Business Administration Department Launches New Performance Management Center

March 16, 2010

In today's tough economy, businesses can't afford to make rash decisions. To help local companies make more informed decisions, faculty and students from the business administration department are providing them with new evidence-based solutions through its Center for Performance Management.

Created by Executive Director Brian Glibkowski, a business administration professor at Stonehill, the Center uses scientific survey assessments and workshops to help companies evaluate their performance management strategies more scientifically. In its early stages, the Center is currently working with two hand-selected companies this semester and hopes to work with more businesses in the future.

"The main reason why I wanted to create the Center is to provide companies with an evidence-based approach to decision making; a lot of companies rely exclusively on intuition when it comes to important decisions," says Glibkowski.

As Glibkowski explains, a company's decision-making approach is similar to that of a doctor's.

"There is significant data out there that says doctors' decisions are mainly based on hearsay or anecdotes and that situation is believed to be much worse in corporations and businesses. In recognition of this problem, medical schools developed ‘evidence-based medicine' and only recently has ‘evidence-based management' begun to take root within business schools and leading organizations."

In addition to helping local companies, the Center is also providing students with real world business experience as ten business administration majors are working at the Center this semester through work-study positions and internships.

Collaborating closely with faculty members, the students are engaged in a project for one of the Center's members which takes a scientific approach towards customer relationship management (CRM) software.

CRM software is widely-used by companies to manage their interactions with customers and sales prospects.

"It is a very exciting project. We are modeling the sales process and decision making as viewed by individual sales representatives and recording the results in their CRM software. We are looking to demonstrate the accuracy of intuition as well as the efficacy of conventional sales approaches. Taken together, we can provide the organization with better evidence related to the sales process," notes Glibkowski.

"Developing a left to right causal model of all the factors that drive this company's ultimate sales success will, over time, give it more clarity on a number of fronts," explains Glibkowski.

"In addition to a more complete model of the sales process, we are developing more accurate measurement approaches related to sales. For example, an organization might be tracking when it last called a customer but the data is limited to a simple yes or no. A better way to track that last call might be to measure the quality of the call on a 1 to 5 scale," said Glibkowski

A solid background of evidence-based data will allow the company to make better informed decisions says Glibkowski, from why costumers buy to where to invest training dollars to what new products to develop.

Another project the Center plans to begin soon for its second corporate partner centers around corporate social responsibility.

"We want to create a model that measures whether or not a company's social responsibility has a positive impact with its customers and its employees," says Glibkowski. "The assumption is yes but it's never been quantified before."

While he hopes to gain more clients as the Center grows and develops, Glibkowski's goal is to keep the Center for Performance Management small in scope and focus to ensure maximum impact.

"I see a boutique Center that's focused on cutting-edge research and giving our business students hands-on experience at the same time."

Guided by an Advisory Board made up of top executives from several local businesses, a University of Illinois at Chicago professor as well as Stonehill professors Debra Salvucci and Lee McGinnis, the CPM hopes to become the premiere local center for performance management study, research, teaching, discussion and practice.

The Center has attracted a wide range of executives from diverse perspectives, including Advisory Board member and New England PGA Executive Director Nathan Robbins. A panel on performance management in golf is also in the works.

Later this semester, the Center will host a panel event with sales and marketing executives, who will discuss how they manage performance as well.

For more information on the Center for Performance Management, visit here.

Contact

For more information, contact Communications and Media Relations at 508-565-1321.