Achieving Corporate Objectives: Benchmarking and Improving Your Business Performance

BOSTON, MA--(Marketwire - October 14, 2010) - In a newly released report, Achieving Corporate Objectives: Benchmarking and Improving Your Business Performance, Aberdeen Group, a Harte-Hanks Company (NYSE: HHS), found that top companies are able to successfully manage their business performance by having clearly-defined goals, by having means to evaluate decision-effectiveness, and by establishing a system of staff accountability within the organization. Most companies understand the importance of setting corporate goals, but lack the discipline and infrastructure to effectively translate and propagate these goals down the organizational hierarchy.

This study also revealed that in order to make effective decisions that improve business performance, executives must have access to tools that enable visibility to financial and operational goals, as well as to their performance progress. Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) provides this much needed visibility and enables executives to quickly identify variables that attribute to failed goals or performance deficiencies, as well as factors that enable success.

"The concept of organizational accountability is nothing new. But creating an effective accountability system continues to be challenging for companies. The mere concept of defining corporate goals, and translating them into strategic / meaningful assignments for the employees, does not guarantee positive performance," explains William Jan, Senior Analyst of Financial Management & GRC at Aberdeen Group. "Executives must have clear visibility into how their staff and business is performing against milestones at all times, and intervene to ensure continued alignment to corporate strategies. To facilitate this, organizations are centralizing performance information to enable streamlined access for all parties." In fact, this study found that 71% of the top companies maintain performance data in a centralized repository compared to only 38% of the laggards. With constant, up-to-the minute access to financial and operational information, executives can reduce the decision-cycle time, and make effective decisions.

This report is designed to provide guidance on EPM's capabilities and enabling technologies that can help improve financial and operational control.

A complimentary copy of this report is made available due in part by the following underwriters: Cogniti and Host Analytics, Inc. To obtain a complimentary copy of the report, please visit:

http://www.aberdeen.com/link/sponsor.asp?spid=30410182&cid=6739&camp=2

Visit Research.Aberdeen.com for additional access to complimentary reports.

About Aberdeen Group, a Harte-Hanks Company

Aberdeen provides fact-based research and market intelligence that delivers demonstrable results. Having queried more than 30,000 companies in the past two years, Aberdeen is positioned to educate users to action: driving market awareness, creating demand, enabling sales, and delivering meaningful return-on-investment analysis. As the trusted advisor to the global technology markets, corporations turn to Aberdeen for insights that drive decisions.

As a Harte-Hanks Company, Aberdeen plays a key role of putting content in context for the global direct and targeted marketing company. Aberdeen's analytical and independent view of the "customer optimization" process of Harte-Hanks (Information - Opportunity - Insight - Engagement - Interaction) extends the client value and accentuates the strategic role Harte-Hanks brings to the market. For additional information, visit Aberdeen or call (617) 854-5200, or to learn more about Harte-Hanks, call (800) 456-9748.

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