I’m always looking for “Just 1 Number” – that single metric which shows immediately how the company is doing across all departments. I thought I’d found it and wrote my first Benchmark column on the subject in September 2005. I called it the SNIPPY which represents an index relating customer satisfaction to net profit. I’m […]
Technique is to process as X is to Y The words system and process have been thrown around nearly indiscriminately for the past 10 years as the panacea for all sorts of problems. Got a problem with production? Get everybody in the same room, brainstorm the issue, then write a process map, develop a system, […]
Over the years of working with remodeling contractors, some simple patterns have become apparent. One remodeler’s strong interest in people leads to success in sales. Another’s love for design produces award-winning projects. Still another with a fondness for systems can produce a company which produces predictable and repeatable customer experiences, time after time. Each company […]
The Altman Z Score is 1 beautiful number which predicts 1 dangerous outcome: your company’s likelihood of declaring bankruptcy! Wouldn’t it be nice if you could tell, especially when things are tough, how close you were to the edge? The Z Score uses 5 ratios, weights them by degree of importance, then adds them together […]
Metrics are my mania – there isn’t a number I don’t like, zero is a miracle, I’m especially fond of ratios and prime numbers are simply the best! Then there’s that deliciously infinite Pi. The complexity of number theory is astounding. I wish I had more time to try to understand it better. However when it comes to […]