Move performance management into the digital world for clarity, speed

Part of the struggle of dealing with how a company is doing is knowing. Short of having a superhuman HR director with perfect recall (and the ability to be in every division of your company at once) there is software for corporate performance management.

I recommend: It can seem colder, but performance managment software really just digitizes and automates a lot of existing business processes, like performance reviews, employee surveys, compensation plans and goal setting. See some options from Success Factors, Halogen Software and Blue. See also the comprehensive vendor list by business size at Capterra.

HIre business performance consultants to get on track

Software is a good tool, but it can also take a thorough grafting of human resources culture to get performance reviews and processes into place to begin with. Here's where bringing in a performance management consulting firm can help improve corporate performance management.

I recommend: Some business performance consultants include Westminster Associates and Grote Consulting. For more, see the Business.com directory on performance management consulting.

Business performance management is, increasingly, a financial issue

Once, you could palm off the numbers work to your chief financial officer, maybe give him or her a team and an investor relations person, then wait for the quarterly report. No more. Financial details are now a corporate performance management problem, thanks to increased regulation, even for privately held companies.

I recommend: If you think you'll seek financing, even bank financing, start keeping better track of financial performance now with scorecarding software from OutlookSoft, Lombardi, and SAS. Membership organization BPM Institute has roundtables and whitepapers on business performance management issues.

Consider a module-driven corporate performance management suite

If your company is small but on the verge of quick growth, you'll be keeping track of a lot of moving pieces -- sales, accounting, production, people, financing. A lot of vendors of very big performance software offerings can tailor a starter package for medium businesses that can grow with you.

I recommend: Some of the well-known vendors of corporate performance management software include  SAS, Oracle, Business Objects and Hyperion. See more business performance consultants at the Business.com directory on performance management consulting.

Performance management consulting can set crucial benchmarks

It can all seem a bit wonky, but the work of performance management consulting has become tremendously relevant to even small and medium-sized companies. Influenced by outside factors like competition and human capital flows, companies often have trouble recognizing impending change, and managing it.

I recommend: An excellent exercise in looking inward is the balanced scorecard approach, which goes beyond project management to take into account goal setting and tracking. Learn more at the Balanced Scorecard Institute. Some major performance management consultants include Accenture, Deloitte, KPMG, Cognos and PricewaterhouseCoopers.