Nearly three-quarters of firms are dissatisfied with their business performance management (BPM) initiatives despite significant time and investment in them. But those which implement it correctly could become more customer-responsive and profitable, according to speakers at this year’s SAS Forum in Stockholm.

In a press conference, SAS vice president of product marketing Russ Cobb explained that recent research by the company found that only 29 percent of the C-level executives surveyed said they were satisfied with the execution of a specific initiative.

Sarah Burnett of analyst Butler Group suggested that the failure of performance management may be partly down to a lack of consistent and good quality data. She added that some firms may also be failing to seek senior executive buy-in for projects.

“We recommend that cultural change is very difficult to implement so top level support is essential,” she said. “And firms must be prepared to act on the results they get from their performance management systems”.

Jeanne Harris of Accenture explained that to succeed, firms must also ensure they are measuring the right things. “As companies become more and more information intensive they have more and more assets to measure, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have to do it,” she argued.

Lars Takla, former chief executive of energy firm ConocoPhillips, agreed that finding the right things to measure can be problematic, and added that his firm had to “adjust its processes to find out the right way to know what we should measure”.

But speakers at the conference also stressed the benefits of performance management when implemented correctly. Lothar Hubner of European banking IT service provider FIDUCIA IT AG, said BPM brought “tremendous change” to the organisation.

“Performance management has brought more transparency over what we are doing,” he explained. “Before, the department didn’t really know what its customers needed, but now we’re more successful in the market and better understand what the market needs.”

Accenture’s Harris added that the higher performing businesses are usually “moré likely to value fact-based decision-making”, while Butler Group’s Burnett argued that performance management enables firms to segment customers and target campaigns more effectively.

Meanwhile, in the opening keynote, SAS chief executive Jim Goodnight echoed the importance of forward-looking analytics in enabling a more customer-centric business.

He warned that “the reason for failure is because firms focus on themselves not their customers” and added that data, which is now doubling roughly every year, needs to be harnessed with tools like forecasting and ‘heavy-duty analytics’ if firms are to succeed.

“If you don’t do this and the competition do then you’ll fall behind,” he added. “Data is a strategic asset and if it’s not used your wasting an asset that could have helped your [business].”