Your business strategy team is struggling to show results. What metrics should you focus on?

Embracing 'creativity in KPIs' means going beyond financial metrics, especially in roles focused on insights. Ask yourself: Have you improved insight quality, accelerated the time to action, or contributed more strategically? By digging into these questions, we uncover the actions and frameworks needed to elevate our contributions.

This speaks to what I call ‘creativity in KPIs’, which means thoughtfully considering your measurement framework beyond the typical financial and time-based metrics. If your role is designed to support insights, have you been able to enhance the quality of insights? How? Increase the insights cycle time to action? What makes that possible? Increase the number of insights that contribute to a strategic change? By asking deeper questions of your KPIs, you begin to understand the actions, frameworks, connections and other considerations that must be taken to bring your contribution to the next level.

- When a business's strategy is struggling to produce intended results, it is prudent to focus analytical efforts on specific metrics that can help pinpoint precisely where improvements are needed. By gaining deeper insights into key performance indicators, leadership can make informed decisions on how to best address deficiencies and get the organization back on track towards goals.

In my journey as a digital health strategist, I've learned that a clear value proposition aligns your team and strategy. For healthcare, it's about improving patient outcomes. My experience has taught me to blend technological innovation with a deep understanding of regulatory landscapes to create strategies that resonate.

In my experience working for several corporations with different organizational structures, the most important aspect of defining KPIs for the strategy team is to clearly separate leading and lagging indicators. Lagging indicators should be revenue growth, profitability, market share, etc. It should be clearly aligned with the business goals since this is the only reason to create a strategy. The leading indicators should include the process of defining the strategy (meeting timing, development milestones, budget, etc), the process of selling the strategy (successful presentation, budget allocation vs. requested funding, etc.) and the process of defining the plan to execute the strategy (approvals, timing, resource allocation, etc.).

- The are a couple of metrics that are particularly vital to examine when the business strategy is coming short of the desired results. - Such metrics include customer acquisition cost, customer lifetime value, sales conversion rate, and return on investment. - If customer acquisition costs exceed the revenue generated from that customer it signals the need to optimize marketing expenditures. - A declining trend in the customer lifetime value may prompt enhancements to products or customer experience, to boost long-term spending. - A low sales conversion rate could signal ineffective outreach. Addressing any such issues could streamline the funnel. - Underperformance on the ROI thisuggests resources may not be deployed optimally.

As noted in the previous point, a key way to balance the scorecard is to make sure that we are measuring both lagging and leading indicators. There might not be a linear relation between the two, but it's important to communicate how the team contributes to the strategy development and how they might drive the strategy deployment.

Healthcare strategies should embrace a balanced scorecard that includes clinical, financial, operational, and patient-centric perspectives. My digital marketing background reinforces the need to balance quantitative and qualitative metrics. It's about achieving equilibrium between business goals and the ultimate aim of enhancing healthcare accessibility and quality.

When employing the Balanced Scorecard methodology, organizations should bear in mind that a well-rounded approach is effective communicate their strategy. 1. Financial: This dimension outlines your financial objectives. 2. Customer: Focuses on designing a customer experience that motivates spending, aligning with financial targets. 3. Processes, systems, and tools: Identifies the necessary elements to create the intended customer experience. 4. Team knowledge and skills: Addresses the competencies required for executing processes, utilizing systems & tools, and delivering the promised value to clients Organizations can ensure results are being generated when they create a link between all 4 quadrants in the balanced scorecard methodology

And of these requirements to telling an effective story, principle among them is the need to have deep insight into your audience. Without that understanding, crafting your message in an impactful way and tailoring data and visuals designed with that audience’s unique needs becomes extremely difficult, if not impossible, significantly reducing the impact of your story.

- By bringing analytical focus to bear on these and other key performance indicators, business strategy professionals could gain valuable insights into what specific facets of strategy may need adjustment to get the business back on a growth trajectory. - To this effect, data-driven decisions informed by close examination of relevant metrics can help ensure improvements are targeted precisely where they can make the most meaningful difference.

Healthcare narratives are data-driven. From my experience, I've found that weaving a story around data humanizes it. Whether it's presenting regulatory trends or the success of a digital health initiative, storytelling fosters understanding and buy-in. It's a strategy I've employed to bridge the gap between complex data and actionable insights.

Healthcare, like any evolving field, requires constant adaptation. Seeking feedback from diverse stakeholders—patients, practitioners, and regulatory bodies—is ingrained in my approach. It's not just about metrics; it's about continuous improvement. My journey has shown me that constructive feedback fuels innovation and drives positive change.

They key is to make the information publicly available, and real time. Once you have educated your stakeholders on how to reach the dashboard, give them full access to view it. This will not only provide them with a sense of ownership, it will engage them, and most important - it will foster real discussion on how to support the strategic activities so they meet the goals set in the strategy.

Feedback and improvement are crucial components of any business strategy in order to align with market demands and stakeholder expectations. In a dynamic market, it converts insights into actionable improvements. I've learned through my journey that good ideas and positive changes really get going when you get helpful feedback.

I'll focus on measurable KPIs such as project completion rates, team productivity, and client satisfaction. Regularly assess progress, identify bottlenecks, and adapt strategies based on the specific challenges our team encounters. Tracking these metrics will help us showcase tangible results and improve overall performance.

Nos dias atuais, a estratégia precisa equacionar dois aspectos que podem ser muito antag?nicos: o foco no resultado de curto prazo e a constru??o de resultados futuros. E por que isso pode ser antag?nico? Porque os sistemas de incentivos nas empresas normalmente privilegiam o curtíssimo prazo, o que acaba drenando os recursos de projetos que n?o possuem um impacto claro e/ou cujos resultados demorar?o para ser percebidos. Assim, ao meu ver, é importante buscar um equilíbrio de métricas e incentivos para atuar nas duas frentes ao mesmo tempo.

In the dynamic landscape of healthcare, staying ahead requires a multifaceted approach. Embracing emerging technologies, anticipating regulatory shifts, and fostering collaborative partnerships are integral. My journey as a pharmacist-turned-strategist underscores the importance of anticipating trends and proactively shaping strategies for a resilient healthcare future.