
Pick the right metric to incentivize the behavior you want - edmondlau
http://www.theeffectiveengineer.com/blog/pick-the-right-metric-to-incentivize-desired-behavior
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msellout
Profit per visit seems flawed as well. Why not just optimize profit, or long-
term expected profit?

The vague statement, "the shift in metric played a huge role in aligning the
company’s focus," seems at odds with the article's emphasis on metrics. Let's
get some measurement of the effect of the metric.

I imagine that the metric change from profit per store to profit per visit was
just part of a bureaucratic shift in the way Walgreens divided territory among
managers.

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arh68
> Profit per visit seems flawed as well. Why not just optimize profit, or
> long-term expected profit?

I think it's like averted vision: the point is to achieve profit long-term,
but you have to focus on profit per visit to get there.

Regardless, as a customer, I don't want every employee focused on ripping me
off, which is what I assume it can degenerate to.

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benawabe896
Bummer, I thought this was going to be an article talking about a person's own
behavior. Personal analytics are fascinating to me, and if someone was to
figure out some cool metrics to help incentivize personal behavior, that would
be really interesting.

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stephengillie
Hey, it's a Walgreens ad!

Basically, their strategy is to saturate the market, and they don't care if
they steal sales or cannibalize their own sales. They're maximizing profit per
customer visit, but ignoring customer visits per store per week?

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GhotiFish
I admire skepticism, and yes this kind of guerrilla marketing is common, but I
don't think Walgreens would be targeting Hacker News. Hackers are not a prime
demographic.

A point in your favor though, The author is pretty new. This being his second
blog post.

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shalmanese
The author is an early employee at Quora. He has better things to do with his
time than shill for Walgreens.

