The Intelligent Company - Five Steps To Success With Evidence-Based Management

Today's most successful companies are Intelligent Companies that use the best available data to inform their decision making. This is called Evidence-Based Management and is one of the fastest growing business trends of our times. Intelligent Companies bring together tools such as Business Intelligence, Analytics, Key Performance Indicators, Balanced Scorecards, Management Reporting and Strategic Decision Making to generate real competitive advantages.
As information and data volumes grow at explosive rates, the challenges of managing this information is turning into a losing battle for most companies and they end up drowning in data while thirsting for insights. This is made worse by the severe skills shortage in analytics, data presentation and communication.
This latest book by best-selling management expert Bernard Marr, will equip you with a set of powerful skills that are vital for successful managers now and in the future. Increase your market value by gaining essential skills that are in high demand but in short supply.
Loaded with practical step-by-step guidance, simple tools and real life examples of how leading organizations such as Google, CocaCola, Capital One, Saatchi & Saatchi, Tesco, Yahoo, as well as Government Departments and Agencies have put the principles into practice.
The five steps to more intelligent decision making are:
Step 1: More intelligent strategies – by identifying strategic priorities and agreeing your real information needs
Step 2: More intelligent data – by creating relevant and meaningful performance indicators and qualitative management information liked back to your strategic information needs
Step 3: More intelligent insights – by using good evidence to test and prove ideas and by analysing the data to gain robust and reliable insights
Step 4: More intelligent communication – by creating informative and engaging management information packs and dashboards that provide the essential information, packaged in an easy-to-read way
Step 5: More intelligent decision making – by fostering an evidence-based culture of turning information into actionable knowledge and real decisions
"Bernard Marr did it again! This outstanding and practical book will help your company become more intelligent and more successful. Marr takes the fields of business-intelligence, analytics and scorecarding to bring them together into a powerful and easy-to-follow 5-step framework. The Intelligent Company is THE must-read book of our times." —Bruno Aziza, Co-author of best-selling book Drive Business Performance and Worldwide Strategy Lead, Microsoft Business Intelligence
"Book after book Bernard Marr is redefining the fundamentals of good business management. 'The Intelligent Company' is a must read in these changing times and a reference you will want on your desk every day!" —Gabriel Bellenger, Accenture Strategy

Bernard Marr is a leading global authority and best-selling author on organisational performance and business success. In this capacity he regularly advises leading companies, organisations and governments across the globe, which makes him an acclaimed and award-winning keynote speaker, researcher, consultant and teacher. Bernard Marr is acknowledged by the CEO Journal as one of today's leading business brains. Bernard Marr has written a number of seminal books and over 200 high profile reports and articles on managing and improving organisational performance. This includes the best-sellers 'Managing and Delivering Performance' and 'Strategic Performance Management', a number of Gartner Reports, and the world's largest research studies on the topic. Today, Bernard Marr heads up the famed Advanced Performance Institute, where he can be contacted at www.ap-institute.com.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS.
FOREWORD.
1 THE DATA–KNOWLEDGE CRUNCH.
Introduction.
The data and information explosion.
The failure to turn data into mission-critical insights.
Investment in business intelligence.
Evidence-based management.
Conclusions.
2 THE EVIDENCE-BASED MANAGEMENT MODEL.
Introduction.
Evidence-based medicine.
The scientific method.
The EbM model explained.
Conclusions.
3 IDENTIFYING OBJECTIVES AND INFORMATION NEDS.
Introduction.
How a police 'SWAT' team uses EbM.
Step 1 – sub-step one: what do we need to know?
Strategic performance management frameworks.
A strategy map as a hypothesis.
Who needs to know what, when and why?
What are the most important unanswered questions?
Ten steps for creating good KPQs and KAQs.
Conclusions.
4 COLLECTING THE RIGHT DATA.
Introduction.
Key performance indicators and building evidence.
Collecting the right data.
What is evidence and what is data?
Data collection methodologies.
Quantitative data collection methods.
Qualitative data techniques.
Using both quantitative and qualitative data.
Making data collection part of the job.
Engaging people in data collection.
Assigning meaning to data.
Reliability and validity.
Planning the data collection process.
The role of IT infrastructure and applications in the collection of data.
Conclusions.
5 ANALYSE THE DATA AND GAIN INSIGHTS.
Introduction.
Data analysis.
Budgeting and planning.
Reporting and consolidation.
Value-driver modelling.
Experimentation.
Role of IT infrastructure and applications in analysing data.
Conclusions.
6 PRESENT AND COMMUNICATE THE INFORMATION.
Introduction.
How to get the attention of decision makers.
Publishing analogies.
Guidance for presenting information.
The role of IT infrastructure and applications in presenting information.
Conclusions.
7 TURNING INFORMATION INTO ACTIONABLE KNOWLEDGE.
Introduction.
Ensure that the available evidence is used to make the best decisions.
Turning knowledge into action.
The knowing doing gap.
Conclusions.
8 CONCLUSIONS AND ACTION CHECKLIST.
Introduction.
Action checklist.
Final words.
REFERENCES.
INDEX.