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November 21, 2006
Performance Network - The World of Soccer
A few posts ago I introduced the term performance networks”. I have been researching a number of verticals on how the various stakeholders interact. I have a good number of examples, but am still very much interested in finding more.
Together with senior consultants Jeroen Visscher and Ralph Meijers of European management consulting firm Atos Consulting, we applied the idea of managing multiple stakeholders to the world of soccer. There are many similarities between soccer and business strategies. Some soccer teams have clear roles and positions in the field and use playing patterns, this can be compared to operational excellence. Other teams are organized around just a few stars, and the rest of the team serves them, not dissimilar with product innovation principles. Other teams may have created a huge fanclub culture, where there is a party no matter whether the club wins or loses, that is customer intimacy. It makes sense to test performance management” principles on soccer as well, in this particular analysis the performance network.
A performance network is an overview of the stakeholders in a certain value chain, and an understanding how they enhance each others performance. Where traditional performance management is aimed at optimizing ones own performance with ones own means, in a performance we ask what stakeholders can contribute to our success and how we can make our stakeholders more successful. The world of soccer has a very complex performance network.
There are many relationships, lets quickly explore a few.
The ultimate goal of the performance network is to win. The trainer, technical staff and players are key in achieving that goal, all other stakeholders, internal and external are there to facilitate. If the team wins, that increases the means and the resources, which can be invested again in being even more successful.
A new phenomenon in the world of soccer is the entry of venture capital. An investment firm buys” a player and looks for a club where the player can be successful. The purpose is that after being successful, the player can be sold to another club with a profit. In a traditional performance management sense, the relationship between the club and the investment firm would be purely transactional, where the investment firm focuses on return on investment” alone. However, there is a joint objective: the success of the player. The club should think of ways how to accommodate the investment firm by offering value enhancing services, such as extended coaching of young talent, with that the club could create preferential treatment by the investment firm. The investment firm should find ways to invest in the club, to make sure the players on the investment firms payroll get preferential treatment when dealing with publicity.
The relationship between board and fanclub is difficult. The fanclub adds to the value proposition of the club, and is of importance. On the other hand, negative sentiments within the fanclub can force trainers and boards to step down. From a traditional performance management view, the fanclub is interested in a large number of members, to increase its influence and presence. The board is interested in the fanclub as a market for merchandise, seasons tickets and special activities. When asking yourself what to contribute to the partner, the picture changes. Perhaps a fanclub representative should sit in on the board, to change a sometimes adversarial relationship (the gentlemen in the VIP lounge dont care about the game”) into a more collaborative one, sharing the same goal: a high performing team. Perhaps the board should actively promote fanclub and open up all its communication channels to make the fanclub more successful. The relationship and the performance of both will improve.
Lastly, the relationship between the league and the board is changing. Where the league used to be the party to organize the competition and championships, in various countries it now also assumes the role of a regulator, who can force clubs to for instance change their financial practices, threatening to take away the clubs license. Both club and league have the same goal, a strong competition, attracting visitors, TV airtime and a healthy market. Yet, due to the regulator role, the transparency between board and league seems to becoming less instead of more (which would be useful in a joint objective relationship). Clubs will try to neutralize the expanding power of the league. In some sports that has even led to clubs forming their own league.
The world of soccer is used to dealing with many stakeholders, and the world of business can learn from that. Yet, conversely, business has vast experience with performance management, and the notion of tracking objectives with performance indicators is something valuable for soccer as well.
Perhaps we should organize a round table?
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Posted by Frank Buytenkijk at 7:02 AM | Comments (0)
November 15, 2006
Blast from the past?
Heard today:
We currently have 38.000 reports and queries (4,000 people insurance company)
We should spend more time analyzing data, and not that much time collecting it (controller large multinational)
Did NOTHING change??
The first time I heard these comments was 20 years ago...
frank
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Posted by Frank Buytenkijk at 6:45 AM | Comments (0)
November 8, 2006
Gartner Symposium/ITxpo 2006 in Cannes, Day Three
Enterprise Platform Migration is a major theme for the coming years, according to Andy Kyte, one of Gartners most well-known analysts. Enterprise Platform Migration has the magnitude of the Year 2000 problem, or the introduction of the Euro, a huge operation in the organizations technological infrastructure and business application portfolio. If you are an SAP user, at one point Netweaver will hit your organization. If you are an Oracle user, you need to think about how to work with Fusion Middleware. Although Andy didnt use the term, but various ecosystems of power vendors have emerged, often referred to as MISO (Microsoft, IBM, SAP and Oracle), and choices need to be made. If you have a more heterogeneous systems landscape, you need figure out which choices the best of breed vendors are making in terms of ecosystem support, and see if they fit your strategic choices. I dont think it will be possible for large enterprises to standardize on a single ecosystem, there will be elements of multiple ecosystems present, and they will compete for dominance. And its not only about a shift in integration between applications, the way the applications work dramatically changes as well. Moving from application silos to a more component-based approach, allowing power users to design and maintain their own business processes. According to Gartner, enterprise platform migration will be a major challenge for most, if not all, large enterprises.
Interesting enough, and thats my analysis, BI plays an important role in coping with Enterprise Platform Migration. Traditionally, BI has had the role of integrating management information from various sources and shielding users from the complexities of that integration. Using BI as the focal point for that migration, will make the process considerably better manageable.
Consider the sport of speed skating as a metaphor. In speed skating, your left leg swings to the left, then your right leg swings to the right and the net result is that you go forward quite fast. That is how you implement the Enterprise Platform Migration and BI in parallel as well.
A small BI implementation, for example, perhaps based on a temporary interface to an old ERP system, provides some focus on a number of strategic key performance indicators. The subsequent ERP phase can take that into account: And BI is no longer an afterthought.
This ERP phase then provides insight into how easy or hard it is to get to new transactional data and provides input for a new data domain. It allows the BI deployment team to more accurately plan the next BI deployment with these new insights. The next BI implementation goes more smoothly and even provides a feedback loop into the delivered ERP phase, which can be used to better design the next ERP phase, and so on. A path of growing insight - where ERP and BI leverage each other - emerges.
Enterprise Platform Migration is about much more than better management information alone. But data management” is a crucial part of every platform. BI provides that focal point. With Enterprise Platform Migration on the agenda, the ice skating approach presents the opportunity to architect the pieces with far greater alignment this time around.
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Posted by Frank Buytenkijk at 4:44 AM | Comments (0)
