Entrepreneurial Strategy: Measure Something

In honor of National Small Business Week, it's important to remember that a key aspect of small business success is measurement.

Rob May over at BusinessPundit raises something about measurement, that is KEY:

His assertions:

• Business strategy is built in large part on probabilistic decision making.
• No one ever knows with 100% certainty where markets are going or how customers will respond to changes and incentives, so you have to plan using a best guess.
• The more information you have, the better that guess will be.
• One way to gain more information is to be able to measure something that wasn't measured before.

At Six Disciplines, measurement is a fundamental requirement of our business-building methodology.

Without measuring results, there can be no way to understand improvement.

BOTTOMLINE: "Think about what needs to be measured at your work or in your industry. Ask yourself if measuring such a thing would help you make better decisions, be more productive, and be more profitable. Then develop a tool, a device, or some software that will do so. From there, execute (and) after a few years of hard work, you've got a very nice business."