A graphical look at business performance – Apple Retail stores

I have written quite a few posts on performance management of firms and how management accountants can use both financial and non-financial performance measures. One thing I have not thus far mentioned is the actual presentation of such information. I am not one of those people who uses the bells and whistles and products like Powerpoint, but I do appreciate that information presenting in a short, concise format. One way to do present information in a clear way is to use a graphical format. So, here I give a great example which a kind reader of my blog referred me to.

We all know how successful Apple Inc are. Now you can look into their annual reports and analysts presentations to get a view of how much money they make. But wouldn’t you love to know what Apple’s managers get to see on a regular basis in terms of the company performance. That is, what kind of performance measurements might they use and report on internally. Below you’ll see a great infographic on the performance of Apple’s retail stores. The data shown is self-explanatory, so I will not detail it here. When I first saw this graphic, I thought wow, wouldn’t this be a great internal performance measurement tool. Of course, we don’t know if Apple actually prepare something like this infographic, but it is certainly quite effective at getting the message across.