Six Fingers, 6 of 8

Six Fingers

Knowing our numbers

Do you have a habit of setting measurable goals for yourself?

Great - continue to learn more about measuring the right things.

Try again!

We're a performance-oriented, data-driven business, and we make fact-based decisions.

A stylized graph
By setting clear targets and tracking key performance indicators (KPIs), we measure performance, gain insights, benchmark, and take accountability for acting on poor results.
The Six Fingers model is our long-standing way of measuring financial performance. Each finger represents an essential driver that creates value, improves financial efficiency, and helps everyone understand where to focus to achieve their targets. While the Six Fingers model was originally developed for the guarding portfolio, the principles apply to all our business lines – only the specific KPIs differ.
But we know that numbers are only valuable when they're understood and shared across the organization, which is why we keep it simple and focus on the most important drivers. In each business line, we only measure a limited number of clearly defined KPIs. To do this, we work from shared data structures and definitions that make our information comparable and consistent. This creates transparency, establishes a global language for performance and benchmarking, and ensures that everyone knows what the KPIs represent and why we measure them.
Truly understanding the numbers means knowing what direction we want to take as a company, while also knowing what operational actions we can take to improve them. By digging deeper into the drivers of performance, we can make better decisions, intervene sooner, and perform in a smarter, more focused way.

Value creation comes from driving performance today while laying the foundation for long-term, sustainable growth in the future.

As we continue strengthening our widely established services of guarding and technology installations, we create additional value through offerings that are more scalable, predictable, and recurring – such as maintenance, monitoring, packaged solutions, security risk management, and risk intelligence. These services open the door to more cross-selling and upselling opportunities, drive long-term engagement, and help us become a true full-service partner for our clients.
To ensure performance remains healthy across all parts of our portfolio, we actively manage each client contract. This starts with regularly assessing performance and profitability: Is the contract delivering satisfactory value and meeting our margin expectations? If not, our first step is to make improvements. But if that doesn't work, we must make the difficult decision to exit the contract.

What are our financial measures?

An officer installs a security camera
At the highest level, we measure sales, with a focus on scalable, predictable, and recurring revenue; efficiency; and timely payments. These financial metrics are the output of all the work we do and the ultimate proof that we've been successful.
We know that strong, sustainable financial performance is the outcome of delivering well on a range of key performance indicators (KPIs) across the business. Therefore, each part of our business tracks a set of operational metrics, which are integrated into our common performance management process. Examples include client and employee retention, sickness rates, unpaid overtime, backlog, conversion rates, service response time, indirect costs, or capital allocation. Each leader must understand these metrics and actively manage them.
All leaders must deliver today while at the same time building for the future. That is why we also track strategic value drivers that show how we're progressing against our long-term priorities – such as quality, scalability, and innovation. These include client and employee engagement, share of recurring revenue business, digital adoption, and sustainability metrics. When clients and colleagues are happy, our success lasts far beyond just a few quarters – it strengthens the business for years to come.

To support strategic value creation, we work with long-term targets that guide the direction of our business and prevent us from thinking only incrementally.

These targets take shape as a three-year plan, which is then refined and detailed in each year's business plan, for which we hold every leader accountable. During the year, we update a rolling forecast as well as review performance at least monthly.
This approach reflects how we lead – balancing making our strategy happen (where we want to go) with driving performance (what we need to deliver today), as outlined in our Leadership Framework. It also helps us align every key performance indicator (KPI) – financial, operational, and strategic – with our long-term ambitions.
As our clients' needs change and our business evolves, we continuously review these targets and use them to raise our expectations of what "good" looks like. Long-term goals, combined with a strong performance culture, help us set higher standards for ourselves and the industry.
A watch

Take a few minutes to reflect on the following questions:

What are the most important KPIs to deliver results in your role, i.e. your “six fingers”?

How do you use data and KPIs in your daily work?

What is your most important non-financial metric?

Six Fingers

Now you understand the importance of knowing our numbers

Go to the next tool!
We genuinely believe in the power of being transparent and data-driven. We use the same performance management framework with clear definitions to enable benchmarking and learning from each other, and we limit the number of metrics to the most important ones. In our Six Fingers model, each finger represents an essential financial outcome, and to enable stronger results in the future, we also monitor other key value drivers related to our operational and strategic performance. Each of us, regardless of role, needs to understand how our own contribution can be measured, know our own numbers, and take ownership for constantly improving them.