What Gets Measured Gets Done

Introduction

The increasing role of IT places an emphasis on quantificational methods to perform the various management tasks. BPM (Business Performance Measurement [Blansfield (2003): 4]) and BI (Business Intelligence [Schlegel (2007)] as a set of IT-based management techniques and tools play a key role in our perception of a company and the performance of people. An entire branch of the software industry (SAP, Siebel, Oracle, SAS Institute, etc.) offers corresponding products. These products range from CRM- (Customer Relationship Management), ERP- (Enterprise Resource Planning) to KM- (Knowledge Management) - Systems. One has to keep in mind, however, that this approach of perceiving business is limited. In short, it relies heavily on quantification. This is due to the fact that

• the data processed in these systems are data measured or processed by people or other machines.

• Then it is categorized, evaluated, and synthesized, again by people or machines.

• Finally, data processing entails interpretation and corresponding reaction. Also in this case, the actors can be people and / or machines.

Hence, the boundary of these concepts is measurability. On their background, only "what gets measured gets done". In the following, this statement is critically reviewed.