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Posts Tagged ‘crisis’

Corporate Communications as Performance Control during Economic Crisis

April 28th, 2009

Performance control during economic crisis is very important anywhere. This is more easily achieved through corporate communications or open communication across all department levels.

With the effects of recession sinking their hooks in the corporate world, it becomes more and more difficult for companies to seek whatever kind of relief that is available to them. This is precisely why it is important for companies to take the initiative themselves and find ways and means to do whatever it takes to stay afloat. The time has definitely come for companies to ensure performance control during economic crisis and one of the effective ways to do this is to implement corporate communications.

To do this, it is a must to define corporate communications first. This endeavor has certainly evolved in form over the years and with this evolution comes significant changes in the form of potentials and objectives. However, what does remain the same is the primary goal of maintaining open communication with stockholders, customers, the media, and even the employees of the enterprise. The great thing about corporate communications today is the fact that there are so many available tools in the market today. Thus, it would be so much easier to maintain performance control through this tool, right? Well, yes and no.

Yes, it makes thing easier because now, you can better reach out to your target audiences through the many communication mediums – blogs, web portals, RSS feeds, emails, and even podcasts. What makes it hard though is the search for the appropriate medium. Choosing the best medium demands comprehension of all aspects involved – including employees and situations. Effective handling of this economic crisis thereby requires not just the perfect medium but the perfect people as well – handled by equally perfect executives and managers.

But why corporate communications? Why shouldn’t the company just exhaust their efforts into something that could be more worth their while? This is because when information is not clear within the company – amongst employees and stockholders – then this basically opens Pandora’s Box. Employees and even stockholders might choose to desert the enterprise. Customers, on the other hand, would definitely switch to a more reliable and credible company. The media would then capitalize on this, airing rumors and false stories just to stir up some profit on their end. The government would then implement stricter rules, making it all the more difficult for the enterprise to stay afloat. With all these bound to happen, you yourself can say that corporate communications is a very important aspect in performance control during this crisis, right?

Economic crises would affect, first and foremost, the employees and the stockholders. It is understandable for employees to worry about the safety of the jobs they are holding. If the enterprise is not able to assure job safety to their employees, then this could result to high attrition, low morale, as well as less productivity. Also, if information is timely communicated to employees, this could be good for the company because the employees can very well be the strong base of the company, thereby giving a positive image. Stockholders, on the other hand, could easily sell off their stocks. Good for you if only one or two stockholders would leave the company – but what if this is done in larger numbers? This could then affect not just the present of the company, but definitely the future.

Performance control during economic crisis could definitely be achieved through corporate communications. This is then an option you should consider and prioritize.

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Controlling Performance during Economic Downturn through Recession Metrics

April 1st, 2009

Controlling performance during economic downturn is a must to better deal with the effects of recession. Recession metrics should then be implemented to better handle the situation.

The recession that we are all experiencing and suffering from certainly has pretty much all of us on our toes – literally and figuratively. This is why controlling performance during economic downturn is a must and this should be prioritized by companies worldwide. Now, there have not been that too many set standards and forecasts in this arena because this recession is unlike any other that the world has gone through. Thus, this is just about the newest obstacle that the global economy has going on today. This is why it is extremely important to consider the implementation of recession KPIs or key performance indicators.

You might think that it would not be worth the risk to implement recession metrics or KPIs anymore because this period of recession might end anytime soon. Should it end, then the KPIs implemented would then be an unworthy investment altogether. However, you should not be worrying about that because this recession is not leaving us anytime soon, unfortunately, and this claim is supported by economic trends, stats, and figures presented by expert analysts. We are even quite far from the lowest point still. Thus, you should really consider implementing recession KPIs to deal with this economic downturn and control the performance of your enterprise.

How then should you begin the process of developing recession KPIs? The first step is actually one of the most important ones because it requires you to take a step back from your company and look at it from an objective perspective. This is a bit hard to do because you have been working in the enterprise for quite some time already. Still, you need to do this so that you can proceed to the next step.

The next step is to determine the possible causes behind all existing problems in your company. You have to look internally and externally for this so that all sorts of problems could be examined and analyzed. If you are not too sure about what problems to find, then look for signs – the qualitative and the quantitative. Quantitative ones can be in the form of declining market margins and increasing debts of the short-term kind. Qualitative signs, on the other hand, include high turnover – whether employee or manager – and the degradation of the company’s market value. With the company’s market value degrading, then it would not be too far off for employees and even clients to start looking for more reliable companies to do business with.

Next, you should determine if your IT systems are still effective. Look at the information that your existing IT systems are producing. Are they still relevant? Or do you need to modify your IT systems? And if yes, in what way? To do this, you can use business intelligence software to come up with the appropriate recession metrics.

The next step is to determine the necessary plans of action. For the most part, members of the senior management are the ones that would need to develop these strategies, as well as communicate these to stakeholders, investors, and the employees as well. All of these and more should be taken into account when developing recession metrics for the purpose of controlling performance during economic downturn.

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New opportunities to manage crisis with strategy maps

March 25th, 2009

The new version of Balanced Scorecard Designer now supports strategy maps, that is a great way to represent goals of your company or crisis management program in the visual way. The map supports not only performance indicators, but any visual, custom object can be added to the map.

Here is how the crisis management strategy map looks like:

Strategy map for crisis management plan

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Managing financial performance during crisis

March 12th, 2009

KPI Name: Financial Crisis Balanced Scorecard Metrics

Related KPIs: Financial Statement Analysis, Market Risk, Financial Risks, Operational Risk, Active Portfolio Management, Financial Outsourcing, Financial Benchmarking, Personal Finance

Customers also viewed: Accounting Metrics | Banking Metrics

Sample reports:

Some reports were generated with Balanced Scorecard Designer for the Financial Crisis Balanced Scorecard Metrics KPI to show both – Balanced Scorecard Designer functionality and a part of KPI content:

Balanced Scorecard Designer Screenshot:

Financial

The Balanced Scorecard Designer software was used to create this KPI.

Description by authors:

When an organization experiences a financial downturn, it has to take into consideration a variety of factors to effectively deal with the situation. The need of the time is to use a standard framework that can help in getting a holistic view of the business. KPIs arranged in a Balanced Scorecard can help the business in managing its performance during a financial crunch.

KPIs in this regard can be broadly grouped under four perspectives- financial, business development, operational and workforce management.

Financial Management consists of KPIs such as % increase in credit days, % decrease in debtor days, liquidity ratio, accuracy of financial risk forecasts and consistency of cash flows.

Business Development Perspective takes into account KPIs like number of new long-term contracts initiated, client oriented products and services introduced, lead generation effectiveness, response level.

Operational Perspective provides an insight of the operations of the business. It comprises of KPIs like % reduction in decision-making and lead time, % decrease in cycle time to resolve adjustments, simplification of lending conditions and identification of negative patterns.

Workforce Management Perspective provides measures to effectively manage the workforce during financial crunch. It includes KPIs such as % decrease in staff turnover rate, training uptake, % decrease in sickness/absence Level, crisis communication and continuity of information and feedback.

KPI in Excel – Screenshot:

This is the actual scorecard with Financial Crisis Indicators and performance indicators.

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KPI for measuring performance of Crisis Management companies

March 11th, 2009

KPI Name: Crisis Management Companies Balanced Scorecard Metrics

Related KPIs: Mergers and Acquisitions, Data Loss, Government Crisis Management

Customers also viewed: Risk Metrics Pack

Sample reports:

Some reports were generated with Balanced Scorecard Designer for the Crisis Management Companies Balanced Scorecard Metrics KPI to show both – Balanced Scorecard Designer functionality and a part of KPI content:

Balanced Scorecard Designer Screenshot:

Crisis

The Balanced Scorecard Designer software was used to create this KPI.

Description by authors:

Key performance indicators (KPIs) are the yardsticks against which an organization can easily measure its current performance and at the same time, devise methods to control future activities. They protect the companies from deviating and falling into a crisis situation.

Undoubtedly, for a Crisis management company KPIs can be immensely helpful. For such companies, they can be broadly classified into four categories: Financial, Customer, Education and growth and Internal processes.

Financial indicators reflect the performance of the company in financial terms. Revenues generated, profits earned, fee charged etc., can be used as parameters here.
Customer perspective refers to the image of the company among its customers on the basis of its various accomplishments. This can be known by the number of clients, cases resolved, awards and credibility ratings.

A very important aspect for the working of a crisis management company is to ensure that its employees possess the right kind of skills and training to tackle any kind of situation. Therefore, number of technical and psychological training sessions held, counseling provided and compensation play a significant role.

Internal processes perspective is another important dimension to look out for. Efficiency of the company would depend on the time it takes to resolve the issues, number of experienced personals and different services provided across various fields.

KPI in Excel – Screenshot:

This is the actual scorecard with Crisis Management Companies Performance Indicators and performance indicators.

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