linkages to key processes needing attention because key financial factor variables in the ROI hierarchy are hypothetically deficient. For example, if along the "operating assets" segment some deficiency is isolated in the Accounts Receivable component of Current Assets, it can be linked directly to the Billing and Receiving Process and prioritized for improvement.

EP factor analysis or their derivatives will ultimately become the standard for a more surgically precise examination of performance change agenda options in strategic renewal and improvement planning. However, the first couple of layers of its decomposition hierarchy, regardless of which equation elements are chosen for breakdown, consist of surface variables dependent on potentially controversial aspects of weighting, timing, assumptions, and dynamics. Alternatively, Customer Value Analysis (CVA) might supplant EP factor analysis if its analytical framework

can be more practically extended across operations than at present.

When using formulaic focusing tools like EP or the Altman Z-Score, reversing negative trends and/or remedying weak scores must address individual formula components to identify the principal points of weakness and finding opportunities in operations to get performance back on track. If key contributing processes and subprocesses cannot be intuitively linked to formula variables, these variables should also be decomposed.

Well-managed business basics are also the result of exemplary execution within the performance architecture of the business. Effective senior managers understand the key strategic and tactical processes in their operations and ensure that these are measured and managed. Process ownership and

accountability are important assignments, each made at the activity-based level within the corporate hierarchy. The organization encourages fact-based, consistent decision making, focuses employee empowerment at key points of action with a "do the right things right," and rewards a mindset of automatic rapid response, troubleshooting, and continuous improvement.

A key action plan deliverable should be a set of results-focused measures with an associated performance framework that clearly indicates how corporate measures or scorecards should be deployed throughout the organization to specific points of action and responsibility. Executives often resist output-oriented, results-focused measures and accountability because they focus too directly on identifiable and attributable performance responsibilities and accountabilities. They