Cameron Hopgood
The Application of Performance Metrics to Business Improvement Areas: An Examination of the Downtown Yonge and Bloor-Yorkville BIA © 2006
Since the inception of business improvement areas in Canada in the 1970s little progress has been made in establishing quantifiable measures of BIA performance. Metrics provide an objective means of measuring a given phenomenon and afford organizations the ability to quantify change and benchmark their internal performance temporally or in contrast to competitors.
This research project introduces a model performance measurement system for business improvement areas. By conducting a comparative analysis of the Downtown Yonge and the Bloor- Yorkville Business Improvement Area, spatial and temporal trends were examined from 1996 to 2004 to ascertain achievements and areas of concern within the BIA. Specifically, the approach presented and discussed throughout this paper provides business improvement areas with a practical method of integrating valuable geographically-referenced business data with qualitative survey data, to form a comprehensive performance measurement system that will increase operational efficiency and drive effective decision-making.