Performance management, BICC - a winning services strategy

At the Gauteng Shared Services Centre (GSSC) conference held in Sandton this week, key sponsor Sasuka, and its primary vendor partner, SAS Institute, brought a better understanding of the benefits of performance management and Business Intelligence Competency Centres (BICC) to delegates.

Speaking at the conference, Allan Russell, SAS Senior Vice-President and SAS Fellow at SAS Institute, said: "The concept and practice of a BICC is not dissimilar to that of the vision of the GSSC, as a BICC is in itself a shared services centre through which an organisation can develop and deploy a strategy for using its business information (data) for increasing its performance and improving its decision-making."

Sasuka and SAS currently work together on a number of projects within the public sector, where they jointly deliver business intelligence solutions that enable government to turn raw data into reusable and valuable information.

This then creates a better view of its citizens and its internal operations, which can then be used to make more informed decisions.

The key to any organisation's success, whether in the private or the public sector, is, according to Russell the way in which it embraces the notion of performance management, and then in turn rolls it out throughout the enterprise.

According to a study conducted by Bettermanagement.com, some of the key benefits one can achieve when embracing an ambitious performance management vision are: strategic and cross-departmental alignment; collaboration and accountability; budgeting and planning aligned with strategy; resource alignment and optimisation; financial transparency; and revenue growth.

Added Russell: "Governments and companies today need to know more about their customers in order to maintain loyalty, develop faith, and in turn improve revenue. It is against this backdrop that the necessity for healthy data is growing, as is the need for valuable information, as is that which comes from an effective business intelligence solution implemented in a sustainable manner. This is where the benefits of rolling out a proper BICC strategy come into play."

Performance management and a BICC work hand-in-hand, as the effective deployment of a BICC can provide a solid platform by which to deploy effective performance management techniques. Techniques which when deployed can show how reporting performance can help gain transparency of operations, management and controlling performance can align a business, and ultimately how improving performance can conversely drive the business.

"We currently work with a number of government departments on their BI requirements, and it is through our experience that we have identified the need for a more formalised approach to the adoption of BICCs among government departments," states Sam Tsitsi Motsumi, managing director of Sasuka. "The reason for this is to not only get employee buy-in to ensure proper adoption of the BI technologies, but also to get the most out of the technology investments."

Some of the points covered by Russell in his presentation to delegates at the conference included: driving and supporting overall information strategies; why creating BICCs can be a beneficial shared services strategy; the importance of the BICC when attempting to gain access to information; and increasing performance and reaching higher level of ROI from IT.

"It's all about alignment and sustainability," concluded Russell.