan explains that each tenet - build, promote and achieve - overlaps and feeds the others.

The “achieve” pillar includes - trusting in the individual, pairing swimmers with individual subject-matter experts, and imbuing them with a service mentality. "build" includes - a strong talent pipeline and the establishment of a team environment. "promote" means - giving support to swimmers in their swimming career and in their career outside the pool, as well as mentoring young athletes and making swimmers adaptable to change.

At the very center of these three pillars stands a “bottom-line results focus”. This means that Kirwan’s diagram is based on results, and the results show that U.S. Olympic swimmers win constantly.

Clear definition of roles is another key to the program, and it provides something of a corporate management lesson. Chuck Wielgus, Executive Director of USA Swimming, uses his own job as an example.

Although he is the executive director, and the coaches and athletes know him, he keeps to his own duties. He lets the trainers and coaches fulfill their roles without trying to meddle in the way they do their jobs.

He believes that “Performance by committee is a major mistake,”, and that “…coaches run their show, directors do their part, and it's a separation of state.”

Apart from good coaching, there are also individual stars who have a profound influence. At the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, the U.S. took home 31 swimming medals, six of which were won by Phelps.

Nevertheless, Wielgus claims that it would be shortsighted to place all the credit on one star: “Consistency is underrated. If you have consistency across your culture, you will always be at least in the top 80 percent.

Then, from time to time, you might have a huge star pop up [like Phelps], but even if you don't, you'll still have your 80 percent.”

However true that may be, Phelps remains a true product of the USA Swimming program, and a personal example of just how strong the program builds its family environment.

In the end, it is clear that both the school and the individuals within it are the reason why the U.S.A Swimming Team has known such heights and has developed so much over the course of time. Their performance is the product of a well-oiled system that follows a rigid management map that focuses on consistency, clear definition of roles and good coaching.

INDIVIDUAL PERFORMANCE

A GLIMPSE INTO THE FUTURE OF EMPLOYEE PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT ANDREA MINELLI

I

f you type “performance management” in any available search engine, you will be flooded with news mentioning the status quo of employee performance reviews, or rather, pointing out to the fact that they are becoming obsolete.

This is becoming a common occurrence among major corporations, from diverse sectors, all over the world. One might notice a common pattern, a trend that reveals the replacement of unhealthy and non-efficient “rank and yank” systems with the use of personalized employee feedback and training.

The two sides of Performance Management Throughout the years, performance management has proven to be a useful tool that helps employers track performance throughout a certain period. This tool

offers employees the chance to hold themselves accountable for their actions, rewarding those employees that excel at their duties.

Unfortunately, these performance reviews have not only solved certain drawbacks, but they have also produced a few, such as the fact that the incentives given to the best performing employees sometimes create a sense of unhealthy competition between peers.

Among the main issues associated with performance management lies the fact that it is a highly rule-based and bureaucratic process, used as an end-performance review, and based upon strategic objectives created in the previous financial year. There is no shaping of performance improvement, just a mere measurement of it.

What Surveys Indicate Several corporate surveys, conducted in the past years, have brought to light a common trend: employees’ unhappiness towards annual and/or semiannual performance reviews. This discontent has come about as a reaction to the negative effects the review has on employees’ productivity, as well as a reaction to the unwillingness of all HR Managers to do such timeconsuming reviews.

Such a reaction should not come as a surprise, given that

MAY 2017 47

INDIVIDUAL PERFORMANCE

performance management reviews have been more focused on the outcomes and financial results, rather than on the actual performance of employees. As a result, employees end up feeling disengaged and their performance takes a turn for the worse.

company. Embracing digital transformation involves including digital data into the overall workforce planning activities, yielding a better and more efficient coordination of work tasks and a more solid performance analysis.

According to a survey conducted a few months back by the Institute of Corporate Productivity, more than 67% of the companies included in the survey were planning a “redefinition of their management performance process”. Out of those companies, 60% used as a primary source their employees’ feedback, as managers didn’t believe that the review process was leading to employee performance or engagement.

These technological advances are going to be applied to behavioral economics, psychology and HR and other fields that have human performance as their main research subject, providing a more analytical approach to the operational efficiency of a team, enhancing engagement efforts and performance feedback sessions.

Redefining Performance Management and Future Trends Firstly, the entire idea of a cyclical review cannot be very efficient in practice, because employees need to receive on-the-spot feedback about their performance, from their supervisors. Real-time feedback provides support and fosters progress in addressing issues immediately. That is why, instead of redefining performance, managers must start coaching. This way, they can help their team achieve its goals and employ a style of continuous performance control that consistently looks for ways of improvement.

In recent years, corporations have taken a liking to the term “continuous performance management”. This term now encompasses both real-time feedback sessions, as well as a regular “check-ins” among employers and employees, occurring on a regular basis.

With all of this in mind, we have to remember that although corporations can choose to give real-time feedback or conduct check-ins any time they wish to, annual performance evaluations cannot disappear overnight. This is a process of trial and error, which means it might be a while until most individuals & companies get used to it. Coming up with innovations is in many cases easier than implementing them.

Secondly, taking into consideration all of the above, we should start taking a look at the main trends that are inevitably reshaping our corporate and natural environment, namely Big Data, analytics and digitalization.

The world we live in is ruled by technology and data; that is why, we should make use of this technology to boost the success of our 48 MAY 2017

By employing data and analytics, reviews remain unbiased and evidence-based, highlighting both the strengths and weaknesses of an employee. Furthermore, data usage eases the transition to feedback through surveys or user analytics.

Nonetheless, digital data is only part of the answer. Corporations are made of individual human beings, so a redefined performance management system has to be validated by both employers and employees. They are the ones who set a clear path of action and give instant feedback, with the purpose of growing and learning.

Recently published surveys and researches have pointed out that 85% of Millennials – those between the ages of 18 and 34 – prefer frequent performance review meetings with supervisors, and maintain a constant communication flow between themselves. What is more, over 45% of the surveyed Millennials wanted to receive very specific feedback and to have less biased supervisors.

Furthermore, leaders and HR managers will need to emphasize the importance of compensation conversations during their coaching/feedback meetings. It is no secret that employers have always had a hard time understanding how to apply compensation based on ratings, as it has often turned out to be quite counterproductive and negative for a team’s spirit.

The evolution of performance management is slowly but surely bringing a new idea to the fore: rather than having companies differentiate themselves through their use of performance management, PM is becoming more and more about differentiation through leadership, helping leaders understand that by aligning employee reviews with corporate strategy and individuals’ typologies, they can fuel their company’s performance.

Why & How People Change Jobs

Active job seekers grow by 36% over 4 years

59% of people change jobs for new career opportunities

The Evolution of Performance Management It is clear that performance management has changed and will reshape its boundaries even more in the coming years. What we have to keep in mind is that performance management isn’t a one-size-fits-all process.

Slowly but surely, it will start placing more emphasis on real time conversations between leaders and team members, based on an alignment of corporate goals and coaching.

Coaching and personal development will go hand in hand, substituting inefficient and timeconsuming annual ratings and rankings.

74% get a higher salary in their new role

Referrals, the #1 way people first hear about new job opportunities

INDIVIDUAL PERFORMANCE

HR PERFORMANCE AT APPLE, GOOGLE AND STATOIL ADELINA CHELNICIUC

P how an organization plans, measures, erformance management looks at

monitors and enhances its performance on different levels – departmental, procedural, workforce, systems or financial – in order to ensure the overall success of the organization.

Nowadays, a lot of companies, regardless of size, have performance management systems set in place, some of them performing better than others.

A good performance management plan aims at increasing and aligning all organizational

levels. Performance management is used differently in every organization. To give you an idea, here is an overview of how three great companies use performance management to align individual and organizational objectives.

to achieve the organizational objectives: it implies setting clear objectives and providing the necessary ‘ingredients’ for achieving such objectives, like giving incentives and training.

Coaching Planning It involves finding ways of using the scarce resources such as time, money and energy

It gives the necessary support to employees, including good leadership practices like mentoring, giving timely and clear feedback and providing support where needed.

MAY 2017 49

INDIVIDUAL PERFORMANCE

Appraisal This is where the pre-defined goals are assessed, in order to see whether individuals and management have been successful in achieving them. Next, let us see how Apple, Google and Statoil have implemented performance management and the differences between the three, if there are any. We shall only take a look at it from the HR perspective.

Peer assessment Performance review: annually

Statoil Goals management: Based on delivery and behavior; Google Goals management: cascaded to all; Recruitment: qualified and skilled personnel; Incentives: Salary.

Base salaries:

Apple Goals management: organization-centered; Recruitment: qualified and skilled personnel; Incentives: Salary.

Base salaries: Higher end of normal for the markets they operate in; Supplemented by stock options, challenging work and extensive benefits Variable pay: high performers are highly rewarded; Benefits: depending on individual performance and number of years within the company.

Training and development: Training for business-driven needs – personal development category General awareness education Efficiency program Coaching: Mentoring and good leadership.

Appraisal style: 360-degree assessment 50 MAY 2017

On the lower end of normal for the markets they operate in; Supplemented by stock options, challenging work and extensive benefits Variable pay: High performers are highly rewarded Founders award – rewarding good contribution Program which allows employees to use 20% of their time to explore and come up with innovations – individuals who excel are rewarded Benefits: they vary, being normally based on the legal framework of the country.

Training and development: Annual training Team work Effective teamwork Coaching: Mentoring and good leadership.

Appraisal style: 360-degree assessment Peer assessment Performance review: twice a year

Recruitment: qualified and skilled personnel; Incentives: Salary, Fixed remuneration – base salary and long term incentives Base salaries: very competitive in the markets they operate in; reflects the individual’s performance and responsibilities.

Long-term incentives: On-going for members of their corporate executive committee and a limited number of senior executives Fixed, monetary compensation earned on shares Variable pay: High performers are highly rewarded Variable pay scheme for chief executives and deputies for immense contribution to the firm Benefits: based on legal policies in the countries they operate in.

Training and development: Team work Effective teamwork Coaching: Mentoring and good leadership.

Appraisal style: 360-degree assessment Peer assessment Performance review: annually Now that you know the basics, take a moment and look at how your company implements and measures performance management for HR practices.

EVENTS ORGANIZATIONAL PERFORMANCE

ACHIEVING AND MANAGING PERFORMANCE IN COFFEE SHOPS THE STARBUCKS EXPERIENCE ADELA TUDORACHE

S of coffee and coffee shops spread around tarbucks is a universally familiar brand

the world. Its undeniable success and worldwide recognition has been building up since its inception in 1971, providing freshroasted whole bean coffees. At present, with a record of over 18,000 stores in 62 countries, the famous coffee corporation strives to maintain its acknowledged quality in every store. Consequently, it takes great care of its customers, employees and suppliers.

Customers are offered an impressive and ever-changing range of coffees, provided by hard working, happy employees. This employee satisfaction is due to the way they are treated and the opportunities they have within the company.

Starting with 1991, Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz implemented the Bean Stock plan, allowing full-time or part-time employees for over 6 months to buy stocks. Moreover, all Starbucks employees are referred to as partners, which makes them feel significant and genuinely engages them in their work.

At the beginning of their career at Starbucks, partners receive 24 hours of classroom training, having the opportunity to choose some areas of their own interest, like retail skills or customer service. They are also provided with outside opportunities, like professional seminars and workshops, paid by Starbucks.

Apart from customer and employee care, Starbucks also cultivates a healthy relationship with coffee and tea suppliers, through the Farmer Support Centers, helping farmers with crops productivity and quality.

In order to maintain business areas active and to continue improving them, Starbucks needs to gather data to monitor changes and successful or questionable practices. Starbucks’ Global Responsibility Report, Goals and Progress 2012, includes 6 categories of KPIs in the Global Reporting Initiative Performance Indicators: Economic Performance Indicators Environmental Performance Indicators Labor Practices and Decent Work Performance Indicators Human rights Performance Indicators Society Performance Indicators reviews and/or impact assessments

Product responsibility Performance Indicators Each of these categories includes numerous KPIs, and next to them, full, partial or empty circles indicate the level of data reported for each of them. The disadvantage is that they are not fully standardized, according to their unit type (%, #, $), which would contribute to a more efficient data reporting and understanding.

To conclude, Starbucks seems to have a good grasp of performance management and careful consideration of all business areas, which contributes to their global success, along with their exquisite products.

EVENTS STRATEGY AND BUSINESS PLANNING

DISCOVERY DRIVEN PLANNING A DIFFERENT & UNCONVENTIONAL PLAN MARIA JUNCU

D planning technique that was first published

iscovery-Driven Planning (DDP) is a

in 1995, in a Harvard Business Review article written by Rita Gunther McGrath and Ian C. MacMillan. Both McGrath, a professor at Columbia Business School, and MacMillan, of the University of Pennsylvania’s Business School, noticed that the newer, less-predictable ventures of that time required a different planning technique, one which could be applied to more unconventional situations.

In their quest to discover a better way to create innovation, they developed this unconventional type of planning “one better suited to high-potential projects whose prospects are uncertain at the start.” Their technique “systematically uncovers, tests, and (if necessary) revises the assumptions behind a 52 MAY 2017

venture’s plan”, and those lucky enough to be its main beneficiaries are the managers.

All managers face, at one time or another, situations of uncertainty and complexity, and these unconventional times ask for unconventional means. A conventional world is a predictable world, but when uncertainty comes into play that predictability is turned on its head. Conventional planning preaches linearity, safety and discipline, not taking into account the fact that life is uncertain and that people have to realize that it is OK if things don’t always work out the way they want them to, and that some types of planning can also help you “manage with discipline even in light of uncertainty.”

This is exactly what discovery driven planning attempts to achieve, its main

premise being constructed upon the idea that companies should be able to plan ahead, so that their expenses are minimized, while their learning is maximized.

By choosing a discovery-oriented planning process, companies will no longer focus on whether managers meet projections, but on whether they manage expenditures with discipline, whether they properly analyze the assumptions they make, and whether they take into account all the ways in which they can create new knowledge. In their research article, McGrath and MacMillan explained that the discovery driven planning offers a safer way to lead a product during unknown and uncertain times, so that companies can “learn as much as possible as cheaply as possible while pursuing new ventures.”

STRATEGY AND BUSINESS PLANNING

This unconventional planning helps business organizations avoid the trap of treating assumptions as if they are facts, through the implementation of five disciplines:

Framing From the start, the DDP demands a specification of frame. This implies specifying what a well-rounded business should look like at its maturity and revealing to everyone these achievable expectations.

Benchmarking As managers formulate plans to accomplish great things, it is very easy for these plans to deviate from reality and to receive a tinge of inaccuracy. This second discipline makes sure that one understands “what the benchmark parameters of a project must be to succeed competitively, and what the scope of the market must be to generate the performance that will make it worthwhile.”

Defining operational requirements Refers to specifications of organizational deliverables. These specifications lead to implementable actions. While a conventional plan looks at today’s actions and makes assumptions that project from them, the DDP works “backward from what you have to deliver to get the results that will make it worthwhile”.

Documenting assumptions The biggest difference between DDPs and conventional plans is that in DDPs the attempt is to transform the maximum number of assumptions into knowledge, without crossing the threshold of the minimum cost.

Planning Key Milestones Usually one has enough knowledge to plan

in great detail the next major milestone, but not beyond it. Through milestone planning one can create a detailed plan to test one’s assumptions “at the key foreseeable milestones in the project.”

This discovery-driven approach to planning has proven to be not only realistic, but also motivating. Why motivating? Because it offers people the opportunity to learn, without making them feel bound to justify the differences between plan/assumption and reality.

The success of the discovery driven plan primarily lies with its belief that being wrong is not an admission of failure. The discovery driven approach attempts to consciously identify errors; validate critical assumptions from the get-go, before spending too much on the wrong venture; and to learn from every mistake that gets made.

Ultimately, the one thing that people have to keep in mind is that DDP is a methodology for planning innovation, a new and more ingenious way of decoding and reconstructing today’s unconventional business world.

MAY 2017 53

HOW APPLE USES THE BALANCED SCORECARD ADELA TUDORACHE

A innovate and elevate itself to new heights of

Balanced Scorecard helps a company

performance, by assisting its leaders in making key decisions that are in line with the company’s objectives. It creates a foundation, on which one can further add to until the desired outcome is reached. Apple Inc., a fierce player in the tech market, is a well-known brand that uses the balance scorecard in their work.

According to a Harvard Business Review article, Apple Inc., uses five performance indicators: 1. Customer satisfaction; 2. Core competencies; 3. Employee commitment and alignment; 4. Market share; 5. Shareholder value.

Apple Inc., did not always focus on their customers. Previously, they used to focus on their technology and products, but since then, things have shifted towards the idea of customer satisfaction, which is now a core tenet in their company. Many companies in the computer industry collaborate with a customer-survey 54 MAY 2017

company, called J.D. Power & Associates. Yet Apple decided to make their own surveys, as a means of fulfilling their customer’s wishes.

Equipping employees with innovative solutions, like user-friendly interfaces and effective distribution systems is essential to developing their competencies. However, many Apple leaders believe measuring the impact these solutions have is a complex task. In the long run, this American tech company will be issuing out quantitative measurements to find out the answers they need and see if enabling employees in this fashion leads to nurturing their skillsets.

Apple Inc. believes commitment and alignment among employees are important. As a result, they conduct a thorough employee survey of every organizational branch, once every two years, with surveys being done randomly between employees. The questionnaires wish to find out how every member of the company comprehends their individual strategy and to what extent they can connect this to the overall organizational strategy, to reel in success.

Market share is also another essential indicator, especially for a company in the tech industry.

This is due to the fact that, by gathering as many market shares as they can, Apple Inc. not only increases its profits, but also influences the software developers they collaborate with.

Shareholder value in Apple Inc. is put into their sales vision, product design, global manufacturing and operations. This correlation is used to evaluate a unit’s activities, also tying this to the company’s appraisal system and using it to assess new business deals. By doing so, the company hopes to create investments for future growth.

These five indicators help in managing “longterm performance”, instead of enabling a “controlling” approach that may be based on short or medium-term performance.

This further aids each unit to progressively advance its activities and performance, based on those five pillars. Overall, the balance scorecard helps Apple Inc. to keep track of their performance, so that they meet their set objectives and goals.

EVENTS KPIS

MAY’S SMARTKPI % OVERALL EQUIPMENT EFFECTIVENESS (OEE) CRISTINA TARÂTA

F Indicators in our database, every month we rom over 20,600 Key Performance

select the most popular KPI and provide you with useful information about its calculation formula, benchmarking data, as well as on the best practices to maximize performance results. This month’s smartKPI is one of the most relevant metrics, utilized worldwide in measuring manufacturing performance – % Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE).

Definition Measures the efficiency and effectiveness of a manufacturing process by aggregating in one score value the quality, speed and downtime. This index can be used to indicate the effectiveness of one production equipment or of the entire production line.

Sub-metrics A = # Availability index (# Equipment running time / # Planned production time) B = # Performance index ((# Ideal cycle time x # Units requested to be produced) / # Run time)

C = # Quality index ( # Units produced at quality standard / # Total units produced)

not correlated with the customers’ needs and expectations, all is in vain.

Calculation Formula: A x B x C

However, this limitation is mostly related to how % OEE is used and implemented in practice, not with the metric itself.

Another calculation formula used for % OEE is # Units produced at quality standard x # Ideal cycle time) / # Planned production time.

Limitations Critics of % OEE question the ability of this KPI to accurately reflect on the quality perspective involved in its measurement.

Moreover, by analyzing from a mathematical point of view % OEE and % Production schedule adherence, there are cases in which % OEE is high, while the other KPI is significantly low.

The influential factor in the % OEE results, in this case, is the ability to correctly define the # Units produced at quality standard. The challenge is not the count of the units, but to define what the “quality standard” includes.

Quality standards usually refer to technical requirements, but if the specifications are

KPI in Practice To ensure an effective usage of this KPI, professionals should take into consideration that % OEE is a very relevant measurement for managers, but not necessarily for factory workers. To stimulate engagement and productivity among first-line employees, more granular metrics should be assigned as KPIs for their job, such as # Down time, # Units produced per hour, % Defect rates.

In terms of desired results for this KPI, the following recommendations should be analyzed: 100% is the result of a perfect production process. This means that there is zero defect rate among units produced, while the cycle time is as fast as possible and there are no interruptions.

MAY 2017 55

KPIs

85% is considered world class for discrete manufacturers. This industry benchmark can become a long-term target for organizations.

60% is the most commonly encountered performance level among discrete manufacturers. However, there is substantial room for improvement.

40% is regarded usually as poor performance.

It is commonly the trigger signal for companies to start focusing on process improvement. However, the root-cause analysis of such performance results can easily reveal the necessary corrective actions to address the issues in a relatively short timeframe.

When analyzing performance results, it is recommended to avoid focusing too much on the overall % OEE value and to try to look at the underlining metrics of this KPI to better understand what generates your actual results.

Benchmarking data Below you can find benchmarking data from 2012 for six different industry sectors, provided

by LSN Research.

% Overall equipment effectiveness

Aerospace and Defense

56 MAY 2017

Semiconductor

Automotive

Electronics

Industrial Equipments

Medical Devices

All

KPIs

Key Performance Drivers To drive performance improvement from the usage of this KPI, it is important to disseminate the performance results in real time so that corrective actions can be taken on a daily basis in order to maintain adequate levels of % OEE. Given the computation of this KPI, there are a variety of factors that can influence performance results. For example, both # Availability and # Quality are influenced by the quality of maintenance services and by the proper performance levels of the equipment used.

Moreover, quality is also influenced by a series of other factors related to the manufacturing environment or by the supply chain.

If raw materials do not meet quality standards, producing high quality final products is difficult, if not impossible. To reduce the impact of these factors consider the following recommendations to be implemented at plant floor level: Ensure that clear and proper work instructions are followed by workers;

THE PRODUCTION AND QUALITY MANAGEMENT KPI DICTIONARY

Adequate work tools (equipment) are available during assembly or production;

Performance excellence is using the right resources,

Correct measurements and checks are deployed to verify quality levels at every crucial step in the process;

shape your next competitive advantage!

All required production information (marking each piece, tracking down row materials in each piece) is accurately handled.

Other manufacturing KPIs can be found in The Production and Quality Management Dictionary, one of The KPI Institute’s most popular publications.

The dictionary provides a collection of the most common KPIs in the production and quality sector, combining input from the smartKPIs.com community with research and analysis from The KPI Institute’s research team.

In June, we invite you to discover our next smartKPI, which is from the Telecommunication Industry!

at the right time. Get your own Dictionary and

KEY COMPONENTS Explicit KPI definitions, submetrics and calculation formulas Precise KPI terminology explanation Comprehensive key performance indicators infographic Accurate guidelines on how to use the book

BENEFITS Improve efficiency and quality of the production Improve quality at every level Monitor the increase of quality with a set of standards Adjust processes and procedures

Visit marketplace.kpiinstitute.org/publications.html and get The KPI Dictionary specific to your department or industry!

MAY 2017 57

rep u

bl i qu e ca i

se

OPERATIONAL PERFORMANCE

0,3

n pa ja

fran

post es

pos postetage s

32

0

franc e

10 ni

n

ppo

IMPROVING THE SUSTAINABILITY OF OPERATIONS WITHIN THE TOURISM INDUSTRY ANA MARIA SABÄ‚U

S hot topic in all industries, particularly

ustainability of operations represents a

in tourism, where due to an increasing interest of general tourists in topics related to sustainability and environmental awareness, the borders between ecotourism and mass tourism are fading.

Subjects related to sustainability, including ecotourism, are gaining increasing attention from the broad public and tourists seem to be placing greater emphasis on environmental issues and nature when opting for a holiday destination.

58

Sustainability of tourism operations may be achieved through a series of compromises and trade-offs between four different groups of interests: tourists, local communities, touristic operators and the natural environment.

There are several approaches that companies within the tourism industry can follow in order to make their operations more sustainable, whether as part of a broader scope that aims at finding a balance between environmental, social and financial sustainability, or within a narrower, constant capital perspective.

Minimal environmental impact It is difficult for hotels to operate in a completely environmentally friendly way, but there are several activities that businesses should undertake in order to minimize their environmental impact. They should rely on suppliers that also operate in an environmentally responsible manner. Facilities should be built in harmony with the natural surroundings, for example by applying bioclimatic design, using local indigenous materials and applying local know-how. Many policies, practices and pieces of equipment allow for the recycling, re-use and consumption reduction of resources.

OPERATIONAL PERFORMANCE

Hotels that want to operate sustainably to attract environmentally sensitive tourists should implement practices such as using alternative energy sources, minimizing the consumption of water, reducing waste, activating efficient waste disposal and recycling systems.

The following KPIs can be used to monitor and improve a hotel’s environmental impact: # Energy consumption* % Energy saved due to conservation and efficiency improvements % Energy used from renewable sources # Water recycled and reused % Recycled materials used in construction % Locally sourced materials used in construction # Recycled waste # Wastewater # Non-contact water reuse # Recycled paper % Paper reduction # PET bottles recycled # Suppliers engaged in environmental initiatives *Although still very important to measure, this KPI is becoming less relevant when measured on its own, as the availability of renewable energy sources is increasing.

A business may have a higher # Energy consumption than another and still be more environmentally sustainable due to its high % Energy used from renewable sources.

Conservation tourism An alternative sustainable approach of hotels might be that of directly or indirectly providing material or economic contribution to local conservation efforts. The distinguishing characteristic of conservation tourism is that the company’s revenue

or activities contribute to environmental conservation organizations or activities, such as reforestation, rehabilitation projects, scientific monitoring and litter removal.

A well-known example of such initiative is the Al Maha Resort, located in the middle of the Dubai Desert Conservation Reserve, which, in order to offset the very high environmental impact of its operations (for example, daily # Water consumption between 1.2 million and 1.7 million liters), has implemented a conservation supporting program consisting in the regeneration of local flora and fauna. The program of flora regeneration consists in limiting camel grazing, trees and grass plantation (# Species of local flora re-introduced: 36, including species of plants, grass and trees) and boosting individual watering when needed.

The following KPIs help assess efforts related to conservation tourism: $ Environmental protection expenditure and investments # Habitat protected or restored % Land restoration # Programs supporting local environmental conservation efforts $ Investment in local environmental conservation efforts

which can be divided into four categories: economic, psychological, social and political.

Economic empowerment brings lasting economic benefits to local communities.

This can be achieved by providing job opportunities to locals and by sourcing locally, both products and services, fostering the local economy and supporting related industries.

At the same time, it is important to note that it is usually difficult to find a balance between economic empowerment and cultural preservation: the trade-off is often unavoidable as, in the attempt to bring economic development, locals get in close touch with tourists, at the expenses of their local heritage.

For instance, the designation of national parks benefits the environment through conservation, but harms the local population by denying them the access to resources and excluding them from traditional activities.

KPIs to monitor the empowerment of local communities: % Local residents in total workforce % Local suppliers % Spending on local suppliers

$ Investment in local flora regeneration

% Food supplied from local sources

# Species of local flora re-introduced

# Corporate community involvement initiatives

$ Investment in local fauna protection # Land owned, leased or managed in biodiversity-rich habitats # Initiatives to promote greater environmental responsibility # Threatened species appearing in the IUCN red list Empowerment of local communities To improve the sustainability of their operations, companies within the tourism industry can also implement initiatives for the empowerment of local communities,

$ Investment in the community # Community satisfaction index # Community complaints By taking into consideration these approaches and by monitoring the relevant KPIs, operators within the tourism industry can not only improve their environmental performance and increase the sustainability of their operations, but, at the same time, can attract more customers, who are increasingly becoming more environmentally conscious and oriented.

MAY 2017 59

OPERATIONAL PERFORMANCE

WHY LIVE CHAT IS THE BEST CUSTOMER SERVICE RIGHT NOW COLIN CIELOHA

E reported that one of the main issues -commerce

It takes 48s to answer a chat for the average company

1,143 is the average number of chats a company deals with in a month

274 is the average number of chats an operator handles a month

63% of respondents who chatted said they were more likely to return 60 MAY 2017

website

owners

have

in the online environment is maintaining customer engagement and preventing shopping cart abandonment. A key tool that has been proven in preventing these issues is Live Chat customer service.

It can be frustrating for customers when they have to read large amounts of text on a website, just to find the answer to a simple question. Live Chat is the answer that bypasses that frustration, allowing customers to get direct responses to all their queries with virtually no effort on their part.

Live Chat can be a key tool to turn casual website visitors into regular customers, which can maximize sale opportunities and build up a website’s reputation and brand.

How Important is Live Chat?

The importance of having a customer support chat for e-commerce businesses cannot be reiterated enough. A key way

Live Chat can increase sales rates is through implementing customer testimonials about their experience with Live Chat services into business plans. Most customers who received Live Chat assistance while shopping online reported being satisfied with the service and 63% reported that they were more likely to return to the site. That is not all, 40% of online buyers who had previously used live chat services were more likely to make online purchases at least once a week than buyers who had never chatted live.

How Does Live Chat Work?

The reason why live chat appeals to many online store visitors lies in the simplicity and effectiveness of the service. The average company takes only 48 seconds to answer a query with Live Chat.

Most companies answer 1,143 chats each month on average. This means that a single operator handles approximately 274 chats per month. The data collected

OPERATIONAL PERFORMANCE

reported that customers are most likely to ask questions via live chat between 10am and 3pm local time. The research indicated that over half of live chats occur during this time-frame.

Chats for customer service, consider this: The customer satisfaction rate of the e-commerce industry has reached 87.5% in 2015. Live Chat usage rates have been steadily increasing in the past five years.

The number one live chat country in the world is Mexico, followed by Australia and Canada. The highest number of live chat conversations take place on Mexican e-commerce websites. This has made Mexico the recipient of the highest customer satisfaction rate, with a rating of 94.11%.

The customer satisfaction rate in Australia is 93.59%, while the Canadian customer satisfaction rate is at 88.36%.

In 2009, Live Chat was used by 38% of online shoppers, in 2012 that percentage grew to 43% and in 2014 more than half of customers were using Live Chat. The online stores that have approximately 1,000 chats per month have the highest customer satisfaction rate of 87.29%.

The fastest Live Chat replies are received by customers in Denmark. Danish operators provide a swift and straightforward service which is characteristic of the well-known Scandinavian simplicity.

When it comes to the demographics of live chat users, the older generation of Baby Boomers are particularly fond of this service. The research indicated that more than one third of people aged 57 to 67 are already using customer support chat.

Chat Duration vs. Customer Satisfaction Naturally, the customer service chat that results in the highest customer satisfaction rate is the one which provides customers with clear and straightforward answers to their questions. This means that the operator needs to take his or her time to review each question and then provide an in-depth answer.

The operator also needs to find the right balance between being concise and informative. For example, chats that last 5 minutes correspond to a customer satisfaction rate of 78.20%, chats that last 15 minutes result in an 88.23% satisfaction rate and chats that last 20 minutes or more receive a significantly lower customer satisfaction rate.

Chats per Month vs. Customer Satisfaction To highlight the effectiveness of Live

Which Channel Works Best?

Online communication channels have made communicating for online customers easier than ever. The number one communication channel for e-commerce websites is live chat with a 92% customer satisfaction rate. Other channels that have high ratings among customers are voice services with 88% customer satisfaction rate, web form and email with 85% each and social media networks Facebook and Twitter. Customer satisfaction rates for websites using Facebook to answer customer questions is 84%, while websites with Twitter-based communication have a customer satisfaction rate of 77%.

The American department store chain Sears, is another big company that has benefited from live chat services. Sears has recently reported a 20% increase in sales revenue, which was a direct result of using a predictive chat service. Sears also has an impressive customer satisfaction rate of 90%.

Another good example of how live chat can boost sales comes from the exercise equipment brand Total Gym. During the fourth quarter of 2014, nearly 40% of Total Gym’s online orders came from customers who had live chatted with an operator.

So as we can see from our industry examples, live chatting has become an integral part of today’s business environment, setting apart the best from the rest and clearly delineating the market based on live chat service availability and professionalism; as such, if you’re interested in furthering your company’s performance and numbers, setting up a proactive live chat team would be a good starting point.

Colin Cieloha is an American author and content marketer at Skilled.co. He writes about everything that will draw his attention, with a focus on the mobile and e-commerce space. When he is not writing, he is spending his time traveling the globe and snowboarding. You can follow him on his Twitter at @ColinCieloha or on Linkedin.

Learn from Examples There are many famous online stores which highlight the positive effect of implementing live chat service. Travel website Orbitz reported a 40% increase in American consumer brands chat traffic during the period between 2013 and 2014, while continuing to maintain an enviable customer satisfaction rate.

Similarly, tech giant Dell reported a 30% increase in chat usage over the past several years. A third of Dell’s sales in the US are currently being finalized through live chat.

Dell reports that 30% of its online customers engage through proactive chat, which amounts to 40% of revenue.

MAY 2017 61

ASK THE EXPERTS

ASK THE EXPERTS

HOW TO MEASURE THE PERFORMANCE OF YOUR ACCOUNTING DEPARTMENT CRISTINA TARĂ‚TA

M the performance of support functions within the

any companies are facing difficulties in measuring

organization, such as Human Resources, Information Technology, or the Finance and Accounting Department.

What sets apart these functional areas from sales or production, is the difficulty in capturing the outputs, or the impact of their work on the organization. It is a common mistake for companies to focus on measuring

what is easy to measure such as $ Sales, % Sales quota attainment, % Market share, # Production cycle time or # Production output.

However, in order to produce the best results for the organization, a performance management system should be aligned across the organization, and not isolated around the key functional areas.

Common KPIs to monitor the performance of the Accounting Department are:

Timeliness: # Days to close the books and sign off the month # Days to close the books and sign off the year # Time to process invoices # Time to process transaction /payment # Time spent correcting documents or input data per week # Payroll processing time

@

% Financial reports submitted on time % Travel expense accounts processed in three days # Days in accounts receivable

62 MAY 2017

ASK THE EXPERTS

Quality: % Input errors detected

# Errors reported by outside auditors

% Invoices accuracy

% Audit recommendations implemented

% Accuracy of transactions /payments

% Transaction items requiring reconciliation

# Factual errors identified in reports

% Collection rate of outstanding amounts

Generic KPIs: # Internal complaints received

# Accounting employees to FTEs ratio

# Internal customer satisfaction index with accounting services

# Improvement ideas coming from accounting employees

% Tasks finalized on time

# Accounting employees engagement index

% Internal procedures updated % Processes optimized Based on the departmental strategy and the objectives formulated, suitable KPIs can be selected to monitor performance.

In the case of larger companies, the accounting department can consist of different teams which manage specific activities: accounts receivable, accounts payable, payroll. In this context, a dashboard can be used to monitor all the key activities, in conjunction with a scorecard, that will comprise the strategic objectives and the KPIs. Some of the KPIs presented above under the clusters Timeliness and Quality, can also be

measured at individual level. For example # Payroll processing time can be different from one accountant to another and an internal SLA (Service Level Agreement) can be established for this activity, while also taking into account the qualitative aspect of work, such as # Payroll errors.

By clarifying the role of the accounting function, and establishing a strategy, it becomes more easily to identify its overall contribution to the organization. Objectives help managers map this contribution, while KPIs keep them focused on what matters the most for the department.

The course is available in digital format on marketplace: marketplace.kpiinstitute.org

MAY 2017 63

LIFESTYLE

LIFESTYLE

SELF-CONTROL THE KEY TO STAYING PRODUCTIVE

T

he main feature of those who have high emotional intelligence is self-control - the skill that helps you delay short-term gratification in favour of long-term outcomes. People who control their impulses better invest in their cognitive, emotional and behavioural resources to achieve their goals. What is more, tests have shown that those who achieve top performance are, in fact, high scorers on the emotional intelligence scale.

Nevertheless, many find it difficult to rely on self-control, seeing it as a fleeting state of being. The down side here is that self-control is tightly connected to productivity, and when your self-control is at a minimum or even non-existent, so is your productivity.

People want to have self-control so that they can have a better chance of achieving their goals. As we all need a bit of help in this regard, we should take a look at a few things that people with high emotional intelligence levels rely on to keep themselves productive and in control.

They focus their attention on solutions Emotionally intelligent people know that if their focus lies only on the problems that they face, then these negative emotions will block their self-control. That is why, they focus only on the solutions, thus becoming more positive and productive.

They know when to say No Many people find it difficult to say no when asked to do something.

Researchers have discovered that those who have this kind of difficulty will likely experience more stress and even depression, which destroy self-control. Emotionally intelligent people know that by saying no to a commitment, they respect their existing commitments and have the chance to successfully fulfil them.

They know there is no such thing as perfection Human beings are not perfect and they can encounter failure many times in their lives. Emotionally intelligent people know this and they don’t set perfection as their target.

64 MAY 2017

When you set perfection as your goal, you will more than likely end up disappointed and experience a sense of failure. You will constantly think about the things you have done wrong, instead of feeling happy and excited about the things you have done right.

They do not ask themselves what could have been They avoid asking ‘What if?’, as they know that this is a loaded question. The more you think about all the possibilities or things you could have done differently, the less time you will spend being productive.

Planning is something natural and necessary, but there is a huge difference between worrying and thinking ahead.

They stay positive Staying positive will help you focus your attention and stay in control. Positive thoughts are like a cup of tea or like a warm bath, they help you get refreshed, and in the meantime, they help you exercise self-control. When things are going well, self-control is easy, but when things are going poorly, self-control is a challenge.

The main idea is that when you find yourself in one of those less than stellar occasions, you should think about a happy moment or a positive event, so that you won’t lose focus.

All these strategies can help you attain a higher level of self-control, self-assurance and productivity, but you should remember that in order for these strategies to work you must recognize the moments where you struggle with self-control, choose the best strategy, apply it and give it time to do its charm.

LIFESTYLE

THE KEY EFFECTS OF TRAINING AND DETRAINING

P of shapes, amongst which we can find ersonal performance can take a myriad

one that represents the pillar of health and wellbeing, namely physical performance.

Physical performance is mainly a function of an individual's size, shape, sex, and age. However, fitness is a very important factor when it comes to being successful in sports, regardless of the level you’re at.

Leading a physically active and healthy life can strongly influence an individual’s lifestyle, habits and performance, both at work and throughout his day to day activities. Those who lead such a life are aware of how difficult it is to stay in shape and they know that it’s not possible to remain active all the time.

and weaknesses. That is why inactivity or detraining affects people just as differently.

Nonetheless, there are some standard measures that can be used to assess a person’s level of fitness.

Oxygen uptake or VO2 Which is a measure of the difference in oxygen concentration between the blood leaving the heart and the blood that returns to the heart.

Measuring lactate production Lactate is produced by the muscles when the amount of oxygen is limited, providing an indirect measurement of the body’s efficiency at delivering oxygen to the tissues.

Fitness Appraisal Before attempting to understand what happens to our body when we stop exercising, we must first understand how fitness is quantified.

It is true that when it comes to our bodies and our respective levels of fitness, we’re all different. Each person has a different training routine, or prefers certain sports over the others. We have different ages, and we all have unique physical strengths

Other measurements Qantify muscle endurance, strength, and flexibility.

muscle

Endocrinology tests Measure the effects of exercise on hormonal levels, metabolism, growth and development, tissue function, and other things.

Gym-type measurements Include push-ups, pull-ups, abdominal plank, toe-touching etc.

MAY 2017 65

LIFESTYLE

20K

Effects of Regular Exercising

Effects of Inactivity

So that we can better understand the consequences of physical inactivity, we must first understand in what ways regular exercise affects the body. We also have to keep in mind that regular exercises encompass both resistance training and endurance work.

When people stop exercising altogether, regardless of whether they are elite athletes or regular gym-goers, their VO2 is affected, followed by a decline in muscle structure, power, strength, stamina and coordination.

Both Bergdahl and Pino say that endurance is among the first things to go, as well as cardio and then muscle mass. Bergdahl also believes that the rate of loss is largely dependent on age, as the older we get, the faster we lose our muscles.

According to Andreas Bergdahl, an assistant professor in cardiovascular physiology at Montreal’s Concordia University, regular endurance exercises lead to:

Increased ability of the heart to eject blood;

Increased ability of the blood vessels to send blood to where blood is needed;

Increased number of capillaries;

Increased size and number of mitochondria.

Harry Pino, a senior exercise physiologist at the Sports Performance Center at NYU Langone Medical Center, also believes that endurance training has a strong effect on the body.

What’s more, he says that regular exercise improves the cardiovascular system, increases muscle strength, power, coordination, stability, and flexibility, while improving endocrine measures, such as sugar and fat levels.

66 MAY 2017

Regardless of whether a person is a pro athlete or just someone who works out regularly, the effect of detraining on the structural system will manifest as noticeable diminished muscle strength and a loss in power, including speed and agility, mobility, moving from side-to-side, and a loss of coordination.

What is more, apart from gaining weight, a completely sedentary lifestyle can lead to a number of related complications, including health issues such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and problems with joints and ligaments.

Lastly, one must not forget that physical inactivity can strongly affect an individual’s psyche as well. A lack of exercise has been shown to produce certain psychological effects, including depression and lower selfesteem.

Remaining Active If we take into consideration all the above, it’s clear that the sudden adoption of a sedentary lifestyle, especially after a period of regular training or exercise, has a profoundly negative effect on the body.

That is why Pino recommends the use of such things as the stationary bicycle, elliptical, or rower, to keep the muscles “alive” and to prevent a complete physical and mental decline.

TRAVEL HACKING TIPS AND TRICKS TO BECOME A PROFESSIONAL TRAVELER

L

ately, a brand new concept is becoming very popular.This concept is known as travel hacking. What is travel hacking? It is a term that shows us the different ways in which travelers save money for their trips. It is a little more than finding the best deal online. It's about discovering the magical world of free travelling. Here are some tips you can use to spend as little as possible when you're travelling: The Miles and Points scheme is very popular nowadays, take advantage of it!

This is the most important step in travel hacking. Globally, there are three main airline partnerships: SkyTeam, OneWorld and Star Alliance. The important thing to understand here, is that airline partnerships and alliances allow you to redeem miles earned with one airline on a partner airline. For example, miles earned with Turkish Airlines or Lufthansa will count towards your KrisFlyer miles.

Get yourself a generic credit card In today’s modern society credit cards are everywhere. We use them to pay almost everything. In Eastern Europe, the travel credit cards are not as famous as they are in the US. It is important to know they exist, but it is essential to be able to identify which travel credit card best suits your needs. In the race for customers, credit card issuing companies conclude strategic partnerships with various travel brands.

sites at the same time? It is possible. Before booking a flight, check sites like Kayak, Momondo or Skyscanner. You'll discover the best travel deals. If your schedule allows for some flexibility, you may be able to save money by flying on different days.

They motivate consumers by offering them loyalty points, sign up bonuses and many more. For you, the client, this competition represents a total gain because you can get free hotel rooms, air tickets, cash back and vacations.

Use airfare aggregators How awesome do you think it would be if you'd have the possibility to compare airfares across multiple airlines and travel 67

LIFESTYLE

Follow travel blogs for news and best deals There are several great miles blogs to watch for great deals. Some of the best are the guys from Fly4free, Travel pirates and Kash from budgettraveller.org, who can teach you how to travel on a budget. These sites track deals on everything from earning miles to finding cheap fares.

MILES AND POINTS

You're good at writing?

Then open your own blog You don't have to write like Shakespeare or be a writing prodigy. Try to recount your travel experiences as you see them. Describe your adventures the same way you describe them to your friends. Travel agencies often give free vacations to travel bloggers, to promote their services. It's a win-win situation, you travel the world for free and they promote their new destinations with less money.

Yes, you read that right, it is cheaper to send someone on vacation and ask him or her to write about it instead of paying for a TV commercial. Just close your eyes and imagine how it would be if you had the chance to swim with sea turtles on the Great Barrier Reef, to go skydiving over the Swiss Alps, or on a road trip through Iceland.

Also, imagine yourself on a hot air balloon in Cappadocia, or riding donkeys at Petra and going caving in New Zealand. It’s like winning the lotery, right? Well, all of these can be real. I can do it, you can do i, all of us can do it, but first off all, we have to start learning more about travel hacking.

I know that traveling can be expensive, depending on your level of comfort and luxury. Flights and hotels can be the most expensive part of your trip. However, it is good to know that travelling can be cheap, too. We can travel the world almost for free.

For those of you who have wanderlust and feel the permanent need to be in motion, to hit the road, I suggest you follow your instincts. Do whatever is necessary to explore our world: be a travel hacker, write on your own blog or for the titans of travel blogging, like BBC Travel or Lonely Planet (Yes, sometimes they accept a well written article). Follow your dreams, this is the only way to gain performance in your personal life! Be a professional traveler!

68 MAY 2017

AIRFARE AGGREGATORS

TRAVEL GUIDES

For more details visit: https://kpiinstitute.org/solutions/

HARDWARE REVIEW

HARDWARE

The Dell 27 Ultra HD 4k Monitor - P2715Q

Nima

Dell’s newest 4k monitor, the 27 Ultra HD P2715Q, is one of the best monitors out there and it can be used by all organizations during meetings or other activities.

Gluten sensitive people are always struggling when it comes to food, constantly changing restaurants or anywhere where the food can be thoroughly checked.

Dell has been manufacturing 4k monitors since 2013, but the newest additions have Ultra HD 16:9 screens with IPS panels, numerous connection options and a wide color spectrum.

However, things have started looking up and they can rest easier now, because 6SensorLabs has created a device that could change not only the lives of those with gluten allergy, but also the lives of each and every one of us. Nima is a handheld, Bluetooth-connected device that analyzes tiny samples of food to find out if there's any gluten in it.nThis gadget has two parts: a capsule and a palm-sized, wedge-shaped sensor that's 3.5 inches long and 3.1 inches tall. How does it work?

Your vision in extraordinary detail

This monitor has a slim panel with sturdy buttons and an ergonomic stand which provides a full range of adjustability: height, tilt, pivot, and swivel. What is more, the monitor is VESA compatible, so it can be switched to a third-party stand if needed.

On the rear, you can find a wide variety of connectivity options, including DisplayPort and Mini-DisplayPort for video in, as well as DisplayPort for video out. HDMI, speaker-line out, and four USB 3.0 ports are also part of the package.

Dell’s on-screen control menu is precise and simple to use.

Everything is easy to find and labeled with clear text rather than with vague icons.

Its IPS panel offers wide viewing angles, strong colors and deep blacks. Its spectrum encompasses 100% of sRGB and 79 percent of AdobeRGB, while maintaining a contrast ratio of 690:1 at maximum brightness and 650:1 at half that. The color accuracy is just as good, with an average difference of only 1.74.

Although this monitor isn’t an UltraSharp, it still is far from an ordinary one, so it receives a warranty of three years together with an “advanced exchange service”, which guarantees that, if need be, the company will send a replacement immediately.

Dell’s P2715Q is an exceptional addition to their 4k line of monitors. This monitor offers excellent image quality, plenty of connectivity, intuitive on-screen controls, an ergonomic stand and extremely beautiful pictures.

70 MAY 2017

The Gluten Detector

You simply put a tiny piece of food into the capsule, screw on the lid to grind up the food sample and put the capsule into the sensor. After you press the capsule's only button, the food mixes with a solution at the bottom of the capsule.

That mixture reacts with a test strip on the capsule and the sensor reads the strip for you. After approximately three minutes, a smiley face pops up on the sensor's OLED screen if the device finds less than 20 parts per million of gluten in the sample. If not, then the sensor displays a wheat symbol.

Nima uses Bluetooth to connect with an iOS app where you can keep a record of your test results. What is more, the creators want to release an Android version of the app as soon as possible. Heather Sliwinski, Nima’s spokesperson, said that the device is meant to be an additional tool for those who follow a gluten-free diet, rather than replace what they're already doing, such as talking to the person who prepared the food.

“It's true that Nima cannot guarantee an entire dish is glutenfree, since Nima takes a sample of food from your dish” she said. “With any form of testing, whether Nima or lab, you can't guarantee the dish, the box or the lot you didn't test is glutenfree based on one test result.” Nevertheless, Nima has won the third edition of the Hardware Battlefield event, and this win is proof of its efficiency and potential.

HARDWARE

XOEye Smartglasses

Kingston's DataTraveler Ultimate GT

Until now, most people used wearable displays as means to bring up notifications in front of them or to experience what is known as augmented reality.

With Kingston's new DataTraveler Ultimate GT, you can carry more than you can handle. Or alternatively, you might discover that you can handle more than you think, because this flash drive has a staggeringly high storage capacity and a pretty fast copy speed.

Wearables Fit for Business

The World’s Highest Capacity USB Flash Drive

XOEye Technologies, however, have developed a new type of smartglasses. The XOne is a pair of smartglasses with built-in video The Kingston DataTraveler Ultimate GT is the world's highest cameras and microphones designed for the workplace, specifically capacity USB flash drive. It is available in the US in 2TB and 1TB manufacturing, construction and the field service industry. capacities, which currently cost between $1,600 and $1,000.

XOEye CEO Aaron Salow states that these new smartglasses This flash drive is ideal for anyone who wants to transport large represent the next wave of business communication and he believes amounts of data without relying on hard drives or cloud storage. that “activity streams” will be the answer to a more performant work environment.

If you want to better wrap your head around its actual storage capacity, you should know that the highest capacity iPhone 7 Plus “If a technician could share an activity stream from these glasses has just 256GB of storage, about a quarter of 1TB. instead, imagine how much faster problems would be resolved…

Activity streams are the next 20-year cycle, and wearables are a huge On top of the high storage capacity, the new drive is USB 3.1 Gen 1 part of this.” compatible, which means excellent reading and writing performance.

The new drive is made of a robust zinc-alloy metal casing for shock The XOEye concept is simple by design and easy to use. The resistance, so you do not have to worry about its durability. However, eyeglasses are equipped with two 5-megapixels cameras in although it looks and works like a thumb drive, it is about three to the upper corners of each eyepiece, which are great for taking five times the overall size of a typical USB drive. photos, live streaming video in real time and recording footage.

By accessing XOEye’s cloud platform, Vision, remote colleagues Due to this, it might not fit directly in most USB ports, so Kingston can see everything the employee sees. has included an extension USB cable to make sure you can use it everywhere.

The smartglasses have two microphones and a set of earbuds, so employees at a job site can easily speak with coworkers. What is more, Nevertheless, GT truly is the fastest thumb drive on the market, using the XOne glasses also include an accelerometer and gyroscope, and a USB 3.0 that registered sustained copy speeds of 165 megabytes through them XOEye’s Vision platform can measure and analyze per second for writing and 327MBps for reading. What is more, the body movements, offering new possibilities for managing worker GT also works with older USB 2.0 ports, although you will notice a safety and ergonomics. decrease in speed.

The glasses’ camera sensors can also read bar codes, and so the Its biggest downsize is the price. Its average buying price hovers XOne could be easily used by airlines that need to route thousands around $900, with a MSRP of $1.319 and a low price of $846, on the of pieces of luggage every hour. best of days.

The XOne smartglasses place workplace productivity front-andcenter, so you shouldn’t be too surprised if there comes a time when an “activity stream” revolution will become reality.

Despite its pricing, nobody can deny that the Kingston DataTraveler Ultimate GT is one of a kind, due to its huge storage capacities and considerable speed.

MAY 2017

71

SOFTWARE REVIEW

SOFTWARE

Tableau

Data Analysis for days!

Ever looked at data and never quite understood what it’s all about?

Numbers, graphs, colours, charts, but nothing quite makes sense.

Even more so, given the lack of clarity, others cannot help you decipher the data either, because it’s not communicated in an easily read manner. Tableau aims to change that.

“Tableau is ‘business intelligence show and tell.’ It tells you the story that’s hidden in your data then helps you tell it to others in a clear and compelling way!” – Cathy Rooney, VP, Operations at Tableau Software What Tableau does can essentially be summarized in 6 points: Delivers fast analytics Connect and visualize your data in mere minutes Is very easy to use Anyone can analyze the available data, with intuitive drag & drop options, no programming skills required Analyzes Big Data or all data With Tableau, you can analyze & share all kinds of informational formats, from spreadsheets to databases, to Hadoop or cloud services 72 MAY 2017

Features smart dashboards It combines multiple data viewpoints, with data visualization best practices embedded right in the app Updates automatically You get the newest information, with a live connection to your data or you can schedule updates to your liking It can share data in a blink Anyone can publish a dashboard, and with a few clicks, it’s ready to be shared across the web and on mobile devices as well As far as tech specs required to use Tableau, one needs either Windows 7 or a newer version or OSX 10.10 or a newer version.

In addition to this, Tableau is Unicode-enabled and compatible with data stored in any language. Up so far, the interface and documentation are in English, French, German, Spanish, Brazilian, Portuguese, Japanese, Korean and Simplified Chinese.

From startups to SMEs to big business – anyone can use a software tool that’s as reliable and customizable as Tableau. Create dashboards & examine data on the go, and share it afterwards 10 times faster than you would normally, with any other data visualization software.

Tableau translates numbers into dreams come true.

SOFTWARE

Slack

The business version of Discord In the last few months, a new competitors arrived on the chat software scene – Discord. It aims at providing friends, family and acquaintances alike an alternative medium to Skype, where they can get in touch, share pictures, files and most importantly – chat. But does Microsoft Teams and Skype for Business have a similar alternative? Yes they do – Slack.

Similar to Discord, Slack’s main way of organizing chat experiences is through channels, which people can join at their will. Think of these as open conference calls, where anyone can join in and leave, as long as they are open; if a user wishes to make a private channel, he can do that as well, by barring access via a password.

In addition to this, the trusty ol’ direct messaging is still here, just as with Skype for Business, is the fact that you can search the content of every any other chat software, but what Slack has over Discord are direct video file. Yes, you can search within PDFs, Word documents, Google docs or voice calls, in any channel or direct message. and so on, to find exactly what info you need, when you need it.

Once more, just like with Discord, you can drag, drop and share any of your files and if you use services like Google Drive, Dropbox or Box, you can simply paste the link and that document is immediately synced and searchable as well.

Furthermore, another similarity between the two is the search option, which has always been one of Discord’s strongest points, when compared to its competitors. You can search your entire archive of messages, notifications and files at once – everything is indexed automatically and lumped together. An extra advantage of Slack’s, as opposed to Teams or

One last noteworthy point to make here is Slack’s adaptability - it features apps for both iOS and Android and is fully customizable to fit your business’s size, be it small, medium or even large, by virtue of its shared channels option between workspaces, which connects entire team channels when needed.

Slack is a free-to-use software, but also features paid plans, for users that want to access even more options than the free version offers. So if smoother business communication is something your organization needs, don’t slack and give this software a try!

It does your finances for you, highlighting precisely what kind of financial info you need to provide, after which it will do its magic and presto – now you have pinpoint accurate financial data, with all the necessary tables and graphs, to show to whichever interested party you may wish to engage.

LivePlan

Palo Alto’s No. 1 Business Planning Software If you’re a business professional or practitioner with a hefty schedule and little-to-no-time for planning, then possibly investing in a software solution that gets all the planning out of the way and leaves you only with the business, like LivePlan.

Unlike many other business planning solutions, LivePlan walks the user through all of its functions, from the most basic ones to the most advanced, every single time, if you wish to. It asks questions about your business, you provide the answer, and then you’ll receive instructions, with practical examples, on ways to write a sales/business offer pitch that will surely grab any investor’s attention, on what things you absolutely need to include in your marketing plan, what info should appear in your ads and many other such aspects.

LivePlan features 10 document themes, so you can choose and customize the look for your plans, you can download them in PDF or Word format or even print them, if you so choose to. Furthermore, the software’s online resource offers its users a library filled with hundreds of legal forms, that cover credit applications, contractor agreements, employee contracts and many more; in addition to this, LivePlan also shows you whether you are charging enough for your products, will you manage to meet your goals because of this and how you are faring against your industry competitors.

Moreover, the software grants its users 3 methods of solving any issues they might encounter: you can call a LivePlan Expert, you can start a chat with their support team or you can refer to any of the 500 sample plans and tutorial videos that are built into the software.

All of this and more, for a monthly subscription plan of $19.95, with your first month being priced at only $9.95. Therefore, if you feel the need for speed in your business, let LivePlan handle all the nitty gritty calculations and you just set your mind on improving the numbers used for them.

MAY 2017 73

RECOMMENDED

RECOMMENDATIONS

Must-haves for your 2017 reading list 1

3

2 1. Managing Millennials - The 5 Minute Guide

(Sales Management, Team Management, Motivation Management)

By Jake Archer

4

6

2. How to Dissolve the Divide: Tales from the Business-Management World

By J. D. Strazz

Whether you are managing a small team in a start-up business or running multiple teams from a distance, the methods for understanding your team in this book will help you maximize both your time, and theirs. It will drive sales focus and profitability, whilst nurturing people within the teams to outperform expectation. Let the author take you through my vision and explain the 5 types of people you work with and how to manage them successfully.

Veteran businessman John Strazz explains how to replace workplace anger, resentment, and miscommunication with a more positive, mutually respectful work culture. Beginning with the need to educate the workforce on the value of expert management, Strazz goes on to discuss the corresponding side of the equation—understanding that a company’s most important asset is its workforce.

3. Entrepreneurship: An Entrepreneur's Guide to Wealth Building

4. Strategy Driven for Success Handbook: Deploy Strategies - Achieve Objectives - Celebrate Successes

By Benjamin Sallai

This book gives aspiring entrepreneurs, business owners, and freelancers an eye-opening, in-depth look at not only what it takes to be one of these inspired few who live life on their own terms, but also how to build a sustainable cycle of wealth that will help them reach their goals for the long run. Readers will learn how to think, plan, act and find self-fulfillment in their entrepreneurial dreams. More importantly, you’ll find out more about the pitfalls that befall most new entrepreneurs.

By Rod Baxter

The strategy driven handbook combines elements of the strategy development, deployment, execution, and measurement using Kpis and balanced and cascading scorecards to achieve strategic goals and objectives. It provides guidance through a seven-step approach - Step One - Set the Strategic Goals; Step Two - Understand the Kpis; Step Three - Create Cultural Engagement; Step Four - Construct the Initiatives; Step Five - Execute with Rigor and Discipline; Step Six - Sustain Result with Scorecards; Step Seven - Salute the Organization.

5. A Guide to the Balanced Hoshin: A Better Way to Plan and Execute Strategy

6. Budgeting, Forecasting and Planning In Uncertain Times

The Balanced Hoshin is a strategic planning and communication tool. It’s a conversation starter, and an information radiator. All you need to start aligning your vision and goals is right here in this short guide. From the Top Floor to the Shop Floor, experience strategy execution as you have never before!

Budgeting, planning and forecasting are critical management tasks that not only impact the future success of an organization, but can threaten its very survival if done badly. Learn how to manage today’s speedy business world. Consequently, traditional planning processes have become unsuitable for most organization’s needs and we need to find new ones!

By Paul Osborn, Dave Nave

74 MAY 2017

5

By Michael Coveney, Gary Cokins

RECOMMENDATIONS

catch me if you can hustling at its finest O and check forging and think to himself ”hey, this is a

ne would not usually watch a movie about swindling

good business movie”, until you get to see the entire story and how it develops – that is when the greater picture really shines.

Catch Me If You Can is based on a true story, the story of Frank Abagnale, who in this movie is played by Leonardo DiCaprio as Frank Abagnale Jr. Frank Abagnale was a famous check forger, imposter and confidence trickster between the ages 15 – 21, having claimed over 8 identities in order to keep his check forging going. He went from being an airline pilot, a physician, a resort manager, to a U.S. Bureau of Prisons agent and and a lawyer, to name just a few.

Nowadays, he has left his troubled past behind him and has been working for the past years as a consultat and lecturer for the FBI academy and field offices.

The movie portrays a young man whose family is breaking apart, after his father, Frank Abagnale (Christopher Walken) – was caught after many a years in which he had commited tax fraud. The family had to relocate in order to avoid the government, which meant Frank Abagnale Jr had to go to another school. This is where his first identity shift came into play.

After entering the school and being bumped into by the local school bullies, he went to his French class, only to find them there. Upon realizing that he would not have a good time, he instantly assumes a very grave demeanor, writes his name on the blackboard and pretends to be the substitute French teacher that was to come take the place of the regular French teacher, who was in maternity leave.

After he calms everyone down and begin their lesson, the actual substitute teacher walks in and mentions that she has come to take care of the class. This was when audacity struck once more for Frank – he maintained his composure and simply told her that he always substitutes French classes and that he does not understand why she was called. He continued substituting for the following weeks, even trying to plan a school outing to the local museum after having held a meeting with his students’ parents. That’s when some of the parents became suspicious and reported this alleged substitute teacher to the dean, seeing as he seemed to be too young for a teacher. Frank’s parents are called to school, where the dean explains what had happened, but after the meeting, his father laughs his way out of school, along with his son.

Life continues to go from bad to worse, given that their financial power had dwindled, which causes Frank’s parents to initiate a divorce. Appalled by this decision, he cannot choose whom he would like to live with and decides to run away. He tries his hand at check forging, but not having the proper insight on how to print such checks and not being a reputable individual, he gets shut down by every single bank. After leaving from the last bank, he walks past a few flight attendants that were accompanied by their pilots, when he gets a stroke of genius – he could try to con his way into being a pilot and so he does. After a few good months of impersonating a pilot, he learns that an FBI agent, Carl Hanratty (Tom Hanks) is tracking him, which becomes the catalyst for his numerous impersonations.

Knowing that he cannot assume one persona for too long, he switches from being a pilot to a resort manager, after which he becomes a doctor, a lawyer, a U.S. Bureau of Prisons agent and more.

MAY 2017 75

JOIN OUR GLOBAL PARTNERSHIP NETWORK WE VALUE STRONG PARTNERSHIPS AND THEIR POTENTIAL TO SUPPORT PERFORMANCE DEVELOPMENT WORLDWIDE Our partners have the unique advantage of selling and delivering the world’s most comprehensive training on KPIs selection, documentation and reporting, a result of our research in performance management system implementation.

BENEFITS Worldwide reach. Over 5000 certified KPI world-wide professionals.

Partnering with the leader. Proven global leader in performance management and KPIs training.

Collaborate for success. Management tools, technical guidance, and go-to-market resources to help you become a performance management expert and drive business success.

Develop unrivalled expertise. The KPI Institute insight plus Membership online sales and our consultant resource centers provide partners with the same tools and reference materials that our employees use in the field.

PROUD OF OUR LATEST PARTNERS

Find more about Partnership Programs here: partnership.kpiinstitute.org/

MARCH 2016 76

Performance Magazine, Printed Edition. Eighth issue, May, 2017. Content: News. A 4-Step Process to Better Prioritze Decisions. Bassita – Making Social Change a Breeze. Cybercrime – The Digital Enemy of the 21st Century. Mobile Banking – Digital Innovation in the Banking Industry. Tesla’s Highly Ambitious Battery Plan. Urban Vertical Farming – The Latest Trends in Agriculture. Small Business Optimism is as High as Never Before. Cover story: Top 5 cities with the Best Quality of Life in the world. Expert Interviews: Mohamed Zairi, CEO/Executive Chairman, Excellence Tetralogy/European Centre for Best Practice Management and Zairi Institute, United Kingdom. Marwan Mohammed Malibari, KPI Portfolio Manager, Vision 2030 Realization Office, Saudi Arabia. Paul Moroney, Chief Product Officer, ActiveOps Limited, United Kingdom. Rahma Himid, Founder & CEO/Regional Director, Grace & Garbo PR Consultants/BGIA, UAE. Ahmad Haji, Performance Manager – Corporate Strategy & PMO, GASCO, National Gas & Industrialization Company, Saudi Arabia.

Ali Khursheed Ahmad, Group Performance Manager, FHG, Saudi Arabia. Hosni Mahjoub, Group Head of Strategy and Performance, Batelco Group, Bahrain. Portrait. Fabian Mora, Director at Lighthouse PM Consulting, Costa Rica. Planning, Measurement and a never-ending thirst for Improvement. Around the World: Monitoring Governmental performance in Pakistan. The revolutionary blueprint of post-oil Saudi Arabia. The State of Texas: Fostering Transparency for Government Performance. Vietnam – A story about Ambition and Growth Performance. Individual Performance. A Glimpse into the Future of Employee Performance Management. HR performance at Apple, Google and Statoil. Organizational Performance.

Achieving and managing performance in coffee shops: The Starbucks experience. Operational Performance. Improving the sustainability of operations within the tourism industry. Why Live Chat Is The Best Customer Service Right Now. Strategy and Business Planning. Discovery Driven Planning – A Different & Unconventional Plan. Balanced Scorecard.

How Apple uses the Balanced Scorecard. KPIs. May’s smartKPI: % Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE). Performance Improvement. America’s Swimming Program – An Excellence Study. Ask the Experts. How to measure the performance of your Accounting Department. Lifestyle. Self-Control – The Key to Staying Productive. The Key Effects of Training and Detraining. Travel Hacking – Tips and Tricks to Become a Professional Traveler. Hardware Review. The Dell 27 Utra HD 4k Monitor – P2715Q. Nima – The Gluten Detector. XOEye Smartglasses – Wearables Fit for Business. Kingston’s DataTraveler Ultimate GT. Software Review. LivePlan – Palo Alto’s No. 1 Business Planning Software. Slack – the business version of Discord. Tableau – Data Analysis for days!. Recommended. Titles to include in your 2017 reading list. Managing Millennials – The 5 Minute Guide, by Jake Archer. How to Dissolve the Divide: Tales from the Business-Management World, by J. D. Strazz.

Entrepreneurship: An Entrepreneur’s Guide to Wealth Building, by Benjamin Sallai. Strategy Driven for Success Handbook: Deploy Strategies – Achieve Objectives – Celebrate Successes, by Rod Baxter. A Guide to the Balanced Hoshin: A Better Way to Plan and Execute Strategy, by Paul Osborn, Dave Nave. Budgeting, Forecasting and Planning in Uncertain Times, Michael Coveney, Gary Cokins. Movie. Catch Me If You Can – hustling at its finest. Keywords: Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). Balanced Scorecard. Performance Management. Performance Measurement. Strategy. Employee Performance Management. Personal Performance Management. Benchmarking. Balanced Scorecard Management System Performance.

Measurement. Management. Business Intelligence. Education. Solution. Problem-solving. Decision-making. Project Management. Project Planning. KPI Selection. KPI Documentation. KPI Evaluation. Data gathering. Data presentation.

Expert Interviews. Academics. Consultants. Events. Research. Mission. Vision. Strategy. Best know-how. Data and Facts.

Common Sense. Data Accuracy. Performance Magazine Focus Categories: Editorials. Articles. News. Interviews. Multimedia.

Strategy. Balanced Scorecard. KPI. Organizational Performance. Operational Performance. Individual Performance. Personal Performance. Around the World. The KPI Institute’s Professional Certification Programs. Certified Strategy and Business Planning Professional. Certified KPI Professional and Practitioner. Certified Performance Improvement Professional. Certified Employee Performance Management Professional.

Certified Personal Performance Professional. Certified Data Visualization Professional.

Certified Data Analysis Professional. Certified Benchmarking Professional. Certified