The fact that Dubai, the most populated city in the United Arab Emirates, has become an exquisite destination, both as a business and tourism center, due to its luxurious attractions, is no longer a secret. Nowadays, this city is identified with locations such as Burj Khalifa, Palm Jumeirah or The World Islands. However, having an outstanding infrastructure in place is not nearly enough and, in order to thrive, all entities, from small business to large services sector, must periodically assess their performance and take the measures needed in order to maintain or boost their results.
At the end of 2013, the World Bank Group adopted a new strategy, aiming at ending extreme poverty and promoting shared prosperity. To monitor the translation of its strategy into practice, the international institution has developed a Corporate Scorecard. It aggregates the contributions of all institutions that form the World Bank Group: the World Bank (WB), the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA).
How can we grow our business? What will bring us more success? What is the main driver for favorable results? These are some questions that managers are addressing themselves and whose answers should focus on one essential indicator: keeping customers satisfied.
Companies strive to decrease costs by improving performance with their available resources. This leads to the need for measuring performance through strategic measurement systems, based on tools like balanced scorecards, key performance indicators or dashboards. But with measuring performance there comes a questions: what guidelines should be used when defining and using metrics in order to avoid mistakes that seriously impair the usefulness of these tools?
The misery index is an economic indicator that is calculated by adding the inflation rate to the unemployment rate. The rationale behind this calculus is that a higher rate of unemployment and a worsening of inflation mean economic and social costs for a country and imply a deterioration in economic performance.
