Customer performance is, after all, dependent upon the processes, decisions and actions occurring daily throughout an organisation. We need to focus on those critical internal processes that enable us to satisfy customer needs. But competitive success targets in themselves are dynamic. The ability of an organisation to innovate, learn and improve is linked directly to its value. Typical financial goals are all about profitability, growth and shareholding value.
Some critics go much further in their indictment of financial measures.
They argue that the terms of competition have changed over time and that traditional financial measures do NOT improve customer satisfaction, quality, cycle time and employee motivation. In their view, financial performance is the result of operational actions, and financial success should be the logical consequence of doing the fundamentals well. In other words they are saying that organisations should stop navigating by financial measures - by making improvements in the operational areas, the financial numbers will take care of themselves. LEAD TIME measures the time required for an organisation to respond to and meet customer needs. For existing products or services, it can be measured from the time an order is received to the time when the product or service is actually delivered to the customer.