Setting Strategy and establishing Metrics is an important part of organizational improvement. It’s the best way to make sure you progress. Formally, you should review and improve your business plan and strategies at least once a year. At times, you will need to make changes before the year is up. The annual planning process is valuable as it forces deep thinking and develops organizational consensus. 

An integral part of annual planning process is to set expectations, or forecasts, and develop a set of metrics that you will be able to measure. Metrics will typically include financial, marketing and loyalty targets. Customer and employee satisfaction measures are also important.

For Customer Loyalty, be sure to ask Frederick Reichheld’s Ultimate Question: “On a scale of 1–10, how likely are you to recommend us to your friends and colleagues?” With 9-10 categorized as “promoters” and 1-6 designated as detractors, a Net Promoter Score is calculated by subtracting the % of Detractors from the % of Promoters. Usually, Net Promoter Scores of less than 50% indicate issues that need to be addressed. 

Executing strategy is a daily process while monitoring core annual plan metrics are a monthly task, if not more often. Certainly, negative press, social media and other concerns need to be acted on as soon as possible.

Last but not least, just when you feel you have your plan under control and productive, you will need to start the process over. In addition to issues that come out of left field, our economic system is based upon competition. Don’t think for a minute that your competitors will fall over and play dead.