Patent ID: 8473329

Claim:
A computer-implemented method for developing and managing a business initiative that changes an aspect of operation of a business in a business network, the method comprising: developing, by a computer, a test of the business initiative to occur in selected test locations; comparing, by the computer, historical performance metric values of the test locations indexed to historical performance metric values of a plurality of control locations that have not received the business initiative over a time period before the business initiative occurs in the test locations; and automatically selecting control locations for the test location implementing the business initiative by: determining, by the computer, a measure of a deviation between the plurality of control locations indexed against each individual test location based on a comparison of the historical performance metric values over the time period to assess how each control location trends relative to each test location; determining, by the computer, a value for a slope of a line on a graph showing a change in the historical performance metric values of the test location relative to the plurality of control locations during the time period, wherein the relationship between the test location and the plurality of control locations is better as the slope approaches zero; and automatically selecting, by the computer, control locations for each individual test location based on the determination of the measure of the deviation between the historical performance metric values of the plurality of control locations indexed against each individual test location and based on the determination of the value for the slope of the change in the historical performance metric values of the test location relative to the plurality of control locations.