Today, businesses and companies alike rely upon financial capital as the main resource for ensuring stability and driving business growth. The primary metrics for evaluating financial performance include measuring cash flow and determining profit on a monthly and yearly basis. Digging a little deeper there are a number of other specific key business performance indicators (KPIs) that companies can select from to monitor and track financial performance. Forbes previously provided a number of financial KPIs for consideration including cash flow from operations, inventory turns, receivables growth vs. sales growth, productivity, on-time deliveries, employee retention, back log, interest rate coverage, and gross margin (1). The Harvard Business Review (HBR) discussed return on assets (ROA), return on equity (ROE), and debt leverage as the leading means to determine business performance (2). Small Business reviewed profitability, liquidity, debt, and activity as the primary measurements for business performance (3).  So as can be seen, companies and businesses have a number of financial KPIs available to measure business performance. The key is to determine which metrics work best for your organization. Read more

All sectors including public, private, service, and academic organizations, are trying to address systemic sustainability issues and concerns within their own area and span of control. Many leaders of these organizations are asking why more collective progress that addresses these issues has not been achieved to date? The reasons are numerous and many times the feedback focuses on silo thinking and not interacting with others that can provide critical input and feedback. We are now at a tipping point with the realization that business, government, NGOs, and academia all need to work together to address and solve our most challenging problems and concerns. The solutions are there with the use of sustainable development best practices, but if we do not work together significant collective progress and impact will not be made. Read more