Market-Driven Management, Competitive Markets and Performance Metrics

Metrics are performance indicators used to indicate, measure or record values of a particular magnitude. Metrics, seen as overall indicators of corporate performance, are one of the fundamental tools used to monitor and orient corporate management. They can be classified by: financial-non-financial; quantitative-qualitative; accounting-nonaccounting; internal and external; process and end result. Metrics can serve a dual purpose: to provide elements for assessment, inside the company environment; to provide evaluation parameters outside the company.


Performance Metrics in Managerial Economics
The concept of performance -and consequently its measurement -becomes extremely important for businesses 1 , in relation to their capacity to express their vitality in time 2 . Management aims to measure the results reached by assessing performance: in time, focusing on a single business, in different periods of reference; in space, assessing and comparing different situations at a given moment (one business compared to one or more competitors).
Limiting performance analysis to the measurement of corporate results, does not give a comprehensive, correct view of the question, and may in fact appear reductive and very often misleading. The concept of corporate performance may be approached in different ways, in relation to the specific need for knowledge of the interested universe, and in consideration of the different dimensions that it can express 3 . Very briefly, we can highlight the concepts of: economic-manufacturing, financial and socio-environmental performance; absolute performance and relative performance (at the time of the analysis and related to other companies); network performance, company performance, branch performance, product line performance, process performance (related to the subject of the analysis); performance from a shareholder's viewpoint and performance from a stakeholder's viewpoint. If measured precisely, performance enables management to assess corporate operations, to take corrective measures and to plan future choices: this acquires growing importance the more complex the competitive context in which the company operates.
The significance of the concept of performance and its assessment is also confirmed by the attention that management pays to the selection and management of: critical variables of performance; indicators (metrics) of performance.
Critical variables of performance are factors (corporate or contextual) on whose implementation the possibility of achieving the best corporate performance depends 4 .
Metrics are the system of indicators 5 , of various types, by which stakeholders assess a company's performance.
The basic criteria by which performance metrics are assessed may be: objectivity: different individuals must be able to check the validity independently, and to agree on the interpretation of the metrics used; comprehensiveness: the capacity to capture all the significant aspects of a given action or event; sensitivity to the actions and efforts made by individuals whose activities are being monitored; clear connection with the creation of economic value. The concept of performance metrics goes beyond a mere reference to the index as a tool of measurement. In fact, by the approach adopted here, the metric is a performance indicator, used to indicate, measure or record values of a particular magnitude; metrics are therefore not limited to a consideration of the performance indices, informed values (based on the relationship between the two elements investigated), but they are also represented by measurements -monetary and nonmonetary -that derive from observation of specific phenomena and are not necessarily expressed as an index.
In this sense, metrics, seen as overall indicators of corporate performance, are one of the fundamental tools used to monitor and orient corporate management. They can be classified by the following criteria: financial 6 -non-financial 7 ; quantitative -qualitative; accounting 8 -non-accounting; internal and external; process and end result 9 .
Metrics can serve a dual purpose: to provide elements for assessment, inside the company environment 10 , structured in various ways to guarantee: o for management, the tools to assess corporate activities; o for employees, the information necessary to understand ongoing company dynamics (goals related to the assumption of a precise corporate responsibility, which are the fruit of a corporate culture oriented to cooperation rather than conflict); to provide evaluation parameters outside the company, which express very different goals. Very roughly: o in relation to suppliers and distributors, they tend to express the company's soundness and solvency; o in relation to the financial community, they express the capacity to generate a return on invested capital; o in relation to final demand, they tend to orient purchasing decisions, highlighting the convenience of the choice of the company's product over other products; o in relation to any partner companies with whom to develop cooperation or acquisitions and mergers, they express the company's competitive position on the market, the financial capability at its disposal, and degree of exposure to corporate risk, etc.; o in relation to the local community, they assert the capacity to accept a precise responsibility towards society and the environment that is demanded of corporate activities. The variety of the indicators, as they are presented here, seems to suggest the advisability of projecting company results in a single indicator, which is allembracing and therefore synthetic. However, the complexity of the need for information that permeates companies (particularly in the global context), limits the importance in terms of information, and therefore the significance, of a 'single indicator', which may usefully be replaced by the correct and targeted development of a system of indicators 11 , that are significant and comprehend the corporate dynamics being analysed, created to satisfy the specific need for information of the main stakeholders.
In global markets, competition apparently develops without patterns or set rules, flexibly identify the competition drivers that are most suitable for a company's success. In these markets, the product is generally extremely complex and its value is closely linked to the sum of intangible values that make it distinct, recognisable and preferable over competitive products, while the company develops a system of intangible resources. The information system -in other words the complex system designed to provide the company with an information base on which to structure the management decisions to implement, providing the elements to assess performance -and the dimensions of corporate responsibility and socioenvironmental responsibility 12 acquire particular significance, and it becomes possible to identify complex and varying indicators (mainly qualitative) to measure performance.
The concept of performance and in particular the indices used to assess it therefore take on a different value for the company in relation to the specific competitive conditions. The company only 'lives' to the extent that it maintains relations (inside and outside the company) with the relevant environmental supra-system 13 . Analysis of the company and of its performance is therefore closely linked to the relevant environment and acquires greater significance the higher the competitive intensity 14 of the market in which the company operates.
In this sense, in scarcity economies, with limited competitive intensity, we can refer to a 'single' concept of corporate performance -linked to a particularly analytical perspective (which emerges from primarily internal considerations), while in complex economies, which are increasingly characterised by widespread instability and intense competition, performance is created as an assessment system linked to different investigation perspectives that express the way the company or relevant corporate network operates as a whole.
We can therefore state that the concept of performance and identification of the most suitable metrics for its assessment, are closely related: to the characteristics of the context in which the analysis is performed and to the characteristics qualifying the business under examination (albeit generally conditioned by the characteristics of the relevant market and environment).

Scarcity Economies and Corporate Performance Metrics
Markets where competitive intensity is limited and supply is scarce are generally stable, and for the company, this reduces the need for a complex system of performance measurement. In fact, it is important to measure and analyse the phenomena inside the company, first and foremost the core activities that generate value. The external environment, and particularly the competitive forces present, is monitored and constantly measured, but remains subordinate to the priority performance results of the so-called internal phenomena.
Demand is clearly superior to supply; numerous purchasers cannot meet their purchasing and consumption needs, and are unable to find alternative goods or services able to satisfy them suitably. It therefore seems unjustified to study demand that does not link satisfaction of one's needs to gratification of the company product. Generally speaking, businesses operating in economies where supply is scarce, limit their spending to communications and marketing activities 15 . On the other hand, competition tends to develop primarily in different product classes, to meet a single need, and competitive intensity within the product class is limited. This condition is found on the market naturally (competitors behave like small monopolies in the territory that they control with their products), or induced by the existence of agreements between direct competitors that dominate the sources (raw materials, etc.) and control or limit their delivery. This is the case in the fuel sector: demand is generally subject to little change, and controlled by the large players, who keep competition and market conditions stable by developing agreements and cartels to establish mutual control of supply quantities and conditions. This control is expressed primarily in the capacity of competitive companies to manoeuvre the selling price of products, by controlling the quantities to put on the market (in scarcity economies the price depends on the quantity offered).
On the other hand, supply is also scarce as a result of the capacity of the businesses present to intervene as a predominant force on the market, to hold off possible threats (and sources of instability) determined by the entry of competitors or replacement products.
The conditions that define this type of market can be summed up briefly as follows: known demand that exceeds supply; distribution controlled by manufacturing companies; stability-control of supply on the basis of: o competitive system designed to control and therefore maintain competitive conditions stable; o supply quantities controlled by the company 16 ; o market price dependant on quantities offered. However, the control of market conditions is sometimes determined by State intervention 17 .
The company identifies its critical performance variables and develops systems to analyse and assess the various monetary and non-monetary factors and phenomena that could improve the internal results of the organisation (for example, the choice of suppliers who are highly responsible where times and delivery are concerned).
Assessment of the corporate performance takes two main types of analysis into consideration: economic; financial. Only in today's scarcity markets, these are combined, but to a lesser extent, with the concepts of social and environmental performance, measured by qualitative indicators 18 that are considered functional to the acceptance (but not the success) of corporate operations on the part of purchasers and the market as a while. As a result, in global markets, quantitative indicators are necessarily supplemented by qualitative metrics, which are present and considered strictly functional to the achievement of short, medium and long-term performance goals, and by an intelligence system that is essential for the competitive and colluding action of competitors.
In scarcity markets in the early 1900s (in particular the automotive sector), qualitative indicators (such as employee satisfaction, workplace safety, etc.) were not priorities for performance assessment. It is no coincidence that the introduction of the DuPont indicator system dates to the turn of the last century, focusing purely on accounting measures of economic assessment: performance was determined by the creation of a multiplying ROE, based on a pyramid structure 19 . This meant accepting a basically historical analytical vision, which was not very indicative of a medium to long-term perspective (and therefore focused on forecasting future performance). In spite of this obvious limit, similar analysis is still fundamental today to assess corporate economic performance, and is applied successfully in stable markets.
In economies where competition is not intense, output is placed completely and immediately with demand. This obviously enables a company to develop analyses that do not consider the possibility of the market refusing the company's products, nor the opportunity for the company to support sales -thus modifying short-term assessments of the company's selling possibility-capacity.
In the case of oil products and fuel, for example, the very nature of the product and of demand (of the derivative type, being linked to that for automotive products, etc.), makes the latter very inelastic with respect to income, price and the promotion (both advertising and otherwise) of the product 20 . What is more, 'both the global supply of oil, and that of refining processes are controlled throughout the world by a small number of organisations that can determine the quantities produced and delivery times. (…) Demand reveals a price rigidity that makes it possible to keep consumption stable even when prices grow rapidly' 21 . On the other hand, the rigidity of demand is also an effect of the latter's inability to acquire large quantities of fuel (creating stocks) or to access truly alternative sources of energy, elements that certainly strengthen the position of supply (as a whole) over demand.
In view of the efforts by the competition to control the competitive context, the company's short, medium and long-term capacity for survival and success is determined by the trend of core operations -first and foremost manufacturing. Analysis by management focuses primarily on internal events, with production as a priority: quantities, costs, times, development and market placement conditions, etc. The company is able to place its entire output on the market without difficulty and there is therefore no need to carry out detailed analysis of environmental dynamics (competition, market, etc.). Production is the heart of the company and, as a consequence, the primary object of analysis for the purposes of assessing the organisation's profitability and vitality. In this sense, 'if performance related to purchasing raw materials, producing and selling products and guiding the workforce is planned, measured and controlled so as to highlight both the conflicting factors and the easily influenced factors, net profit is generated as an automatic consequence' 22 .
By simplifying negotiations, the concept of profitability at product level emerges from the comparison between market position (which derives from market share) and unit margin, i.e. the difference between revenue per unit and variable cost per unit 23 . To obtain corporate profitability, overheads and tax must be subtracted from the contribution margin calculated in this way. To improve corporate profitability, it may be advisable to adjust the volume of purchasers, margin per customer or overheads.
We can however assume that: the general stability of the context and the market continues; there is equality between output and sales (i.e. the presence of unsold products is not contemplated); the hypothesis of an scarcity market remains. From the above, we can conclude that the company can influence profitability: by strengthening its market position, increasing its absolute market share, the margin of contribution per unit being equal. This is possible by increasing the manufacturing capacity of company facilities; by modifying the contribution margin per unit (adjusting the unit selling price and/or compressing the variable costs per unit).
In the cases mentioned, the importance of the internal analysis of production emerges, focused primarily on accounting and financial metrics, which use and process data from management and above all cost accounting.
The assessment of corporate performance from an economic viewpoint is supported by analysis of the financial dimension, which focuses on cash trends and financial results. Reporting is a useful and versatile tool to identify financial performance, as it allows the values of the main financial movements performed by the company during the period under examination to be calculated.
In a study of 1996 24 , designed to sum up the different concepts of corporate performance in literature, eight strictly internal dimensions are defined 25 , related to precise indicators (Table 1). However, this analysis has significant limitations, which limit its validity for scarcity economies. The following are among the most important: first of all, the economic-financial metrics are indicators that emerge from the past; so they tend to have a limited ability to 'predict' the future performance of the organisation; moreover, they do not consider the sum of non-monetary quantitative indicators (or qualitative metrics such as customer satisfaction). However, these considerations are of little significance in scarcity economies: the characteristic elements of these latter -in particular, relative stability and limited competitive intensity (induced by the common action of competitors) -allows mainly internal economic-financial metrics to be used to explain corporate performance.

Controlled Competition Economies and Corporate Performance Metrics
Controlled competition economies, with controlled competition, reveal fairly high competitive intensity, which is expressed within the same product class, and the decisive presence of agreements between direct competitors (which often degenerate into cartels that harm competition and the market), designed to control and maintain existing conditions 26 on markets that are relatively stable.
The company becomes strongly demand oriented 27 , first and foremost by setting up a corporate information system to collect information inside the company, and outside -regarding the market and demand 28 , and by developing suitable promotional activities, designed to solicit demand for company products.
On the other hand, distribution also modifies its attitude to manufacturing companies, adopting an active, independent position, recognising the importance of: its essential role, halfway between industrial supply and final demand (to make products available to purchasers placing several alternatives in a single independent physical space -the shelf 29 ) and, as a consequence; its own bargaining power, reserving a growing portion of the income from this channel. Companies operating in economies where competition is controlled, develop complex supply (classified as tangible and intangible), to achieve demand that has refined its tastes, and therefore its requests 30 in a more suitable manner. The company cannot avoid considering manufacturing and internal management requirements, and develops a market approach based on the differentiation of the range by segments of demand and, through a modular manufacturing approach 31 , it blends standardisation and customisation. Competition develops primarily on the basis of the selling price (price competition) or better, on the basis of multiple prices elaborated by the company, to which different quantitative levels of product correspond. We can therefore see that the link between price and quantity is inverted in these markets compared to scarcity markets. Faced with high competitive intensity within a single product class and relative freedom in manufacturing terms (there is no constraint in terms of capacity or market that limit companies in production), the quantities offered (and therefore produced) depend on the price level at which they are presented to the market. The typical conditions on the markets considered are in sectors where the product has no valid replacements: for example, smoke products, and cigarettes in particular 32 .
Companies that operate in economies where competition is controlled generally have a complex ownership set-up, to maintain the so-called 'controlling interest' in the hands of a few, large stockholders, while the remaining shares are fragmented (widespread stockholding). Minority stockholders are unable to influence the decisions taken by management; companies look for external financing, even through Stock Exchange listing. The importance of the financial dimension thus emerges to support corporate management.
Particularly if it is listed, a company must consider the demands -and thus the need for information -of different categories of stakeholders 33 : stockholders and the financial community generally: in this way, we aim, if possible, to maintain and increase the company's capacity to attract capital by generating (or promising to generate) financial income; intermediate and end customers; the growing importance of distribution is expressed in their influence on management of the industrial company. The stakeholder system expresses complex demands for knowledge, which are not limited to the economic-financial aspects of corporate performance.
The typical environmental conditions -in which the importance of the figure of the customer emerges and the search for differentiation to qualify the products offered as reflecting the needs of demand -make the corporate performance variables more complex. Because it is multidimensional, the concept of corporate performance obliges the company to refine and distinguish its indicator system.
In these economies there is a tendency to attribute almost exclusively economicfinancial significance to corporate performance, and to perform subsequent assessment (i.e. oriented to the past). On the other hand, in economies with controlled competition, where the balance is not stable, limiting the concept of performance merely to an economic-financial dimension is reductive, because it could lead to a forcedly partial analysis, which is purely internal, in which the complexity of the context is underestimated, and attention focused: inside the company, to non-financial (quantitative and qualitative) management measures; outside, to final and intermediate demand. In this context, assessments are extended to the concepts of customer satisfaction, brand and store loyalty, repeated purchasing. In this sense, context analysis seems to suggest to companies to enlarge the scope of their analysis: 'excellent companies turn their attention to performance indicators, rather than on detailed information about costs, variations, net profits, cash flows or efficiency of the action 34 . Economies where competition is controlled reveal a very dynamic link between company and final demand, which refines its needs and therefore the purchasing process, and between company and distribution, which becomes an active player, as well as the emerging importance of finance in terms of the acquisition of the huge resources necessary to sustain corporate development.
Companies cannot limit themselves to exploring issues that fall exclusively within the company boundaries, but need a system of indicators that is able to describe a complex reality within the company and in relations between the latter and demand.
The link between the different performance levels is deep and two-pronged: on one hand, subordination of the internal dimension to the external: in fact, the overall assessment of company performance, considers as positive not only economic-technical superiority, but also the perception -and acceptance -of this superiority by final demand; on the other, the integration of the internal dimension and analysis of demand, in relation to the use of different performance indicators, regarding : o internal indicators: primarily administrative (management and cost analysis), supplemented by non-financial measures (stock trends, turnaround times, assessment of human resources, etc.); o external indicators (of demand and market): of a quantitative (primarily absolute and relative market share) and qualitative type (customer satisfaction, customer retention, quality, etc.), linked to the development, marketing and promotion of the product (from which the importance of intangible supply resources and of their assessment emerges). Demand represents the company's competitive focus; as a result, performance assessment draws on a system of various types of indicator, which are born from complex analysis within the corporation, but gradually interacting with indicators that address the outside world, and particularly demand, both final and intermediate. We underline that 'the external performance indicators are used to examine the conditions for the effectiveness of the firm's performance in order to show how internal economic efficiency is linked to an efficient relationship between the quality and price of the products sold or distributed; that is, to the production of value for the user and the client, as measured by appropriate outcome performance measures' 35 . In these economies, the degree of complexity of the corporate performance increases, measured using the following indicators: internal; external, and referred to: o demand (final and intermediate); o financial community. The internal indicators express a company's capacity to monitor its internal dynamics. In this sense, the management control system constitutes a fundamental tool to supplement and incorporate into the system the data deriving from preventive analysis, from simultaneous monitoring of management and, finally, from a subsequent check on the achievement of set, detailed objectives, for example, in company budgets.
The external indicators can be elaborated differently to assess the relation with demand, or address the financial community. The former express a primarily corporate 'use'; the latter are developed by the company, but transmitted outside with clear financial goals 36 .
The study conducted by Kaplan and Norton in 1996 37 outlined four performance perspectives (identifying objectives, measurements, targets and initiatives for each of them): financial perspective; customer perspective; internal processes perspective; learning perspective. The first two involve the external dimension; the latter, on the other hand, emerge from an internal vision.
In the set-up adopted here, the client perspective is made up of five primary quantitative and qualitative measurements, which are related: satisfaction, acquisition, loyalty, profitability, market share.
The metrics used in the customer perspective also include: the number of customers; lost customers; the number of complaints; marketing expenses; the number of visits per customer, etc..
The customer perspective is therefore the foundation on which the other perspectives are based: the internal process perspective identifies the key processes in which the organisation must excel to support the decisions and goals identified in the customer perspective and therefore create 'value'; the learning and growth perspective identifies personal behaviour, capabilities and skills in the organisation's employees; technologies designed to support corporate development, designed to create value by achieving the set goals; the financial perspective (synthetically, the achievement of the set economicfinancial results) focuses on satisfying the customer (and therefore, on sales, satisfaction and loyalty) by exploiting the internal perspectives. The Balanced Scorecard, originally used only as a tool to assess corporate management, has gradually been interpreted as a strategic tool of management (with the goal of action and not simply of analysis). However, the perspectives identified by the two Authors are a suitable managerial tool for companies operating in economies with an unstable balance, for which a customer focus is expressed by a marked orientation to marketing (the prevailing orientation in the contexts analysed above), although there are clear gaps for companies incorporated in a network and faced with competitive contexts that are intensely competitive and over-supplied.
To conclude, contexts where competitive intensity is limited, are usually stable, with ample potential demand: this justifies the importance acquired by a primarily internal analysis perspective and therefore by a concept of performance based on primarily economic-financial metrics. On the other hand, in economies where competition is controlled, where there is a dynamic balance between demand and supply, a competitive market orientation prevails, based on complex market conditions; the definition of performance therefore takes internal and external inquiry perspectives into consideration, with reference to the customer.   36, 1996, p. 15. 2 On the concept of the vital entrepreneurship system we refer you to G.M. Golinelli, L'approccio sistemico al governo dell'impresa, Tomo I, L'impresa sistema vitale, CEDAM, Padova, 2000.
3 For example, taking as a reference a merely 'internal' dimension, performance may be divided into three levels: organisation, process and work/worker (G.A. Rummler, A.P. Brache, Migliorare la performance aziendale, Franco Angeli, 1996). On the other hand, many companies have already adopted a different approach, in which the concept of performance breaks down into economic, social and environmental (this type of classification is adopted by several companies: for example, by SABAF -www.sabaf.it). However, particularly in analysis conducted into market trends, analysis is significantly limited: for example, the comparison between the performance of companies under foreign control and those under Italian control adopts a 'common combination of indicators: productivity and labour costs, profitability and intensity of investments and of spending on research and development'. See FITA (Federazione Italiana del Terziario Avanzato per i Servizi Innovativi e Professionali), 'Struttura e attività delle imprese a controllo estero, 2001. 4 Cf. R. Simons, Levers of Control: How Managers Use Innovative Control System to Drive Strategic Renewal, Boston, Harvard Business School Press, 1995. Critical variables are not defined unambiguously, but depend on the characteristics of the company and the context in which it operates. 5 'A performance measurement system may be defined as a set of measurements used to quantify both the efficiency and the effectiveness of company activities, see L. Lucianetti, Balanced Scorecard e controllo aziendale, Aracne Ed. Rome, 2004, p.157. 6 In particular, financial measures 'communicate financial objectives and make unitary and general representation of corporate performance possible, represented on the basis of a number of rules and conventions structured so as to unequivocally compose the expectations and requests of various classes of stakeholder', Cf. M. Agliati, Condizioni di efficacia delle misure non finanziarie nella valutazione delle prestazioni aziendali, cit. 7 'For the former, the unit of measurement is monetary: revenues, expense, profits. Non-financial measurements, on the other hand, are expressed in non-currency units: quantity, reject rates or market share, see R. Simons, La gestione delle performance aziendali. Ruoli, responsabilità e meccanismi di controllo, EGEA, Milan, 2005 p.74. According to the author, 'two reasons may be suggested to explain the limited role of financial indicators: not all corporate activities may be expressed in monetary terms (…); the translation of corporate activities in monetary terms is performed to simplify reporting activities in a commonly expressed language. However, innumerable non-financial events precede this stage of the final translation, each of which demands managerial control.' See R. Simons, Misurare la performance aziendale, EGEA, Milan, 1987, p. 3. 8 In this regard, we underline that 'most methodologies for corporate strategy assessment and planning and operating control are of accounting origin; on the basis of analytical schemes developed throughout the 20 th century, a company's economic balance, both past and future, could be examined by analysing the profiles of operating profitability, growth and stability, solvency and equity soundness', see M. Agliati, Condizioni di efficacia delle misure non finanziarie nella valutazione delle prestazioni aziendali, in F. Amigoni, P. Miolo Vitali. (edited by), Misure multiple