Justifying Investment in Performance
Management Systems

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It's not just smoke and mirrors!

Common sense tells you that investing in performance management systems is worthwhile, but how do you build a compelling business case? In an article in the Wall Street Journal on 9/11/06 Carol Hymowitz commented that "Many CEO's who don't want to step aside still rely on an antiquated strategic planning process that often doesn't help them make better decisions faster."

For many managers the last four words, "make better decisions faster" are the reason for investing in performance management. Today's ultra competitive, volatile and uncertain markets demand that managers are able to make high quality decisions in real time. Traditional static budgeting and reporting processes that rely on the general ledger or ERP system to drive monthly or quarterly processes are increasingly seen as obsolete. Performance management systems provide a set of tools that enables managers to structure their performance management processes to the rhythm of their business not just to the accounting calendar.

Of course, few executives will green light a major investment in new technology solely on the promise of potentially better decision making – though maybe some should! So how do you put a value on better, faster decision making or more accurate forecasts? The simple answer is you can't in the traditional sense of building a straight cost benefit analysis but as with many other types of
investment such as R&D, marketing, and training it is possible to build a compelling case that combines real productivity gains with measurable improvements in effectiveness. The good news is that performance management investments can be justified in a more tangible way. The key is to build the argument around both the objective: "better decisions" and the process: "performance management". Based upon my experience working with over 200 organizations in the area of performance management this translates into describing the impact of performance management in four areas:

1. Process quality
2. Staff leverage
3. Risk mitigation
4. Decision quality

Process quality and staff leverage are the primary sources of cost or efficiency, while risk mitigation and decision quality are the sources of value or effectiveness (Exhibit 1). Through a considered analysis of the likely impact on each of these four variables it is possible to construct a business case that not only justifies your investment in performance management but also serves as a
baseline to measuring benefits realization. Let's look at each of the four elements in turn.

Process Quality

For many years companies have been wrestling with performance management processes that either poorly integrated, slow, excessively detailed, incomplete, lack ownership and accountability, or in some cases all of the above. Jack Welch went so far as to say that "The budgeting process at most companies has to be the most ineffective practice in management" (Winning, Harper Business 2005). His assertion was based upon the tendency for budgeting to become a negotiation process for setting performance targets rather than a planning process designed to drive superior performance. He is right and most managers agree.

In the last few years a new vision for performance management has emerged that is characterized by fast and flexible processes infused with timely information and insightful analysis that allows managers to set long term direction while also constantly fine-tuning tactics in response to opportunities and threats as they occur. The ability of performance management technology to support the collection, analysis and communication of the information required to enable such a process is a defining characteristic of a world-class company.

The most effective measures of process quality address a combination of cycle time and accuracy. The ability to rapidly deliver accurate projections of future performance allows managers to make decisions with confidence. An organization that moves from "Acceptable" to "Best Practice" in each of these areas will typically realize a threefold improvement in the productivity of their standard planning, budgeting and forecasting processes.

Staff Leverage

For many years benchmarks have highlighted the cost reduction opportunities that companies can realize in different business processes. Companies have successfully taken cost out of many finance processes resulting in a 60-65 percent decline in average finance function costs relative to revenue in the last 15 years; however many organizations have not been able to drive a corresponding increase in the value added contribution of finance to the business. Why not? The reasons for this are twofold. First the relative cost reductions have largely been achieved by supporting growing revenue streams with flat or declining finance staffs in basic accounting and transaction processing areas. This has been possible through a potent combination of new technology and best practice processes that have allowed core finance transaction processes to become increasingly more productive. By comparison performance management and decision support processes have to date not reaped the same benefits partially due to a continued reliance on cumbersome ledger or ERP systems combined with a myriad of poorly managed spreadsheets for supporting critical planning, reporting and forecasting processes.

The second reason is that the demands placed upon finance professionals are increasing exponentially as business managers seek to deal with more volatile and uncertain markets while also addressing a never ending stream of compliance issues from Sarbanes-Oxley through the creative dating of stock option grants. These increased demands are being met with at best flat headcount budgets so inevitably service levels suffer. This is where investments in performance management can payoff. The ability to support increased demand cost effectively requires tools and technology that liberate financial staffs from the mundane.

The biggest efficiency gain from investing in performance management comes in the form of staff leverage. Enhanced staff leverage is accomplished in two ways: first, by increasing the ability of managers to satisfy their needs directly through functional self service tools; and second by either eliminating or automating those lower value tasks that consume so much professional staff time. There are three measures that can help companies size their overall opportunity:

1. The Staff Leverage Ratio
2. The Manager Support Ratio; and
3. The Value Added Ratio

Let's look at each in turn. The Staff Leverage Ratio or SLR measures the ratio of productive, high value work undertaken by professional staff versus lower value data manipulation and reporting activities. Examples of high and low value activities are given in exhibit 2. The SLR can be calculated for any group of manager and professional staff and is particularly useful in areas such as finance, marketing, supply chain management, and human resources.

My research shows that the average SLR for U.S. companies is between 0.2 - 0.3; this means that only 20-30% of a manager or professionals' time is devoted to high value work. With average fully loaded compensation for these positions typically in the range of $80,000-$150,000 per year the waste is clear. Two examples will illustrate this:

The economics are compelling but beyond simple economic value are the incremental benefits that can be gained by offering richer and more rewarding roles to finance professionals which can only help in attracting and retaining talent.

The Manager Support Ratio assesses the degree to which processes and systems have been optimized to allow business managers to complete many of the traditional performance management tasks on a self-service basis. This metric looks at the ratio of finance staff engaged in business support relative to the population of managers being supported. For an organization with 100 managers a change in the support ratio from 1:5 to 1:10 can be worth $1 million a year.

Self service can be a contentious subject with some believing that it is a waste for valuable management time to be consumed by processes such as building budgets and developing forecasts, they argue that it is much better to have the finance staff do it. Some organizations choose to make these discretionary investments in order for finance to provide "concierge" service to a broad spectrum of operating managers. This is flawed thinking; as long as we strive to make these self service tasks "value-added" by focusing management time on the key decisions they need to make and eliminating all the lower value tasks through the judicious application of process best practices and best in class performance management technology the time investment is more than offset by increased understanding, accountability and ownership.

The third measure is the Value Added Ratio which is an internal measure of overall finance focus. It looks at the ratio of finance managers and professionals who are engaged in decision support and risk management activities versus those engaged in transaction processing. As I mentioned earlier the overall ratio of finance costs to revenue has declined significantly over the last fifteen years, however there has been little change in the value added ratio – lower value work still consumes 60-65 percent of manager and professional staff time (Exhibit 3). The results of best practice application and performance management deployment will show up in increased focus on the value-added role of finance in managing risk and directly supporting the making of better decisions, faster.

Taken together these three measures establish the economic baseline for justifying your investment in performance management and also address whether talented resources are being effectively utilized. An organization that can move from Acceptable to Best Practice across all three metrics will realize a 30 to 40 percent staff productivity improvement. Some of these benefits can be taken as headcount reduction thereby reducing costs and some can be reinvested to deliver yet more added value through the performance management process.

Risk Mitigation

Successful businesses take risks, as Peter Bernstein commented in his excellent book, Against the Gods – The Remarkable Story of Risk (John Wiley & Sons 1996) "The capacity to manage risk, and with it the appetite to take risk and make forward-looking choices, are key elements of the energy that drives the economic system forward."

Risk-taking is fundamental to a companies' ability to create value. Therefore risk management must be a key element of an effective performance management process. This goes beyond traditional compliance and financial risks to encompass the effectiveness of the planning and performance management processes in:

1. Identifying viable initiatives or projects in pursuit of agreed goals.
2. Identifying those initiatives that are failing and rapidly taking remedial action or canceling them
3. Developing rational estimates of expected benefits and managing the realization of those benefits.

It is not unusual for a company to dedicate 20-30% of its total resources to new projects and initiatives; for a billion dollar company improving the yield on those investments by only 5 percent per year can deliver $15 million in value. Using performance management tools to develop a continuously updated view of the performance of key initiatives allows managers to rapidly identify both opportunities and threats that dictate changes in tactics. The ability to dynamically realign resources across the overall project portfolio is one of the hallmarks of a high performing organization.

Decision Quality

Ultimately the acid test of any performance management process is the quality of the decisions that result. There has been considerable debate recently as to whether it is rational to try and measure performance management effectiveness in terms of business results. Many commentators argue that there are too many other variables at play to link one to the other. Some argue that great decisions may be undone by poor execution. I don't buy these arguments nor should you. Effective performance management embraces all aspects of the management process from setting strategy, developing plans and allocating resources, through the monitoring of performance and the adjustment tactics so failed execution means failed performance management. Failing initiatives should be detected early by the performance management process thereby allowing for management to take appropriate remedial action or if necessary cancel the program. If you accept this definition then the only valid measures of performance management effectiveness are business success.

Any company that has average or worse performance in its chosen markets must make changes to some aspect of its performance management process. These changes maybe in the form of leadership, as the ongoing parade of CEO firings demonstrates, process, organization and/or systems. In most cases, changes in people, process or organization require changes in systems. Hence a key element in justifying any performance management investment is the expected upside in overall business performance.

Conclusion

A comprehensive performance management business case will establish the baseline economics in terms of process quality and staff leverage improvements while setting out clear measures of value added in terms of risk mitigation and decision quality. Taken together these four elements allow organizations to craft a compelling rationale for upgrading their performance management processes. You will notice that this is not a "systems" only argument but an integrated view that combines people, process and systems together. Today more than ever it is almost impossible to isolate the benefits of new systems from the benefits that accrue from improved processes and more effective and productive staff.

About The Author
David Axson is an author and consultant. A former co-founder of The Hackett Group and Head of Corporate Planning at Bank of America he is a highly regarded public speaker. His most recent book is Best Practices in Planning and Performance Management (Wiley 2007).

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