An interesting thought concerning innovation, is that many companies, as a matter of fact over 60% of managers don't use metrics to hardly any degree to know if their innovation suggestions and efforts are really paying off. This is according to a BusinessWeek-BCG survey.
Of course nothing is as simple as just starting to measure everything. That is also counterproductive as one company literally collects 85 different metrics. You did not read that wrong: 85 different innovation metrics from one of its businesses.
They are a classic case of overkill as the Surveyors said that this company collects so much that they aren't able to manage any of it. Their entire strategy is simply collecting information and doing nothing with it.
According to the survey the companies that had the most success in their metrics were those collecting between around 8-12 of them.
Approximately two-thirds of those managers surveyed said that metrics was the major determining factor in selecting which ideas or products to finance and develop.
Now here is a figure that somewhat stunned me, almost 50% of the managers said that after products and services were launched, they rarely checked on the impact of those innovations. This is amazing when you think that through. Almost half of the managers launch and just let it go without checking its progress. That is truly an eye opener to me.
Are you measuring anything that is related to innovation? Tell us a little about it.
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This really doesn’t surprise me. Most managers are afraid of the IT machines that produce them. The managers that do use them are so butt deep in them that they are no in touch reality let alone managing. They depend on metrics to make decisions and set goals which are sort of backwards from what a manager should do. Most upper management hides behind them altogether and use them to justify what they have done as far as the company is concerned.
So, where do we go from here? Metrics are a tool and indicate part of a picture and in that sense should be used by management to assist in decision making along with other feedback resources including employee and field rep feedback. All the information then should be funneled into the customer experience management process which supports and drives the rest of the business structure.
Posted by: Tim Whelan | April 18, 2006 6:55 AM | Permalink to Comment