Business Development Metrics

Organizations like the Boston Consulting Group suggest using a balanced mix of metrics to assess a company’s innovation-related activities. We agree. The metrics described below come in three categories: input focused metrics, process-focused metrics and output-focused metrics.

Metrics are rarely one-size-fits-all. The best set of measures varies considerably depending on the company, its values, its industry and its aspirations. For example, as part of a project with the American Press Institute, we developed very specific metrics for newspaper companies seeking to transform themselves. The metrics included industry-specific factors, such as the percentage of revenues deriving from new online advertising models, and factors that tied directly to the inhibitors to innovation we found at many newspaper companies.

Finally, the 15 metrics below are intended to encourage both sustaining innovations that extend the core business and disruptive innovations that build new growth businesses.

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