value-tracking

Value-Tracking to measurably improve the systems your business depends on.

The quotation, “If you build it, they will come,” is often used to ridicule information systems that lack a compelling reason to actually use them.

At Pursuit, we hear our clients quote this line repeatedly when describing their own tools and data assets. They regularly tell us that their systems go under-utilized, that more money is being invested to make improvements to those same systems, or that failed implementations are scrapped in favor of expensive, supposed cure-alls. These “solutions” typically disappoint their intended users, as well as the stakeholders who approve and finance them. Leading research companies support our findings:

Recent studies of CRM implementations cite failure rates of 31 to 56%.¹
Sales Force Automation projects report failure rates of 55 to 80%.²
Only 8% of people with a Business Intelligence account ever log in.³

More than ever, corporate leadership needs visibility into whether investments made to empower the workforce are paying dividends. Every year, companies invest millions in systems and the data that feeds them, but rarely have the means to determine the impact on workforce effectiveness. Due to this lack of measurement, executive leaders are unable to identify shortcomings or offer ideas for improvement.

Pursuit tackles this issue by applying a readiness and adoption framework to all of our clients’ technology and data investments. Called Value-Tracking, our service allows companies to measure the regular use and relative value of their information systems and data assets. By tracking resource usage and measuring their usefulness to employees, Value-Tracking helps determine which systems either should remain or be disbanded to save on cost and clutter.

For new solutions, Pursuit’s Value-Tracking service measures the ongoing organizational readiness to adopt the solution, based on usage and the value it provides:

For a Campaign Management system, Value-Tracking measures the features and functionality actively used, relative to those that are being licensed.
For data licensing and maintenance, Value-Tracking scores and ranks data fields being queried to run a campaign, create a report, or conduct analyses.
For a Business Intelligence System, Value-Tracking tracks the dashboards visited, and the dimensional report fields selected.

These measurements enable businesses to understand which resources are providing the most and least value, from the system level down to the data level. They also allow businesses to determine whether it is worth continuing to invest in certain systems and the data supporting it.

For information systems that do provide value, the first step in making strategic investments to those systems is identifying potential areas of optimization. To this end, Value-Tracking also informs stakeholders of the systems that provide value but would be dramatically improved with modifications and improved training. Pursuit then offers its clients customized suggestions for remediation or process enhancement.

¹ “CRM failure rates: 2001-09” by Michael Krigsman, ZDNet, August 3, 2009

² “Understanding sales force automation failures: a managerial perspective,” Alan J. Bush, a, , Jarvis B. Mooreb and Rich Roccob, Industrial Marketing Management, Volume 34, Issue 4, May 2005

³ Gartner Research