The movie Moneyball, which hit theaters last month, depicts the use of performance metrics by the Oakland Athletics to rack up wins despite the lowest payroll in Major League Baseball. IT departments could take a cue from the movie, writes Computerworld's Jaikumar Vijayan.

Billy Beane, the Oakland A's general manager, evidently wasn't impressed by the use of conventional metrics like home runs and RBIs to find players. He preferred metrics that were used much less frequently, including on-base average, walks plus hits per inning pitched and value over replacement player, Vijayan writes.

Analysts are encouraging enterprises to adopt a similar perspective and take a new look at the measures they use to improve the business. To gain a competitive advantage, they need to learn to make changes to their business processes, says Rita Sallam, an analyst with Gartner. Processes like choosing vendors can benefit from the same techniques used by the Oakland A's.

"Player selection for instance, is similar to vendor selection," Sallam said. "You need to look at quantitative and qualitative measures."

Value decisions can be quite nuanced and the data can show that the common assumptions may not be correct. One might assume that customers are more likely to leave a vendor because of pricing than a negative experience, but the opposite could be true.

One organization taking the non-traditional metrics approach is Social Compact, a non-profit in Washington, D.C., that works to bring investment to inner cities. Rather than rely on census data, the group gathers economic indicators that aren't normally analyzed to come up with a highly detailed profile that shows a community's real potential.

Social Compact draws from numerous sources, such as building permits, utility usage records, tax assessments and consumer spending.

"We create an information base that is representative of the true economic strength of a community," said Alyssa Lee, president and CEO of the non-profit.

For more:
- see Jaikumar Vijayan's article at Computerworld

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