Performance Goals

Evaluating your goals and objectives on a regular basis is crucial to seeing if you are on the right track. Roy Rogers once said, "Even if you are on the right track you will get run over if you just stay there." The same can be said about achieving your personal and business goals.

In business there are three main scorecards that show you whether you are on the right track. The three evaluators are financial, marketing, and stakeholder scorecards. Just as in sports it is vital to keep track of the score. Why? The scoreboard helps you evaluate the strategy that should be used. For instance, at the end of a third period of a hockey game a team may completely remove the goalie if they are behind one goal. This is because having an extra offensive player gives them a better chance at scoring a goal and sending the game into overtime. These same concepts found in a hockey game can be used in developing business strategies that directly relate to your company's position in the marketplace. If you are the market leader you should have a different strategy than a company just entering into the industry.

How do you practically use these scorecards to improve your business? A financial scorecard is the most popular scorecard used by managers and executives. This scorecard is used by evaluating financial statements and revenue projections. The obvious reasoning behind this scorecard is that businesses need to make money, and this is clearly seen through financial reporting. However, this is not the only indicator of a company's condition in the industry.

Many companies collapse because they have concentrated so much on the financials that they failed to see that customers A company should also look at the marketing scorecard in order to see the market share and what opportunities are available to expand that market share. The marketing scorecard also helps a company evaluate the customer satisfaction level with the company products and services.

The third scorecard is the stakeholder scorecard. This scorecard not only deals with public company stockholders, but also with strategic partnerships with other companies. Not only is it important for a company to evaluate its relationships with customers, but it is also especially crucial for a company to evaluate its relationship with stock holders and strategic partnerships.

You can find more information about these scorecards by reading Philip Kotler's book titled Kotler on Marketing. This is a marketing classic by one of the foremost authorities on marketing.