OUR GREAT MINDS

    by Tina Olivero

    Do You Measure Up?

    “If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it. And if it isn’t being measured, it isn’t being managed.” That’s the thinking of BDC Consulting Manager Mike Green.

    “Tools for measuring, such as those of the International Standards Organization (ISO), are like a scoreboard,” says Green, and are essential for objectively evaluating how a company is performing. “You need to have a scoreboard to really see how your business is doing. And once you can get a handle on your company’s performance, then you’re better prepared to get the most benefit from a quality management system,” he explains.

    The first step is assessing what you want to measure and improve in your business and determine a benchmark. You could use ISO, one of the most popular quality management systems, to implement standards that guarantee conformity and quality of products and services. Once the system is in place, your company would be audited by an independent third party and, if all of the requirements are met, awarded official certification. These documented processes allow a company to ensure that it remains in line with its benchmark. Ultimately, it would develop new norms for its processes.

    Measuring your company’s performance allows for a host of benefits: standardized processes, more efficient and focused training for employees, quicker detection of problems, more effective solutions and better customer service, to name a few. Entrepreneurs can also improve communications, enhance supplier relationships and increase employee participation in the company.

    Measuring key indicators

    “Many entrepreneurs don’t appreciate the long-term value of measuring performance because they’re caught up in daily firefighting or consider it too time-consuming,” says Green. “But if they want to compete in a tougher business environment, they need to arm themselves with concrete facts and data.”

    Although many entrepreneurs may assume Do you measure up? measurable data is limited to obvious areas such as costs, other “key indicators” are also vital: quality, delivery deadlines, safety, environmental impact and employee satisfaction.

    Quality can easily be measured in terms of the number of returned products, credit memos or client complaints.

    Meeting promised deadlines and product delivery times are strong indications of a company’s well-being. “Speed is a valuable asset in a company competing for business today,” says Green.

    Entrepreneurs should also collect data on safety performance, which is not limited to the manufacturing environment. “You may need to know, for example, how many people are out with back problems, driving-related injuries or repetitive strain injuries in your company,” explains Green.

    Environmental impact is an increasingly important measurement, particularly if you want to include the ISO 14001 Environmental Standard in your management system. “Knowing how much waste you generate or how much pollution you are adding to the environment is an important part of being a good corporate citizen and improving productivity,” he says. Finally, assessing employee satisfaction is crucial for entrepreneurs. A reliable rule of thumb is that happy employees are more productive employees. An employee survey could be a useful tool to indicate the level of satisfaction. “You can use the results to improve, for example, your employee reward system,” he says.

    Tina Olivero

    30 years ago, Tina Olivero looked into the future and saw an opportunity to make a difference for her province and people. That difference came in the form of the oil and gas sector. Six years before there was even a drop of oil brought to the shores of Newfoundland, she founded The Oil and Gas Magazine (THE OGM) from a back room in her home on Signal Hill Road, in St. John’s, Newfoundland. A single mother, no financing, no previous journalism or oil and gas experience, she forged ahead, with a creative vision and one heck of a heaping dose of sheer determination. With her pioneering spirit, Ms. Olivero developed a magazine that would educate, inspire, motivate and entertain oil and gas readers around the world — She prides herself in marketing and promoting our province and resources in unprecedented ways. The OGM is a magazine that focuses on our projects, our people, our opportunities and ultimately becomes the bridge to new energy outcomes and a sustainable new energy world. Now diversifying into the communications realms, a natural progression from the Magazine, The OGM now offers an entirely new division - Oil & Gas Media. Today, The Oil and Gas Magazine is a global phenomenon that operates not only in Newfoundland, but also in Calgary and is read by oil and gas enthusiasts in Norway, Aberdeen, across the US and as far reaching as Abu Dhabi, in the Middle East. Believing that Energy is everyone’s business, Ms. Olivero has combined energy + culture to embrace the worlds commitment to a balance of work and home life as well as fostering a foundation for health and well being. In this era of growth and development business and lifestyle are an eloquent mix, there is no beginning or end. Partnering with over 90 oil and gas exhibitions and conferences around the world, Ms. Olivero's role as a Global Visionary is to embrace communication in a way that fosters oil and gas business and industry growth in new and creative ways.

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      OGM - Our Great Minds