Chris Brahm: How to Measure the Metrics That Matter

Many companies historically have lacked the data they needed to make the right decisions. Chris Brahm, who leads Bain's Global Advanced Analytics practice, describes improvements in methods of measuring performance and explains why organizations should rethink their metrics for key processes and functions.

Read the Bain Brief: How to Measure the Metrics that Matter 

Read the transcript below.

CHRIS BRAHM: It's often been said that what is measured is managed, and conversely, what isn't measured in the enterprise isn't managed. And in a world, historically, where oftentimes the data didn't exist to measure what you truly wanted to, organizations measured what they could rather than what they should.

Well, today, things are very different. With data exhaust in every process of the enterprise, there are new ways to measure performance and what matters. And it's a critical time for organizations to rethink in their key processes, in their key functions, what really matters. And are there better ways to measure that than they have historically so that they can provide a better signal to the organization on how they're performing and how they're making decisions?

And we've seen this in areas like marketing, where we've moved from cost per impression to cost per action to true ROI. We've seen it in areas like e-commerce, moving from looking at transactional economics to customer lifetime value economics in a given promotion decision or a stage of the customer's interaction with the company. We've seen it in operational areas like call centers, where moving from average talk time to first-time resolution of an issue to customer NPS.

And what we find is that in addition to providing better signals, oftentimes, the consequence of changing to a more holistic, better measure of what actually drives performance leads to profound changes in actually how the business executes. So now is an important time to rethink what really matters and make sure your measurements line up with that in your business.

Read the Brief

How to Measure the Metrics that Matter

Used smartly, data can help measure performance in more nuanced and meaningful ways. Now may be the time to reevaluate your metrics.