Measurement of Success in Business

StrategyDriven Organizational Performance Measures Article |Measurement of Success|Measurement of Success in BusinessSuccess is a relative term and does not only mean different things for different people but also different things for different businesses. What makes success even more tricky to measure or define is that it also changes over time or circumstance. What could be a success today might be underperformance the next.

As an entrepreneur, the one thing that you want to see is growth, but that growth does not necessarily mean that the bank account is filling up nicely. So how does one go about measuring success in business?

Looking at the business’s financials

Obviously, business financials are a good indication of whether the business is successful or not. No business can survive without money and no business can grow with it either. But when looking at the money, one must focus on all three the major streams or trails of money, the income statement, the balance sheet and the cash flow statement.
The income statement shows you how much money the business made over a period. It indicates the profits and losses of the business and gives an indication of the measure of profitability during the specified time.

Most entrepreneurs who are new to the game will place a very high value on the income statement and can tend to forget about the balance sheet.

The balance sheet is one of the most important financial indicators seeing that it depicts the health of the venture. It measures how much you owe and how much you own. A successful entrepreneur will home in on the debt of the business and strategically align it with the income statement to pay off the debt as soon as possible while still making a profit.

The cash flow of the business shows the state of how liquid the cash in the business is. When there is a cash flow problem, it can cause some serious strain on the other two financial aspects and ultimately lower the success of the business.

As the management writer for write my essay service puts it, “being successful does not necessarily mean that the business is debt, free, but rather that the debt repayments can be made without constraining the cash flow.”

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Customer satisfaction signs

When a customer has a bad experience, they probably will not buy from your business or use your services again. As an entrepreneur, you will know how important customer satisfaction is. Not only does it indicate that the business is doing well, but it is also a reflection of your efforts.

There is a certain pride involved with customer satisfaction, especially if you have poured everything into your business. To get a bad review or to deliver bad service, is like a slap in the face and an attack on your character.

It sometimes happens that bad experiences go unnoticed and this is only because it was not picked up and dealt with. There are many tools available that will help the young entrepreneur to measure how satisfied the clients are.

Surveys and questionnaires are excellent tools that provide an in-depth quality check of your products or services. The review does not necessarily have to be bad to make improvements.

Reviews are very specific and when a bad review is received, it should be dealt with immediately. A bad review could be turned into something positive if the customer feels as though their concerns were heard.

These reviews could also be posted on the company website so that people can see that real people gave their opinions. When you see mostly good reviews and positive surveys, it is a good indication that the company is successful.

The new clients that come in

A successful business will show gradual growth over time. When a business is turning a profit, it generally means that it is good health and successful. However, when the profits stay stagnant, it means that the business is not growing. New customers are a much more reliable indicator of the success of a business.

When you know how many new customers you get, you can measure the success and projected growth of the company. On the other hand, when the same old customers keep you afloat, then it might be time to invest in a marketing strategy. Customers come and go, but if there is not a general influx of customers, they will only end up going.
To see if new customers are supporting you, draw up a client list with email addresses to see if your sales are limited to existing clients.

The statistics writer and researcher at the essay writing service says that once you have a client list and a system in place, you can measure how well your marketing strategies are doing. Every time you launch a new product or run a promotion, you can run averages on your customers and establish which strategy is the best for bringing in new clients.

StrategyDriven Organizational Performance Measures Article |Measurement of Success|Measurement of Success in BusinessIt is not just about the clients

A business can only sustain growth if the people who are doing the work are doing it well. As a young entrepreneur, you might not have too many people working for you, but as your business grows, so also will your list of employees.

One way to measure the success of the business is to see how well the staff are doing. When they are discontent, it could spill over into the quality of their work and threaten the customer experience.

Running performance reviews is an excellent way of finding out where the bad spots are. Many entrepreneurs fail to do performance reviews because they do not want to step on the toes of the employees. The thing is, if they are not made aware of the areas where they lack, they will never know how they can improve.

It also serves as a morale booster when there are performance bonuses on the line. Nothing puts a smile on the faces of employees like money in the bank.

Stay on top of market trends

A successful business is one that keeps with the times. Technology has changed everything in the world, and it continues to change every industry. When your business is successful, it does not mean that you can relax and keep on with the same recipe, expecting the same results.

Unfortunately, you need to keep up with the times and the best way to do this is to see what the competition is doing. If your business is aimed at service delivery and you do not apply the newest techniques, then you will start to see a decline in profits.

Look to yourself

There is a bit of subjectivity involved in measuring the success of a business, which is why you should measure what your business is doing against your own expectations. It does not matter how well it is doing on paper.
If it does not meet your expectations, the business could still be unsuccessful. You need to be content with the growth of the business and if you are not, then a new plan can be drawn up.

Conclusion

The success of any business depends on so many factors that it is hard to put it all into one category. The main thing to remember is to continuously evaluate the state of your business and track where things are going well and where there is a need. The more you tinker with the things you do not like, the more successful the business will become.


About the Author

StrategyDriven Expert Contributor | Tiffany HarperTiffany Harper is a freelance writer from New York. She loves to share her experience through blog posts. She began writing from the professional writer service for Write my essay and later for buy college papers. Please do not hesitate to contact her on twitter.

Why Are Analytics Important for eCommerce?

StrategyDriven Organisational Performance Measures Article |why are analytics important |Why Are Analytics Important for eCommerce?It’s easier than ever to start an eCommerce store. Just sign up for a hosting account, and your store will be ready in a few minutes. Unfortunately, it isn’t as easy to get customers.

You’re competing with at least 12 million other online stores on the internet. The good news is you can make use of website analytics to make better choices for your business.

The question is, why are analytics important for eCommerce websites? Keep reading to learn the answer to your question.

Uncover Your Traffic Sources

It isn’t too difficult to figure out where you’re getting traffic from if you only run advertising on one platform. It’s much more difficult if you’re getting search engine and social media traffic.

Analytics software will show you exactly where your traffic comes from. You’ll be able to gauge which websites are showing the best results from your efforts, so you know where to focus your energy.

Group Audience Segments

Not all customer demographics will respond to your products in the same way. People of different ages, sexes, and geographical locations will react differently to your content. Your tracking software can help you figure out which demographics take what action.

This data will help you optimize your website and advertising campaigns. When you create messaging specifically for different demographics, you can speak more to what they want in a product.

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Split-Test Pages

You should never be satisfied with your website design. There’s always a test you can do to improve your conversion rate. Unfortunately, this is hard to do without any kind of tracking software.

A heatmap is a tracking script that informs you of what actions your visitors take on individual pages. You can see where they look and where they hover their mouse. Use this information to test small changes to your website to figure out which versions produce the best results.

Track Ad Campaigns

It isn’t enough to get click-throughs on your ads. If you have no method to track what visitors do on your website, you won’t be able to figure out what marketing campaigns are successful.

ECommerce analytics software provides you the ability to set up goal pages. Set a dollar amount for these pages, and you’ll be able to figure out how much money your ad campaigns generate while your campaigns are live.

Learn What Visitors Search For

Your search bar isn’t only there to give your visitors an easy way to find items. It’s also there to help you understand the type of products your visitors are searching for.

Using a tool like Knowi will help you gain insight into the search trends on your website. You’ll be able to see reports detailing search terms and use them to figure out what popular items are and what trends are happening in your industry.

Why Are Analytics Important? Now You Know

Now that you can answer the question, “why are analytics important to online stores?” you’re ready to get started. Sign up for an analytics software package today so you can start tracking the people on your website. The more information you have, the better business decisions you’re going to make.

Do you want more tips for running an eCommerce store? Read our latest articles to discover our newest tips.

Managing the Power and Promise of High-Performance Computing

StrategyDriven Organizational Performance Measures Article | Managing the Power and Promise of High-Performance ComputingAs we battle global threats, from COVID-19 to global warming, achieving new heights in data analysis will enable new solutions to world problems. The next major milestone in High Performance Computing (HPC) is “exascale”: over one billion billion calculations per second. These new exascale systems combine the latest technologies in AI, engineering and science, to achieve performance faster than any supercomputer before. But perhaps most surprisingly, these computers will use technology from videogames to achieve this goal.

In 2019, Hyperion Research predicted 26 exascale and near-exascale HPC systems to be deployed between 2020 and 2025, with spending increasing to $39 billion in 2023. Hyperion also estimated that HPC applied to artificial intelligence (AI) would experience an almost 30 percent compound annual growth rate. The largest HPC systems are being created by government institutions and referred to as Exascale systems. Managing this computing power will pose a challenge.

Trip Down Memory Lane

Companies have been using a variety of processor architectures over the years. In the past, normal CPUs have been able to achieve high performance if enough of them are connected together in a supercomputer. But, over the last few years, graphics processors (GPUs, a technology from videogames) have become increasingly the only way of achieving very high levels of performance.

Companies realized that none of these approaches were viable in the long term, especially in an era when many new processor architectures were available for accelerating Artificial Intelligence (AI) functions and increasingly demanding benchmarks were required. CUDA was widely adopted and providing an excellent solution, but it was not an open standard and therefore an alternative was required which would provide all the benefits of CUDA but with an ecosystem of developers and multiple hardware suppliers.

Forced Standard Created ‘Square Pegs’ Dilemma

Historically, supercomputers like Jaguar and Titan used a mix of CPUs and GPUs to reach high levels of performance in a supercomputer. But the programming model suffered loss of separation of concerns and could not remain stable. The problem was, building a mix of CPUs and GPUs in a supercomputer (called “heterogeneous processing”) creates. So a new standard was created. But with heterogeneous computing, one can’t simply add a few annotations (called “pragmas”) in a few performance-critical areas of the software to solve inherent problems. One needs to think holistically to drastically improve performance and programmability. OpenMP and OpenACC, which were originally designed for parallel computing using multi-core, were heroically adapted for heterogeneous computing using the OpenMP pragma model but it was weak in the areas of separation of concerns, error handling, and object oriented resource management, which were in demand by the newest generation of code. The CUDA programming model failed to meet expectations because it was proprietary to Nvidia’s hardware and locked enterprises into a vendor.

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Clearly Defined Standards Take a Stand

There is a momentum of movement towards SYCL, a Khronos® open-standard alternative, providing many of the standard C++ programming needs of scientists and other programmers. Companies like Codeplay have, in effect, reset the playing field. By clearly leading the definition of standards, companies can now use the same standard programming model with non-Nvidia processors, as well as Nvidia GPUs. This sets a new high-water mark for standardized heterogeneous computing, ideal for enterprises that employ accelerated processors. The goal is to leverage the open standard, which has long been a requirement of high-performance computing as their workload can last 20 years while their hardware can change every five years.

Agile HPC Software Solutions

Codeplay’s Acoran® platform integrates all industry-standard technologies needed to accelerate complex software. It provides platform-level integration between processors, open-source frameworks, and standard programming models that finally allow users to develop their own custom accelerated software.

Acoran combines the open programmability and a wide feature-set of proprietary solutions like NVIDIA’s CUDA, with the open-source, future-proof, standards-based flexibility of the Intel supported oneAPI. This allows Acoran to be easily adopted by processor vendors for new accelerator processors as well as software developers seeking high performance for their innovative algorithms.

The world of HPC is rapidly expanding. Some will adopt an in-house approach; others will seek refuge in cloud-based solutions. But the need for standards-based easy-to-integrate solutions will always remain a top priority.


About Codeplay

A world pioneer in acceleration technologies, Codeplay Software continues to develop effective tools that enable complex software to be accelerated using graphics processors. Codeplay has long recognized the need to address a market looking for standards-based solutions — solutions that are easy to integrate between multiple vendors. The company works with the world’s leading technology businesses to build advanced intelligence into devices ranging from smartphones to self-driving cars. For more information, visit www.codeplay.com.

The Significance of Data Optimization During Covid-19 Pandemic

StrategyDriven Organizational Performance Measures Article | The Significance of Data Optimization During Covid-19 Pandemic | Data Optimization | Data ManagementUntil recently, very few CEOs, IT, or marketing professionals would have put ‘data optimization’ high on the list of agenda items that keep them up at night. These days — and by my estimation — this notion has become a top priority for the majority of businesses. Given the impact of events surrounding COVID-19, I view this not a matter of if, but when decision makers also arrive at this conclusion.

The simple fact is that businesses need to be able to build trusted relationships with their customers beyond the physical spaces represented by storefronts and square footage. As ironic as that sounds, what distinguishes data is its human factor. Interpreting and making decisions based on data during a time when competitors are trying to capture the attention of their consumers is vital.

Today, amid a global pandemic and subsequent overhaul of how businesses access and interface with their customers, we find ourselves suddenly competing on a level playing field that is the attention of a phone, computer, or TV. No foot traffic, no event, launch, or experience — just time and attention on a screen, and it’s the ones who have optimized their data who are winning.

Here are a few tentpoles to consider points of entry towards optimizing your data:

The Customer

The modern customer has high expectations and demands that enterprises strive to achieve — at all costs. A business with quality data optimization services has comprehensive information that is customer-centered, dynamic, and always available.

As a result, there is a real-time ability to address all customer demands without going through a complicated, costly, or time-consuming process. Naturally, as customers become more aggressive in having their requirements met, your business stays a step ahead of competitors, when it comes to availing quick and accurate solutions. The most critical aspect of better data management is the reduction of inefficiencies in operations that cost businesses as much as 25% of their revenue. This is because enterprises with better control over their data reduce the potential of making mistakes. As a result, their trustworthiness among customers in any niche industry grows, and they become seen as market leaders.

Direct Sources

Long gone are the days when e-commerce strategy meant focusing only on SEO. Mike Ewing, a Customer Success Strategy & Operations Manager, writes on Hubspot, ”if you rely on free/direct sources of traffic, you are fighting shared losses. Direct has gone from 75% to 9% over the last ten years, while e-commerce has been growing 15-25%.”

Today, you need to find a way to seamlessly integrate direct traffic, transaction data, demographic data, paid search, comparison shopping engines, marketplaces, mobile, and social media. That’s a lot! Each medium comes with its own tools, database, and strategies — only by combining all can your business stay on top of your competition… and crush your topline goals and quotas.

Bottom line: Your products and services should be where your clients are.

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Speed

The data modern enterprises depend upon may have many different sources and a variety of structured and unstructured formats. In many cases, the data will contain inaccuracies, inconsistencies, redundant information, or other anomalies that make it unnecessarily difficult to access critical information in a timely and comprehensive fashion.

The data optimization process makes use of sophisticated data quality tools that help to access, organize, and cleanse data — whatever the source — to maximize the speed and comprehensiveness with which pertinent information can be extracted, analyzed, and put to use. That enhanced availability of critical information provides businesses with significant benefits.

Data optimization helps business leaders understand and improve their business processes so that they can reduce the wastage of time and money. Consider the information age, a time and place where consumers expect to get fast, accurate, and comprehensive information from the business they are dealing with.

Embracing Data

Amid the panic and unrest of a rapidly changing COVID-19 environment, business leaders in the trenches must lean in to leverage all tools to make themselves more digitally enabled… if for no other reason than to maintain their relationship with their customers during times when human contact is not an option.

We must all consider new ways to bring the human factor into decisions around data optimization. The time is now.


About the Author

Megan Silva is a data optimization leader and advocate. Over the course of her 15-year career in data, Megan has led numerous business and process improvement initiatives, with an emphasis and focus on increased capabilities and decreased costs. She is best known for her leadership on measurable and scalable results, defining customer journeys, aligning content for automated campaigns, and improving contact and data strategy. Megan holds a Master of Industrial Labor Relations from Cornell University and a Bachelor of Science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

A Quick Beginners Guide To Analytics in 2020

StrategyDriven Organizational Performance Measures Article |Analytics|A Quick Beginners Guide To Analytics in 2020If you know anything about analytics, it’s probably that you should be looking at them regularly to decipher what is working for your business and what isn’t. Using these stats and figures, you can make sure that your business is always doing the right thing and can get the best results. The only thing is, many people don’t think that analytics are all that easy to understand. In fact, they can be quite intimidating.

Below, we’ll talk you through a few things quickly so you can have a better idea of what you should be looking at:

Is It Free?

There are multiple ways you can check your analytics. Google Analytics, for example, has both paid and free versions. If you are a small or medium sized business, then you should be fine with the free version. You will get more support with the paid version, however. Start by creating your account and add the URL and industry, as well as the name of the site you’d like to track. You will then get your custom code that you add after the head tag of your site.

You can check it’s all working by visiting the “Real-Time reports” section while clicking around on your site in a different tab or on your phone. You only need to add the tag to every page template, not every individual page on your site.

Other Kinds Of Analytics

Of course, there are other kinds of analytics that you should consider looking at depending on what kind of business you are. PetroBase is one such example – you can use this service to check your analytics in the oil and gas industry. There’s no one size fits all guide to checking analytics, which is why it’s so important to understand what is important to your own business.

Analytics That May Be Helpful To All Businesses/Industries

The Real Time Report

This tells you what is happening on your site right now, showing you visitors, the pages they are looking at, the platforms they came from, where they are, and so on. This is probably the least valuable metric to look at, so don’t be fooled into thinking you should have your eye on it constantly. Instead, you should be looking at useful analytics that pack a greater punch, such as whether a sale is driving conversions or whether a new blog post is bringing in traffic.

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Lifetime Value

Customer lifetime value can be assessed using the Lifetime Value report. This allows you to see those who are most valuable to your company. You can utilize this by ensuring you give incentives to valuable customers.

Behaviour Reports

This is a valuable report to use and one you should consider looking at frequently.

Landing Pages

This defines a landing page as the first page in a session, and the visitor’s first interaction with your website. If you’re interested in the sources such as organic, paid social, direct, etc, driving users to the landing page, you can add Source/Medium as a secondary dimension.

Site Speed

Tells you how quickly your site is loading for users. The faster the better!

What do you think you should be looking at for your business?