Executive Perspectives: From the President

Bharat Rupani

Measurement and Fighting for the Intangible

As we wrap up the first quarter of 2016, I find that measurement is often on my mind. It has a heavy impact on our business. It’s often a key tool in how we are evaluated, and rightly so.

Measurement is a given—we inherently want to measure all aspects of our business. If we put a yardstick to our actions we can report on where we are and know how far we have to go to reach our objectives. In many cases, measurement is a necessary tool on the path to success. When you quantify goals, it is hard to argue with numbers. We need to measure and must continue to do so.

However, I would argue that some of the most human aspects of business are often difficult to measure. And aren’t we, at our core, a very human business? Yes, we produce three million events a year and the sales results for retailers as a result of our work quantifies the effectiveness of our programs, but there’s more than sales at play here. It’s the millions of shoppers we interact with over the course of a year. It’s that brief moment when our Sales Advisors and Brand Ambassadors connect with shoppers, talk with them, and maybe provide them with new information or a bit of humor. It’s the moments we have with each other, the connections formed in person and over the phone. Without those moments which provide a lasting human touch, all other efforts will fall flat.

As we look ahead to the rest of the year, and firmly set our goals in place, I encourage our teams and partners to measure and monitor, but to also fight for the intangible – the human connection. We are all responsible for bringing an elusive element to every engagement, regardless of its size. It is that which we cannot hold onto that is the reason the rest of what we do works.

Thank you for doing your part to make all of this work, to make all of what we do a success for everyone involved.

All my best,