Gary Cokins explains how to make your executive team's strategies work

Nine out of ten organisations fail to implement their executive team's strategies, this is according to Gary Cokins, global product marketing manager for performance management at SAS Institute. Cokins was speaking at the recent SAS Institute Performance Management breakfast in Johannesburg.

"The problem is that well-formulated executive strategies are often not successfully implemented. A large part of the problem lies in employees and managers not having the executive's strategy communicated to them in a way they can understand," says Cokins.

Cokins highlights that the need for performance management is driven by the need to implement strategies and see them working, and it provides an organisation the ability to see where strategic objectives are failing, why they are failing and how to fix the problem. It all comes down to managing the strategy.

"Without facts to prove what is going wrong in your business, anyone's opinion is a good one, and that's a dangerous way to run a business," says Cokins.

Performance management is comprised of integrated managerial methodologies, such as the balanced scorecard and customer profitability reporting, embedded with analytical capabilities that provide the all important success measurements that allow you to manage your business.

As technology evolves and industries become more competitive, the ability to measure, report and manage your business more effectively and efficiently becomes critical. Using the retail industry as an example, Cokins cited how the advancement of the Internet has caused a power shift from sellers to buyers.

"Now all consumers have to do is click and they can get 50 comparative prices for any product. This means now more than ever that companies need to hold onto their existing customers and acquire new customers that have characteristics that will be highly profitable.

"The ability to know where your business is floundering and to follow up with assessments and results can be a daunting task but, with the application of technologies as the enabler enforcing your change management processes and methodologies, you can do these as a day-to-day task for an ongoing view of your organisation's performance," says Mandie Esterhuyse, customer intelligence at SAS Institute.