S’inscrire S’identifier

Bernard Marr

The Top 5
Management Tools In
The World
Bernard Marr
Internationally Best-
+ Suivre
selling…
Publié le 29 juil. 2013

Management tools, if they are used

appropriately, can be powerful enablers of
change and actions in companies. They can,
for example, help define and execute the
strategy, engage with customers and
employees and monitor performance.

I am always interested to see which tools are

most popular and how the popularity of the
various management tools is shifting and
changing. A great insight into this is
provided by Bain's Management Tools
and Trends Survey. This study conducted
by Bain & Company gives us a global
picture of the adoption and trends of
management tools. It has been produced
annually since 1993 and is now covering
12,371 respondents from North America,
Europe, Middle East, Africa, Asia Pacific
and Latin America.

The results of the recently revealed 2013

survey show that the world's top five
management tools are:

Strategic Planning

Customer Relationship Management

Employee Engagement Surveys

Benchmarking

Balanced Scorecard

To see strategic planning on the list is not

really surprising. It has always been
important but when the economic climate is
tough then making sure all efforts are
focused on the most important things is
vital. In difficult times companies haven't
got the luxury of wasting time and money
on things that are not really important and
don't contribute to their strategy. While the
strategic planning is getting better in most
companies, the strategy execution isn't.
Research finds that only 10% of strategies,
even of those that are well formulated, are
well executed. I find that the
communication of the strategy is often poor
and most mission and vision statements
exemplify that. (See e.g. What The Heck is
Wrong With Mission and Vision
Statements?)

If strategy execution is a problem then it is

good to see the Balanced Scorecard in the
list of top 5 tools. In fact, it ranks as the
number one tool in Europe, Middle East and
Africa. The Balanced Scorecard can take the
output from strategic planning and turn it
into something the companies can execute.
The Balanced Scorecard helps companies to
execute their strategy by (1) creating a
simple one-page strategy map that outlines
the most important strategic objectives, (2)
monitoring the strategy execution with
meaningful and relevant Key Performance
Indicators, and (3) ensuring the correct
action plans are in place to deliver the
strategic priorities. You can argue that the
Balanced Scorecard follows on from
strategic planning to ensure the strategy is
turned into practice. And again, in difficult
economic climates companies need to
ensure and monitor that they are doing the
right things. (See my recent post: What The
Heck is a... Balanced Scorecard?)

Benchmarking goes hand-in-hand with the

Balanced Scorecard. Key Performance
Indicators can only generate meaningful
insights if they are compared with targets
and benchmarks. Benchmarks can come
from within the company by comparing
departments and business units or can come
from industry research or best practice
studies. This is again a reflection of the
current economic struggles many companies
are facing. Companies need to make sure
they stay ahead or close to the competition.
Introducing some competitiveness into their
systems with benchmarked performance
goals and targets for everyone can boost
productitivty. (See my recent post: What
The Hell is a... KPI?)

Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

is increasingly being used by companies as
they try to drive up customer loyalty and
maximise cross-selling opportunities and
customer profitability. Most companies
know by now that it is cheaper to keep
existing customers than it is to acquire new
ones. The data and insights that come out of
customer relationship management systems
can then be used to identify cross-selling
and up-selling opportunities. Many of my
clients are now using CRM systems to
better understand customer life-time values
and predictive customer trends. This in turn
is useful information that should feed into
the customer perspective of the Balanced
Scorecard.

Finally, we have Employee Engagement

Surveys in the list of top 5 management
tools. After all, employees are still our most
valuable (and often most expensive) assets.
The global war for top talent is still raging
and every company wants to hold on to the
talent it has acquired or developed.
Similarly to customers, it usually costs a lot
of money to recruit and train new
employees. We also know engaged
employee are not only more loyal but also
more productive. And every inch of
productivity is vital in today's competitive
global economy. Similarly to the customer
information, the data from employee
engagement surveys feeds into the people
perspective of the Balanced Scorecard.

In my job I spend a lot of time helping

companies improve their performance and
for me, these five make an eminently
sensible list of tools to use for any
organisation today, be it a global blue chip,
a small or medium sized company or a
government agency. They all need solid
strategic plans, a tool to execute their plan
and ways to monitor and evaluate progress.
At the same time they all need to ensure
they manage their customers and engage
their employees.

The Bain survey also finds that 4 out of the

top 5 tools fall into the top quadrant for user
satisfaction levels. The only one that lags a
little behind is employee engagement
surveys, which again is something I can
verify from my own experience. In so many
cases it is just a statutory process or a PR
activity, rather than a true survey of staff
engagement. Having said that, in practice I
also see many problems with the other 4
tools, which are often implemented in a 'we
should have this' and 'we have to follow this
process' way. Instead, they are most
effective when they are based on real buy-in
and understanding and when they are
customised to the specific needs of the
company.

As always, please let me know what you

think. Do you agree with this list and my
interpretation of why they are in the top 5?
Have you got any good or bad experiences
with any of these? Any comments or lessons
to share? Please do so...

------

Bernard Marr is an enterprise performance

expert who helps companies with their
strategic planning, balanced scorecards,
KPIs and benchmarking as well as the
development of customer and staff
engagement analysis. Click 'Follow' if you
would like to hear more from Bernard in the
future.

You might also like to read some of his

other recent posts:

What The Heck is a... Balanced Scorecard?

What The Heck is a... KPI?

What The Heck is Wrong With Mission and

Vision Statements?

The Vital Leadership Lessons I Learned

Flying a Fighter Jet

The One Thing Successful People Never Do

537 · 130 commentaires

J’aime Commenter Partager

Stephen Chege 1 ans

I really would like to connect with
you. M
uch insight on the post.
J’aime Répondre 1 J’aime

SpikeFlex Management Solutions 2 ans

would like to recommend Spike-
Flex (https://spikeflex.com) Pro-
ject Management and budget tra-
cking tool for small scale busi-
ness.
J’aime Répondre

Hezron Obado 5 ans

so good. I love it

J’aime Répondre

Mykhailo Khudolei 5 ans

Great tools for project manage-
ment. I would also add Monday -
https://goo.gl/mhTHxw. It’s an all-
in-one CRM solution that includes
full order & project management,
in addition to the standard fea-
tures of a CRM system. I highly
recommend them!
J’aime Répondre

vipra patangia 6 ans

Is the list applicable to current
trend as well like in 2016
J’aime Répondre

ali goodsi 6 ans

I serach word file of management
tools but

J’aime Répondre

Silvano Russo 6 ans

E' un ottimo professionista.I suoi
strumenti di gestione aziendale
sono stati realizzati partendo dal-
la conoscenza pratica dei fatti
aziendali. Sa guidare le aziende
verso risultati positivi ed è un
buon conoscitore dei sistemi di
controllo aziendale.
J’aime Répondre

Olupot Joseph 7 ans

I like it. It will definitely be helpful
J’aime Répondre

Łukasz Nowak 8 ans

Great art, Thanks
J’aime Répondre

Voir plus de commentaires

Identifiez-vous pour afficher ou ajouter un

commentaire

Plus d’articles de la même

personne
Tout voir

The Top 4 Telecom How To Use Me

Trends In 2023 Horizon Workro
22 déc. 2022 For Business
21 déc. 2022

Autres pages consultées

How should you choose the best
video editing platform as a
creator/for your project?
LinkedIn News · 3 mois

Navigating the Future: Top Social

Media Trends for 2023
Luke Pilkington · 2 sem.

7 Ways Recruiters Can Make

Sourcing Candidates a Breeze
Sarah Evely · 2 mois

The One Thing Successful People

Never Do
Bernard Marr · 9 ans

The Benefits of Brand

Collaborations in 2021
Viviana Muci · 2 ans

Dashboard vs Scorecard -
clarifying the differences to
implement a data driven
performance management
system
Nick Khawaja · 3 ans

What The Heck Is a... KPI?

Bernard Marr · 10 ans

What The Heck is a... Balanced

Scorecard?
Bernard Marr · 9 ans

What The Heck is Wrong with…

Mission and Vision Statements?
Bernard Marr · 10 ans

5+1 Ways to Delegate Effectively

Without Micromanaging
Steven Sinofsky · 10 ans

© 2022 À propos

Accessibilité Conditions générales

d’utilisation de LinkedIn

Politique de confidentialité Politique relative aux

cookies

Politique de copyright Politique de la marque

Réglages invités Directives de la

communauté

Langue