Performance Excellence, Past and Future?

One of the problems of explaining the value of business intelligence is that every layer of computing has always promised some variation on “better management” as the ultimate benefit of purchasing the system.

From 1959 mainframes (above), early “executive information systems”, the 1982 IBM PC (right), the first spreadsheets (far right), 1980s ERP systems and “decision support systems” to today’s BI and Performance Management systems, the mantra has always been “better decisions” and “more visibility into the future” (click on the images to see the original ads).

But this time we really mean it — don’t we? 🙂

Or as, in the past, will there be yet more layers that will add extra value and get closer to management nirvana? If so, what does the next one look like?

One thing that is clearly lacking in most of today’s systems is the acknowledgement that “performance” depends on a lot more than just what’s going on in any one organization — will the next layer will be about providing better management across ecosystems and industries as a whole? “Collective Performance Management”?