Outcomes Versus Outputs

At Goodwill, pricers are evaluated based on how many items they make. This type of metric is considered an output because the final outcome (a sale) hasn’t happened yet. While it is important to measure output, it is even more important to measure outcomes. That’s the only way to know whether a pricer is effective or not.

Question:	If two pricers each make 100 items per hour, are they equally effective?
Answer:	It depends on whether the items they make actually sell and how much sales are generated.

In fact, if pricer A makes 100 items and 20 of them sell for $120 and pricer B makes 80 items and 30 of them sell for $180, pricer B is more effective than pricer A.

That’s the power of outcome data. So, why don’t all retail solutions deliver outcome data?

It’s because most production systems are not tightly integrated with the POS system. When an item is sold at the cash register, the POS system has no idea which pricer made that item. Because the two systems are disjoint, data is lost between the production system and the POS system.

AMI doesn’t have this problem; it is tightly integrated with the POS system and knows the pricer of every item sold. Thus, AMI captures both output data and outcome data. With AMI, each pricers’ contribution to the bottom line is known. Weak pricers are easily spotted and can receive additional training. In time, all pricers will become more effective leading to consistently higher sales.