Business performance in 2024 relies on factors that have shifted to less visible areas: governance of generative AI, cyber resilience, regulatory compliance. Ignoring these dimensions is akin to steering with an incomplete dashboard.
Generative AI Governance and Business Performance
Generative AI accelerates the production of marketing content, lead qualification, and customer data analysis. We observe that most companies adopting it focus on rapid deployment without structuring the upstream data quality chain.
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Generative AI only produces measurable gains at an industrial scale, not during the experimentation phase. Specifically, this means that a product sheet generation tool or customer response tool only becomes profitable when the input data (catalogs, sales histories, CRM) are standardized and audited.
The classic trap is to multiply use cases without cross-functional governance. A marketing department generating product descriptions with one model, a customer service team using another chatbot, a sales team leveraging a third scoring tool: without a common reference, inconsistencies accumulate and degrade the customer experience instead of improving it.
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We recommend appointing an internal AI manager, even part-time, responsible for three missions: validating the quality of data sets, mediating tool choices between departments, and documenting risks (bias, hallucinations, confidentiality). This role already exists in large corporations, but SMEs and mid-sized enterprises can adapt it with market resources, such as those listed on expertise-entreprise.com that cover various dimensions of business management.
Cybersecurity as a Business Continuity Lever
Every hour of unplanned downtime costs more than an annual preventive investment. This reality remains underestimated in performance strategies focused on “revenue growth.” The Splunk State of Cybersecurity 2025 report highlights the increasing complexity of incident detection and response, directly linking cybersecurity to sales capability.
An e-commerce site unavailable during a promotional campaign, an ERP blocked by ransomware during billing, a compromised CRM exposing customer data: these scenarios are no longer fiction. They severely and measurably impact business performance.
Priority actions for an SME or mid-sized enterprise:
- Segment the internal network to isolate critical systems (ERP, customer database, payment gateway) from the rest of the office infrastructure
- Implement offline backups tested every quarter, not just scheduled
- Train sales and marketing teams on common attack vectors (targeted phishing, supplier account compromise), as these profiles handle sensitive data daily
The link between cybersecurity and performance is rarely formalized in management tools, but it conditions the stability of all processes that generate revenue.
DORA Compliance and Digital Risk Management
The DORA (Digital Operational Resilience Act) framework, applicable since January 2025, imposes strict requirements for digital operational resilience on financial entities and their critical ICT providers. For companies providing services to this sector, DORA compliance becomes a business prerequisite, not just a regulatory framework.
This constraint redefines performance for any company exposed to dependency chains with the financial sector. A software publisher, a cloud host, a document management provider: all must demonstrate their ability to withstand major digital incidents and document them.
Concrete Impact on Business Strategy
Tenders now include DORA clauses. Failing to meet these requirements eliminates access to high-value markets. We observe that companies anticipating these requirements turn the constraint into a competitive advantage: they shorten sales cycles by presenting their compliance documentation upfront.
Three deliverables accelerate compliance: a mapping of critical ICT dependencies, an operational resilience testing plan, and an up-to-date digital incident register. These documents serve both customer relations and regulatory audits.
Sales Strategy and Performance Objectives: Connecting Indicators to Decisions
Overloaded dashboards paralyze decision-making. Three to five KPIs aligned with the business strategy are sufficient to drive the performance of a sales team.
The customer acquisition cost, conversion rate by channel, and gross margin per product line form a foundation for operational management. Adding a retention indicator (repurchase rate or average customer relationship duration) completes the vision without overwhelming it.
A common mistake is to track vanity metrics (number of raw leads, volume of proposals sent) that do not correlate with actual revenue. A healthy sales process measures what generates margin, not what generates activity.
- Review KPIs each quarter by comparing initial objectives with observed results
- Eliminate any indicator that no manager uses to make a concrete decision
- Integrate a CRM data quality indicator, as a sales pipeline filled with duplicates and outdated contacts skews any sales projection
Data-driven management is only valuable if that data is reliable and actionable. A cleaned CRM each month produces better forecasts than a predictive analysis tool fed by dirty data. Performance in 2024 is built on this discipline, applied to every link in the value chain.