Enterprise performance is at the core of management focus today. More than just financial measures, quantitative and qualitative measures are a critical element of measuring success today. Measures and measurement systems are the foundation of returning value to investors and owners of an enterprise. As a result, the improvement of performance is one of the most significant tasks managers have in today's enterprise.

A key result of performance management is achieving a lean and more flexible enterprise that returns maximum results. Management uses various methods to achieve these results. Using scorecarding and dashboards is a concise way management uses to communicate its objectives, goals, and results.

For example, financial planning and budgeting process sets objectives and goals which are the basis of a more advanced management discipline and approach. But, this process is not enough to implement an operational performance improvement system today. What is needed is an effective and efficient way to achieve strategic and enterprise level improvement. A key component to the successful deployment of a performance measurement, management and reporting approach is the use of appropriate key performance indicators (KPIs). How is it achieved? It is achieved by the skillful use of performance measures and the presentation of these measures that communicates them to all the stakeholders in the enterprise.

Key benefits of developing a performance management system using this approach is:

• ability to evaluate the overall performance of the enterprise
• way to identify those key measures of for the enterprise
• means to integrate measures across the business
• gain key insights to strategic enterprise management
• understand and internalize business modeling for performance
• learn to develop and apply dimensionless measures
• distinguish between business intelligence and performance management
• manage performance data
• learn which parts of the business contribute most to performance
• learn where to apply the levels of investment in operations
• ability to effective communicate management objectives across the enterprise

Using words and phrases are part of normal business communications. The analysis that focuses on the way an organization uses these words and phrases is called Semantic analysis. But, the analysis does not include the definitions of these words. Semantic analysis uses the words and phrases looking for similarities and differences in how people describe their organization. These words and phrases are grouped into structures or models. A typical example is a process model. A process model is a descriptive model because it explains the organization’s actions in word and phrases (Market Product, Sell Product, Order Product, Ship Product, etc.). There are many other types of models in the organization that are descriptive not just process models. For example, an organization model (usually an organization chart), a chart of accounts, a bill of materials, a distribution network diagram (with words in them), geographic models showing where things are produced, shipped and so on, are all descriptive models. Keep in mind, even diagrams have words and phrases in them and are organized in some manner and are a model. This is what a process flow is.