Measuring Chapter Four

            Good day dear readers. I hope you are healthy always. Thank you for continuing reading my learning journal, I appreciate it so much. In this post, I would like to share with you guys and gals the fourth chapter of what we have learnt, which is *drum rolls* Measuring the Success of Strategic Initiatives. Okay, I know some of you are cringing and have your eye brow raised, fear not! I’m here to tell you the story of this complex (it’s not so complex, really) topic. All you have to do is read and understand, I’m sure you’re able. Anyhow, I feel like I’m babbling so much now so how about we get started. In this topic we (‘we’ as in my class) learnt about the efficiency IT metrics and effectiveness IT metrics (don’t get confused with these two), the common types of efficiency IT metrics, the types of effectiveness IT metrics and what is customer metrics and their importance to an organization. It’s not that complex, right? J

Efficiency IT Metrics? Effectiveness IT Metrics? Benchmarking? What?

            In this topic, the two terms you must remember and not get confuse is efficiency IT metrics and effectiveness IT metrics. Can you see the difference? The first one is efficiency while the second is effectiveness, remember that. Efficiency IT metrics by definition means the measurement of the performance of the IT system itself including throughput, speed, and availability. Meanwhile, effectiveness IT metrics means measurement of the impact IT has on business processes and activities including customer satisfaction, conversion rates, and sell-through increases. Moving on, it doesn’t really matter what is being measured, how it is measured and if it is for efficiency or effectiveness, there must be benchmarks or a baseline values the system wants to achieve. What is benchmark you ask? Benchmark is a process of continuously measuring system results, comparing those results to optimal system performance, and identifying steps and procedures to improve system performance.

The Many Types of Efficiency IT Metrics and Effectiveness IT Metrics

            Efficiency IT metrics are easier to measure and monitor than effectiveness metrics as it monitors technology. The types of efficiency IT metrics are as below.

            While efficiency is easier to measure, effectiveness however is a little bit complicated to measure. Why? Because how do you measure customer’s satisfaction? The ways that a company measures the effectiveness are by:

Metrics for Strategic Initiatives

            Metrics for measuring and managing strategic initiatives consist of:

 Web site metrics.

·         Abandoned registrations

·         Abandoned shopping cards

·         Click-through

·         Conversion rate

·         Cost-per-thousand

·         Page exposures

·         Total hits

·         Unique visitors

 Supply chain management (SCM) metrics

·         Back order

·         Customer order promised cycle time

·         Customer order actual cycle time

·         Inventory replenishment cycle time

·         Inventory turns (inventory turnover)

 Customer relationship management (CRM) metrics

·         Sales metrics

·         Service metrics

·         Marketing metrics

Business process reengineering (BPR) metrics

Alright guys and gals! That is all for today, thank you so very much for joining me. Visit soon!!