The following is an excerpt from a conference paper presented at the 2009 Performance Measurement Association Conference in Dunedin, New Zealand. An edited version of the paper was published in the Measuring Business Excellence Journal in 2010 (vol. 14, No. 1), under the title: “Rediscovering performance management: Systems, learning and integration“.
Over the last few years, the use of the term “Strategy Execution” witnessed a dramatic increase in popularity in the business environment, mainly in the language used by consultants.
Etymologically, both the words ‘mission‘ and ‘vision‘ have their roots in religion. Most religions, from Taoism, to Christianity and Islam have used the term vision in their religious texts for thousands of years.
Benchmarking as a management concept is reported to have its roots in land surveying, where the altitude of objects is estimated based on a pre-established point of reference on an arbitrary landmark (McNary, 1994). Frederick Taylor is reported to be the first to use benchmarking along with other principles in a business enterprise to improve performance. Elements of benchmarking can be recognized in Taylor’s scientific management approach applied during his time at Bethlehem Steel Company (McNary, 1994), popularized in “The Principles of Scientific Management” .
Performance Management is one of the most dynamic business disciplines today. Its evolution accelerated over the last 20 years and due to the large number of concepts it employs and unstructured body of knowledge, having a comprehensive big picture view of the topic is rather challenging. One way of achieving this is by reading a lot and doing a critical review to the various ideas proposed. Another option is by monitoring the pulse of the discipline as reflected in studies and survey reports covering performance management topics.