Performance metrics are a measure of an organization's activities and performance. Such metrics normally support a range of needs from stakeholders such as customers, shareholders, and employees. Like the U.S. census numbers, performance metrics need to provide end-user value.

All too often in the world of business process outsourcing, the measures that focus on day-to-day operations have no relevance to the end reality. They are transactional. Employee perception and customer satisfaction surveys have a plethora of questions that don't drive real value. The questions generally are outdated or don't mean anything. So, the person filling out the form gets bored and provides information that leads to an unreliable rating. The end result: top management acts upon it just the way federal aid pours into the wrong areas based on answers to the census.

The lesson here is: Performance metrics need to focus on the core areas that affect the organization's performance.

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