From Efficiency to Effectiveness: The Role of Data

From Efficiency to Effectiveness: The Role of Data: Efficiency may be the most commonly used term in enterprise software marketing – that or “ensure.” And not without reason – efficiency is one of the key value propositions of most enterprise software, from collaboration tools, to productivity tools, to integration tools and beyond. At a certain point though, the gains to be achieved from efficiency become smaller and smaller and of lesser and lesser business significance.
This is resulting in a shift in focus from efficiency to effectiveness. At times, these goals are twin, but in many cases, they are not – the most effective allocation of resources may not be the most efficient – at least in the short-term. Managing an organization with an eye toward effectiveness can be a challenge, because business metrics are often tied to processes and other types of “discrete” pieces of work, and how quickly/efficiently they are completed. As a result, when an organization makes the shift to managing for effectiveness rather than efficiency, the metrics used to evaluate success typically have to be “leveled-up,” that is, taken up to the level that really matters to the business. An example of this leveling up occurred several years back when customer service organizations changed their focus from shortening call times to increasing the rate of first call resolution. Resolving a customer issue on the first call may result in increasing the length of the call, but over the long term it is a more effective approach, because it may result in a shorter overall expenditure of the Customer Service Representatives’ aggregated time, and will certainly result in more satisfied customers.
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