CEOs want to measure progress in non-financial areas

In order to determine their progress in areas such as environmental impact, innovation and cyber security, CEOs want to measure more (and in many cases report more too). This is evident from the results of the 24th CEO Survey. While the responses to this annual global survey suggest a reluctance to measure any more financial indicators, the situation is different when it comes to measuring developments in the non-financial domain.

To measure effectively, data quality has to be right

PwC Partner Alexander Staal says that non-financial data is of great importance in managing organisations. “Financial data are the outcomes of that management process. Comparing managing based solely on financial indicators, is akin to a sports team having a coach shouting only “2-0, 2-0” from the sidelines. While 2-0 may well be the desired result, it will not help the players much on the field. In the same way, better data will lead to better decisions.”

However, the problem is that the data quality of many organisations is not up to standard. Alexander Staal: “Organisations are not always able to answer relatively simple but important questions based on their own non-financial data. This is because they lack clear definitions, or because data are recorded inaccurately, in the wrong format or not at all. Or because systems that have been connected over time don't communicate well with each other.”

Staal calls improving data quality a ‘tedious job’, but it does, however, yield high returns.