Killer Analytics

Learn the secrets to using analytics to grow your business

Analytics continues to trend as one of the hottest topics in the business community today. With ever-growing amounts of business data and evolving performance management/business intelligence architectures, how well your business does analyzing its data will differentiate you from your competition. Killer Analytics explores how you can use the muscle of analytics to measure new business elements. Author Mark Brown introduces 20 new metrics that can drive competitive advantage for your business, including social networks, sustainability, culture, innovation, employee satisfaction, and other key business elements.

• Shows organizations how to use analytics to measure key elements of business performance not traditionally measured
• Introduces 20 new metrics that drive competitive advantage
• Reveals how to measure social networking, sustainability, innovation, culture, and more

Aside from the science and process of analytics, businesses need to think outside the box in terms of what they are measuring and how new analytical tools can be used to measure business elements such as innovation or sustainability. Opening the doors to a powerful new way of measuring your business, Killer Analytics saves you a small fortune on consultants with dynamic, forward-thinking advice for making the most of every component of your business.

Foreword xv

Preface xix

Acknowledgments xxvii

Introduction: What are Predictive Analytics? 1

Learning from Past Mistakes 1

Organizational Cholesterol 3

Uses of Predictive Analytics 3

Analytics versus Formulas versus Singular Metrics 8

Time Perspectives 10

Past, Present, and Future 10

Analytics are Superior to Individual Metrics 11

Myths and Facts about Analytics 15

Analytics Used for Studies versus Ongoing Performance Measurement 18

Part One Operational Analytics 21

Chapter 1 The Innovation Index 23

What is Important about Innovation? 24

Types of Organizations Where This Metric is Appropriate 28

How Does This Impact Performance? 29

Mostly Worthless Innovation Metrics 30

Cost and Effort to Measure 31

How Do I Measure It? 32

Formula and Frequency 35

Variations 35

Targets and Benchmarks 36

Benefits of Data 36

Note 37

Chapter 2 The Supply Chain Index 39

Types of Organizations Where This Metric is Appropriate 41

How Does This Impact Performance? 42

Cost and Effort to Measure 42

How Do I Measure It? 43

Formula and Frequency 47

Variations 48

Targets and Benchmarks 48

Benefits of Data 49

Chapter 3 The Project Management Index 51

Types of Organizations Where This Metric is Appropriate 53

How Does This Impact Performance? 53

Cost and Effort to Measure 54

How Do I Measure It? 56

Process and Churn: Two Additional Metrics to Consider in a Project Management Analytic 57

Measuring Risk on Projects 59

Variations 60

Formula and Frequency 61

Targets and Benchmarks 62

Benefits of Data 62

Chapter 4 The Enterprise Excellence Index 65

Why Trash All These Sacred Cows? 65

Types of Organizations Where This Metric is Appropriate 67

How Does This Impact Performance? 68

Cost and Effort to Measure 69

How Do I Measure It? 70

Knowledge Management Metrics 71

Lean or Six Sigma Metrics 74

Formula and Frequency 75

Variations 77

Targets and Benchmarks 77

Benefits of Data 77

Note 78

Chapter 5 The Risk Index 79

Types of Organizations Where This Metric is Appropriate 80

How Does This Impact Performance? 80

Cost and Effort to Measure 81

How Do I Measure It? 82

Variations 88

Formula and Frequency 89

Benefits of Data 89

Chapter 6 The Opportunity Management Index 91

Types of Organizations Where This Metric is Appropriate 92

How Does This Impact Performance? 93

Cost and Effort to Measure 95

How Do I Measure It? 95

Formula and Frequency 99

Variations 99

Targets and Benchmarks 100

Benefits of Data 100

Chapter 7 The External Factors Index 103

Types of Organizations Where This Metric is Appropriate 105

How Does This Impact Performance? 106

Cost and Effort to Measure 107

How Do I Measure It? 107

Variations 109

Formula and Frequency 109

Targets and Benchmarks 110

Benefits of Data 110

Chapter 8 The Sustainability Index 113

Types of Organizations Where This Metric is Appropriate 114

How Does This Impact Performance? 115

Cost and Effort to Measure 115

How Do I Measure It? 116

Variations 118

Formula and Frequency 120

Targets and Benchmarks 121

Benefits of Data 121

Note 121

Part Two Customer and Stakeholder Analytics 123

Chapter 9 The Outcomes Index 125

Types of Organizations Where This Metric is Appropriate 127

How Does This Impact Performance? 128

Cost and Effort to Measure 129

How Do I Measure It? 129

Formula and Frequency 131

Variations 132

Targets and Benchmarks 132

Benefits of Data 133

Chapter 10 The Customer Engagement Index 135

Types of Organizations Where This Metric is Appropriate 136

How Does This Impact Performance? 137

Cost and Effort to Measure 138

How Do I Measure It? 139

What Factors Should Be Included in a Customer Engagement Index? 141

Variations 146

Formula and Frequency 147

Benefits of Data 147

Note 147

Chapter 11 The Social Network Index 149

Net Promoter Score: The New and Improved Survey Method 151

Types of Organizations Where This Metric is Appropriate 151

How Does This Impact Performance? 153

Cost and Effort to Measure 155

How Do I Measure It? 156

Sorting Out the Beautiful from the Ugly Customers 157

Variations 160

Targets and Benchmarks 160

Benefits of Data 161

Notes 161

Chapter 12 The Service Excellence Index 163

Types of Organizations Where This Metric is Appropriate 164

How Does This Impact Performance? 165

Cost and Effort to Measure 165

How Do I Measure It? 166

Formula and Frequency 172

Variations 173

Targets and Benchmarks 173

Benefits of Data 174

Chapter 13 The Customer Rage Index 175

Problems with Customer Surveys 177

Types of Organizations Where This Metric is Appropriate 178

How Does This Impact Performance? 179

Cost and Effort to Measure 180

How Do I Measure It? 181

Tracking Aggravations at Different Types of Organizations 181

Hospital Rage Index 182

Advantages and Disadvantages of the Aggravation or Rage Index 183

Constructing the Index 183

Formula and Frequency 184

Variations 185

Targets and Benchmarks 185

Benefits of Data 185

Chapter 14 The American Index 187

Types of Organizations Where This Metric is Appropriate 189

How Does This Impact Performance? 189

Cost and Effort to Measure 190

How Do I Measure It? 191

Variations 191

Formula and Frequency 192

Targets and Benchmarks 193

Benefits of Data 193

Chapter 15 The Corporate Citizenship Index 195

Types of Organizations Where This Metric is Appropriate 197

How Does This Impact Performance? 198

Cost and Effort to Measure 199

How Do I Measure It? 199

Formula and Frequency 204

Variations 205

Targets and Benchmarks 205

Benefits of Data 205

Notes 206

Part Three People Analytics 207

Chapter 16 The Human Capital Index 209

Types of Organizations Where This Metric is Appropriate 211

How Does This Impact Performance? 212

Cost and Effort to Measure 214

How Do I Measure It? 215

Formula and Frequency 221

Variations 222

Targets and Benchmarks 223

Benefits of Data 223

Chapter 17 The Workforce Happiness Index 225

What Makes Employees Happy? 226

Types of Organizations Where This Metric is Appropriate 227

How Does This Impact Performance? 228

A Culture of Weirdness and Fun 230

Cost and Effort to Measure 231

How Do I Measure It? 231

Net Promoter Score 233

Using Social Media to Track Employee Happiness 234

Formula and Frequency 235

Variations 236

Targets and Benchmarks 237

Benefits of Data 237

Note 238

Chapter 18 The Culture Index 239

Types of Organizations Where This Metric is Appropriate 240

How Does This Impact Performance? 243

Pets before Profits: Purina’s Corporate Culture 244

Cost and Effort to Measure 245

How Do I Measure It? 245

Variations 248

Formula and Frequency 249

Targets and Benchmarks 250

Benefits of Data 250

Note 251

Chapter 19 The Distraction Index 253

Types of Organizations Where This Metric is Appropriate 254

How Does This Impact Performance? 255

Cost and Effort to Measure 256

How Do I Measure It? 257

Formula and Frequency 258

Variations 258

Targets and Benchmarks 259

Benefits of Data 259

Chapter 20 The Corporate Wellness Index 261

Types of Organizations Where This Metric is Appropriate 263

How Does This Impact Performance? 264

Halfhearted Approaches to Wellness 265

What Really Works: Tough Policies 265

What Really Works: In-House Health and Wellness Centers 266

What Really Works: Hiring the Right People 267

Cost and Effort to Measure 268

How Do I Measure It? 269

Variations 273

Formula and Frequency 274

Targets and Benchmarks 274

Benefits of Data 275

Note 275

About the Author 277

Index 279

For more than thirty years, MARK GRAHAM BROWN has consulted for businesses, including Pfizer, Medtronic, Nestlé Purina, and Sysco, as well as a host of government and military clients on how to improve their performance. Regarded as one of the top experts in the world on performance measurement, Mark has written over fifty articles on performance management and is the author of four books. He conducts public workshops in the United States and Europe for the Institute of Management Studies and keynotes for professional events around the world.

Today's companies are drowning in data while thirsting for insights. Being able to detect little problems or challenges—morale, innovation, sustainability—before they escalate into bigger ones is a key requirement for managing organizational performance and success. Killer Analytics goes beyond the oversimplified formulas and lagging singular metrics and digs deeper into analytics to provide you with real business insights to help you make informed decisions.

Sharing his thirty years of experience helping companies improve their performance, author Mark Graham Brown helps you identify and address the root cause for missing your financial targets—including dissatisfied customers, unhappy employees, external factors, poor performing suppliers, legal/regulatory issues, or failure to bring in quality new customers.

Featuring twenty metric indices that help you measure components of business performance that traditionally are not measured, Killer Analytics helps you identify and address the weak links in your organization, including:

• Innovation
• Supply Chain
• Project Management
• Risk
• Opportunity Management
• Sustainability Index
• Customer/Stakeholder Analytics
• Outcomes
• Customer Engagement and Rage
• Social Network Index
• Corporate Citizenship
• Human Capital
• Workforce Happiness

In Killer Analytics, you'll discover powerful new ways of combining individual metrics—qualitative and quantitative, past, present, and future—into indices and analytics approaches that generate more intelligent insights. For each analytics approach, Brown provides a list of questions for you to answer, providing a starting point for choosing the right individual metrics and analytics to provide insights for your unique business challenges.

Each chapter explores why the measure is important, how it benefits your organization, and how to measure the factors that go into a recommended analytic. In each case, a generic model is presented of the index that will mostly need to be customized for your own organization.

Learn to diagnose your corporation's hidden land mines and develop strategic foresight and predictions for your company's future with the groundbreaking metrics found in Killer Analytics.

Today's companies are drowning in data while thirsting for insights. Being able to detect little problems or challenges—morale, innovation, sustainability—before they escalate into bigger ones is a key requirement for managing organizational performance and success. Killer Analytics goes beyond the oversimplified formulas and lagging singular metrics and digs deeper into analytics to provide you with real business insights to help you make informed decisions.

Sharing his thirty years of experience helping companies improve their performance, author Mark Graham Brown helps you identify and address the root cause for missing your financial targets—including dissatisfied customers, unhappy employees, external factors, poor performing suppliers, legal/regulatory issues, or failure to bring in quality new customers.

Featuring twenty metric indices that help you measure components of business performance that traditionally are not measured, Killer Analytics helps you identify and address the weak links in your organization, including:

• Innovation
• Supply Chain
• Project Management
• Risk
• Opportunity Management
• Sustainability Index
• Customer/Stakeholder Analytics
• Outcomes
• Customer Engagement and Rage
• Social Network Index
• Corporate Citizenship
• Human Capital
• Workforce Happiness

In Killer Analytics, you'll discover powerful new ways of combining individual metrics—qualitative and quantitative, past, present, and future—into indices and analytics approaches that generate more intelligent insights. For each analytics approach, Brown provides a list of questions for you to answer, providing a starting point for choosing the right individual metrics and analytics to provide insights for your unique business challenges.

Each chapter explores why the measure is important, how it benefits your organization, and how to measure the factors that go into a recommended analytic. In each case, a generic model is presented of the index that will mostly need to be customized for your own organization.

Learn to diagnose your corporation's hidden land mines and develop strategic foresight and predictions for your company's future with the groundbreaking metrics found in Killer Analytics.