Today's most successful companies areIntelligent Companies that use the best available data to inform their decision making. This is called Evidence-Based Management and is one of the fastest growing business trends of our times.Intelligent Companies bring together tools such as Business Intelligence, Analytics, Key Performance Indicators, Balanced Scorecards, Management Reporting and Strategic Decision Making to generate real competitive advantages.

As information and data volumes grow at explosive rates, the challenges of managing this information is turning into a losing battle for most companies and they end up drowning in data while thirsting for insights. This is made worse by the severe skills shortage in analytics, data presentation and communication.

This latest book by best-selling management expert Bernard Marr will equip you with a set of powerful skills that are vital for successful managers now and in the future. Increase your market value by gaining essential skills that are in high demand but in short supply.

Loaded with practical step-by-step guidance, simple tools and real life examples of how leading organizations such asGoogle, CocaCola, Capital One, Saatchi& Saatchi, Tesco, Yahoo, as well as Government Departments and Agencies have put the principles into practice.

The five steps to more intelligent decision making are:Step 1: More intelligent strategies– by identifying strategic priorities and agreeing your real information needsStep 2: More intelligent data– by creating relevant and meaningful performance indicators and qualitative management information linked back to your strategic information needsStep 3: More intelligent insights– by using good evidence to test and prove ideas and by analysing the data to gain robust and reliable insightsStep 4: More intelligent communication– by creating informative and engaging management information packs and dashboards that provide the essential information, packaged in an easy-to-read wayStep 5: More intelligent decision making– by fostering an evidence-based culture of turning information into actionable knowledge and real decisions

"Bernard Marr did it again! This outstanding and practical book will help your company become more intelligent and more successful. Marr takes the fields of business-intelligence, analytics and scorecarding to bring them together into a powerful and easy-to-follow 5-step framework.The Intelligent Company isTHE must-read book of our times."
Bruno Aziza, Co-author of best-selling book Drive Business Performance and Worldwide Strategy Lead, Microsoft Business Intelligence

"Book after book Bernard Marr is redefining the fundamentals of good business management.The Intelligent Company is a must read in these changing times and a reference you will want on your desk every day!"
Gabriel Bellenger, Accenture Strategy

Bernard Marr is a leading global authority and best-selling author on organisational performance and business success.

In this capacity he regularly advises leading companies, organisations and governments across the globe, which makes him an acclaimed and award-winning keynote speaker, researcher, consultant and teacher. Bernard Marr is acknowledged by the CEO Journal as one of today's leading business brains.

Bernard Marr has written a number of seminal books and over 200 high profile reports and articles on managing and improving organisational performance. This includes the best-sellersManaging and Delivering Performance andStrategic Performance Management, a number of Gartner Reports, and the world's largest research studies on the topic.

Today, Bernard Marr heads up the famed Advanced Performance Institute, where he can be contacted atwww.ap-institute.com.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR xi

FOREWORD xv

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS xix

1 THE DATAKNOWLEDGE CRUNCH 1

Introduction 1

The data and information explosion 2

The failure to turn data into mission-critical insights 3

Investment in business intelligence 6

Evidence-based management 9

Conclusions 12

2 THE EVIDENCE-BASED MANAGEMENT MODEL 13

Introduction 13

Evidence-based medicine 15

The scientific method 15

The EbM model explained 16

Conclusions 20

3 IDENTIFYING OBJECTIVES AND INFORMATION NEEDS 21

Introduction 21

How a police SWAT team uses EbM 22

Step 1 sub-step one: what do we need to know? 25

Strategic performance management frameworks 30

A strategy map as a hypothesis 50

Who needs to know what, when and why? 52

What are the most important unanswered questions? 54

Ten steps for creating good KPQs and KAQs 58

Conclusions 63

4 COLLECTING THE RIGHT DATA 65

Introduction 65

Key performance indicators and building evidence 67

Collecting the right data 69

What is evidence and what is data? 70

Data collection methodologies 71

Quantitative data collection methods 72

Qualitative data techniques 78

Using both quantitative and qualitative data 83

Making data collection part of the job 84

Engaging people in data collection 87

Assigning meaning to data 89

Reliability and validity 93

Planning the data collection process 94

The role of IT infrastructure and applications in the collection of data 96

Conclusions 100

5 ANALYSE THE DATA AND GAIN INSIGHTS 101

Introduction 101

Data analysis 104

Budgeting and planning 112

Reporting and consolidation 113

Value-driver modelling 113

Experimentation 117

Role of IT infrastructure and applications in analysing data 129

Conclusions 132

6 PRESENT AND COMMUNICATE THE INFORMATION 135

Introduction 135

How to get the attention of decision makers 137

Publishing analogies 138

Guidance for presenting information 144

The role of IT infrastructure and applications in presenting information 151

Conclusions 160

7 TURNING INFORMATION INTO ACTIONABLE KNOWLEDGE 163

Introduction 163

Ensure that the available evidence is used to make the best decisions 167

Turning knowledge into action 172

The knowing doing gap 173

Conclusions 188

8 CONCLUSION AND ACTION CHECKLIST 189

Introduction 189

Action checklist 193

Final words 207

REFERENCES 209

INDEX 213