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Kpi meaning + 27 examples of key performance indicators.

As your organization begins to sketch out what your strategic plan might look like, it’s likely to come to your attention that you’ll need to gain consensus around what your key performance indicators will be and how they will impact your organization. If you haven’t thought much about your KPIs yet, that’s okay. We can help!

We’ve compiled a complete guide that includes an overview of what makes a good KPI, the benefits of good key performance indicators, and a list of KPI examples [organized by department and industry] for your reference as you run your strategic planning process to build your organization’s strategic plan and goals.

Video Transcript – How to Write KPIs

Hi, my name is Erica Olsen. Today’s whiteboard video is on key performance indicators, or KPIs for short. These are those things that are associated with either goals or objectives, whatever you’re calling them, those elements of your plan that are the expressions of what you want to achieve by when those quantifiable outcome-based statements.

So KPI’s answer the quantifiable piece of your goals and objectives. They come in three different flavors. So we’ll talk about that in just a minute. But before we do, putting great measures together and making sure they work well for you, you need to have these four attributes. And before I talk about those four attributes, so I just want to say the reason they need to work well for you is because KPIs are the heartbeat of your performance management process. They tell you whether you’re making progress, and ultimately, we want to make progress against our strategy. So KPIs are the thing that do that for us. So you’re going to live with them a lot. So let’s make sure they’re really good.

Okay, so the four things you need to have in order to make sure your these measures work for you.

Our number one is your measure. So the measure is the verbal expression very simply, in words, what are we measuring, which is fairly straightforward. The tricky thing is, is we need to be as expressive as we possibly can with our measures. So number of new customers, that’s fine. There’s nothing wrong with that. But a little bit advanced or a little bit more expressive, would be number of new customers this year, or number of new customers for a certain product or a certain service. So what is it is it? Yeah, so it is, so be really clear. And when it comes to measuring it on a monthly basis, you’re gonna want to be as clear as possible. So number of new customers, let’s say this year,

Number two, is our target, or target is the numeric value that we want to achieve. So a couple of things that are important about this is, the target needs to be apples to apples with when the goal date is set, or the due date is set. So we want to achieve 1000 new customers by the end of the year. This is your time frame. So the due date in the target works hand in hand. The other thing is the measure and the target need to work hand in hand. So it’s a number. So this is a number, this is a percentage, this is a percentage, you get the idea.

Third thing, we actually run a report on this data. So where is it coming from? Be clear about what the source is. Most organizations have all sorts of data sources, fragmented systems. So making sure you identify where this data is coming from will save you a lot of time.

And then frequency. So how often are you going to be reporting on this KPI, ideally, you’re running monthly strategy reviews to report on the progress of your plan, at least monthly, in which case we’d like to see monthly KPIs. So you got to be able to pull the data monthly in order to make that happen. That’s not always possible. But let’s try to get there. Certainly some organizations are weekly and others are daily, monthly is a good place to start. So frequency. Great.

So now we know the components that we need to have in place in order to have our KPIs. Here are some different types of KPIs that you might think about as you’re putting your plan together.

So there are just straight up raw numbers, I call these widget counting, there’s nothing wrong with widget counting, they don’t necessarily tell a story. And I’ll talk about how to make this tell a story in a minute. But this is just simply widget counting number of things.

The second thing is progress. So this is really often used, it’s great. We use this, which is expressed as percent complete percent complete of the goal, percent completed a project, whatever it might be, it’s a project type measure. It’s a good measure, if if you don’t have quantifiable measures, or you can’t get the data, and you just want to track the performance of the goal as it relates to action items being completed under it.

The third type of indicator is a Change Type Indicator, like percent increase in sales, making this better would be percent increase in sales compared to last year. And the idea is 22%. So you can see how that starts to be more expressive, and work with the target. So this serves to tell a little bit more of a story than this one does, right? And if you want to actually make your widget counting measures tell more of a story like this one does, you might change something like this to read percentage of new customers acquired compared to same time last year. So that’s an example.

Okay, so now we know what we have to have in place and kind of different types of measures to get our ideas flowing. Let’s talk about one thing that you might take your measure writing to the next level and that is think about the fact that there are leading and lagging measures so are leading and lagging indicators. So percent increase in sales or sales is a lagging indicator it occurred as an outcome. If you want to make sure that you’re on track ACC, you might have a KPI in place, which is telling us whether we’re going to hit that increase such as your pipeline, maybe number of leads, or the size of your pipeline. So we don’t want to over rotate on this necessarily, but we do want to make sure we have a combination of leading and lagging measures when we’re looking at our performance on a monthly basis.

So with that, that’s all we have for today. Hopefully you have what you need to write great KPIs for your organization. Happy strategizing. And don’t forget, subscribe to our channel.

What is a Key Performance Indicator KPI — KPI Definition

Key performance indicators, also called KPIs, are the elements of your organization’s plan that express the quantitative outcomes you seek and how you will measure success. In other words, they tell you what you want to achieve and by when.

They are the qualitative, quantifiable, outcome-based statements you’ll use to measure progress and determine if you’re on track to meet your goals or objectives. Good plans use 5-7 KPIs to manage and track their progress against goals.

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KPI Meaning, and Why Do You Need Them?

Key performance indicators are intended to create a holistic picture of how your organization is performing against its intended targets, organizational goals, business goals, or objectives. A great key performance indicator should accomplish all the following:

• Outline and measure your organization’s most important set of outputs.
• Work as the heartbeat of your performance management process and confirm whether progress is being made against your strategy.
• Represent the key elements of your strategic plan that express what you want to achieve by when.
• Measure the quantifiable components of your goals and objectives.
• Measure the most important leading and lagging measures in your organization.

The Five Elements of a KPI

These are the heartbeat of your performance management process and must work well! Your plan’s strategic KPIs tell you whether you’re making progress or how far you are from reaching your goals. Ultimately, you want to make progress against your strategy. You’ll live with these KPIs for at least the quarter (preferably the year), so make sure they’re valuable!

Great strategies track the progress of core elements of the plan. Each key performance indicator needs to include the following elements:

• A Measure: Every KPI must have a measure. The best ones have more specific or expressive measures.
• A Target: Every KPI needs to have a target that matches your measure and the period of your goal. These are generally a numeric values you’re seeking to achieve.
• A Data Source: Each of these needs to have a clearly defined data source so there is no gray area in measuring and tracking each.
• Reporting Frequency: Different measures may have different reporting needs, but a good rule to follow is to report on them at least monthly.
• Owner: While this isn’t a mandatory aspect of your KPI statement, setting expectations of who will take care of tracking, reporting, and refining specific KPIs is helpful to your overall organizational plan.

Indicators vs. Key Performance Indicators

An indicator is a general term that describes a business’s performance metrics.

There can be several types of indicators a company may track, but not all indicators are KPIs, especially if they don’t tie into an organization’s overall strategic plan or objectives, which is a MUST!

Key Performance Indicators

On the other hand, a key performance indicator is a very specific indicator that measures an organization’s progress toward a specific company-wide goal or objective. We typically recommend you narrow down the KPIs your organization tracks to no more than 7. When you track too many goals, it can get daunting and confusing.

Pro Tip : You should only track the best and most valuable indicators that tie to your organization’s long-term strategic goals and direction.

Benefits of Good Key Performance Indicators

What benefits do key performance indicators have on your strategic plan, and on your organization as a whole? A lot of benefits, actually! They are extremely important to the success of your strategic plan as they help you track progress of your goals. Implementing them correctly is critical to success.

• Benefit #1: They provide clarity and focus to your strategic plan by measuring progress and aligning your team’s efforts to the organization’s objectives. They also show your measurable progress over time and create ways to track your organization’s continued improvement.
• Benefit #2: Key performance indicators create a way to communicate a shared understanding of success. They give your team a shared understanding of what’s important to achieve your long-term vision and create a shared language to express your progress.
• Benefit #3: They provide signposts and triggers to help you identify when to act. A good balance of leading and lagging key performance indicators allow you to see the early warning signs when things are going well, or when it’s time to act.

How to Develop KPIs

We’ve covered this extensively in our How to Identify Key Performance Indicators post. But, here’s a really quick recap:

Step 1: Identify Measures that Contribute Directly to Your Annual Organization-wide Objectives

Ensure you select measures that can be directly used to quantify your most important annual objectives.

PRO TIP: It doesn’t matter what plan structure you’re using – balanced scorecard, OKRs, or any other framework – the right KPIs for every objective will help you measure if you’re moving in the right direction.

Step 2: Evaluate the Quality of Your Core Performance Indicators

Select a balance of leading and lagging indicators (which we define later in the article) that are quantifiable and move your organization forward. Always ensure you have relevant KPIs. Having the right key performance indicators makes a world of difference!

Step 3: Assign Ownership

Every key performance indicator needs ownership! It’s just that simple.

Step 4: Monitor and Report with Consistency

Whatever you do, don’t just set and forget your goals. We see it occasionally that people will select measures and not track them, but what’s the point of that? Be consistent. We recommend selecting measures that can be reported upon at least monthly.

The 3 Common Types of KPIs to Reference as You Build Your Metrics

Key performance indicators answer the quantifiable piece of your goals and objectives . They come in three different flavors. Now that you know the components of great key performance indicators, here are some different ones that you might think about as you’re putting your plan together:

Broad Number Measures

The first type of KPI is what we like to call broad number measures. These are the ones that essentially count something. An example is counting the number of products sold or the number of visits to a webpage.

PRO TIP: There is nothing wrong with these, but they don’t tell a story. Great measures help you create a clear picture of what is going on in your organization. So, using only broad ones won’t help create a narrative.

Progress Measures

Progress key performance indicators are used to help measure the progress of outcomes . This is most commonly known as the “percent complete” KPI, which is helpful in measuring the progress of completing a goal or project. These are best when quantifiable outcomes are difficult to track, or you can’t get specific data.

PRO TIP: Progress KPIs are great, but your KPI stack needs to include some easily quantifiable measures. We recommend using a mixture of progress KPIs and other types that have clear targets and data sources.

Change Measures

The final type of KPI is a change indicator. These are used to measure the quantifiable change in a metric or measure. An example would be, “X% increase in sales.” It adds a change measure to a quantifiable target and is usually measured as a percentage increase in a given period of time.

The more specific change measures are, the easier they are to understand. A better iteration of the example above would be “22% increase in sales over last year, which represents an xyz lift in net-new business.” More expressive measures are better.

PRO TIP: Change measures are good for helping create a clear narrative . It helps explain where you’re going instead of just a simple target.

Leading KPIs vs Lagging KPIs

Part of creating a holistic picture of your organization’s progress is looking at different types of measures, like a combination of leading and lagging indicators. Using a mixture of both allows you to monitor progress and early warning signs closely when your plan is under or over-performing (leading indicator) and you have a good hold on how that performance will impact your business down the road (lagging indicator). Here’s a deep dive and best practices on using leading versus lagging indicators:

Leading Indicator

We often refer to these metrics as the measures that tell you how your business might/will perform in the future. They are the warning buoys you put out in the water to let you know when something is going well and when something isn’t.

For example, a leading KPI for an organization might be the cost to deliver a good/service. If the cost of labor increases, it will give you a leading indicator that you will see an impact on net profit or inventory cost.

Another example of a leading indicator might be how well your website is ranking or how well your advertising is performing. If your website is performing well, it might be a leading indicator that your sales team will have an increase in qualified leads and contracts signed.

Lagging Indicator

A lagging indicator refers to past developments and effects. This reflects the past outcomes of your measure. So, it lags behind the performance of your leading indicators.

An example of a lagging indicator is EBITA. It reflects your earnings for a past date. That lagging indicator may have been influenced by leading indicators like the cost of labor/materials.

Balancing Leading and Lagging Indicators

If you want to ensure that you’re on track, you might have a KPI in place telling you whether you will hit that increase, such as your lead pipeline. We don’t want to over-rotate on this, but as part of a holistic, agile plan, we recommend outlining 5-7 key performance metrics or indicators in your plan that show a mix of leading and lagging indicators. .

Having a mixture of both gives you both a look-back and a look-forward as you measure the success of your plan and business health. A balanced set of KPIs also gives you the data and business intelligence you need for making decision making and strategic focus. We also recommend identifying and committing to tracking and managing the same KPIs for about a year, with regular monthly or quarterly reporting cadence, to create consistency in data and reporting.

27 KPI Examples

Sales key performance indicators.

• Number of contracts signed per quarter
• Dollar value for new contracts signed per period
• Number of qualified leads per month
• Number of engaged qualified leads in the sales funnel
• Hours of resources spent on sales follow up
• Average time for conversion
• Net sales – dollar or percentage growth
• New sales revenue
• Growth rate
• Customer acquisition count
• Lead conversion rate
• Average sales cycle

Increase the number of contracts signed by 10% each quarter.

• Measure: Number of contracts signed per quarter
• Target: Increase number of new contracts signed by 10% each quarter
• Data Source: CRM system
• Reporting Frequency: Weekly
• *Owner: Sales Team
• Due Date: Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4

Increase the value of new contracts by $300,000 per quarter this year.

• Measure: Dollar value for new contracts signed per period
• Data Source: Hubspot Sales Funnel
• Reporting Frequency: Monthly
• *Owner: VP of Sales

Increase the close rate to 30% from 20% by the end of the year.

• Measure: Close rate – number of closed contracts/sales qualified leads
• Target: Increase close rate from 20% to 30%
• *Owner: Director of Sales
• Due Date: December 31, 2023

Increase the number of weekly engaged qualified leads in the sales from 50 to 75 by the end of FY23.

• Measure: Number of engaged qualified leads in sales funnel
• Target: 50 to 75 by end of FY2023
• Data Source: Marketing and Sales CRM
• *Owner: Head of Sales

Decrease time to conversion from 60 to 45 days by Q3 2023.

• Measure: Average time for conversion
• Target: 60 days to 45 days
• Due Date: Q3 2023

Increase number of closed contracts by 2 contracts/week in 2023.

• Measure: Number of closed contracts
• Target: Increase closed contracts a week from 4 to 6
• Data Source: Sales Pipeline
• *Owner: Sales and Marketing Team

Examples of KPIs for Financial

• Growth in revenue
• Net profit margin
• Gross profit margin
• Operational cash flow
• Current accounts receivables
• Operating expenses
• Average cost of goods or services
• Average account lifetime total value

Financial KPIs as SMART Annual Goals

Grow top-line revenue by 10% by the end of 2023.

• Measure: Revenue growth
• Target: 10% growt
• Data Source: Quickbooks
• *Owner: Finance and Operations Team
• Due Date: By the end 2023

Increase gross profit margin by 12% by the end of 2023.

• Measure: Percentage growth of net profit margin
• Target: 12% net profit margin increase
• Data Source: Financial statements
• *Owner: Accounting Department

Increase net profit margin from 32% to 40% by the end of 2023.

• Measure: Gross profit margin in percentage
• Target: Increase gross profit margin from 32% to 40% by the end of 2023
• Data Source: CRM and Quickbooks
• *Owner: CFO

Maintain $5M operating cash flow for FY2023.

• Measure: Dollar amount of operational cash flow
• Target: $5M average
• Data Source: P&L
• Due Date: By the end FY2023

Collect 95% of account receivables within 60 days in 2023.

• Measure: Accounts collected within 60 days
• Target: 95% in 2023
• Data Source: Finance
• Due Date: End of 2023

Examples of Customer Service KPIs

• Number of customers retained/customer retention
• Customer service response time
• Percentage of market share
• Net promotor score

Customer KPIs in a SMART Framework for Annual Goals

90% of current customer monthly subscriptions during FY2023.

• Measure: Number of customers retained
• Target: Retain 90% percent of monthly subscription customers in FY2023
• Data Source: CRM software
• *Owner: Director of Client Operations

Increase market share by 5% by the end of 2023.

• Measure: Percentage of market share
• Target: Increase market share from 25%-30% by the end of 2023
• Data Source: Market research reports
• Reporting Frequency: Quarterly
• *Owner: Head of Marketing

Increase NPS score by 9 points in 2023.

• Measure: Net Promoter Score
• Target: Achieve a 9-point NPS increase over FY2023
• Data Source: Customer surveys
• *Owner: COO

Achieve a weekly ticket close rate of 85% by the end of FY2023.

• Measure: Average ticket/support resolution time
• Target: Achieve a weekly ticket close rate of 85%
• Data Source: Customer support data
• *Owner: Customer Support Team

Examples of KPIs for Operations

• Order fulfillment time
• Time to market
• Employee satisfaction rating
• Employee churn rate
• Inventory turnover
• Total number of units produced or on-hand
• Resource utilization

Operational KPIs as SMART Annual Goals

Average 3 days maximum order fill time by the end of Q3 2023.

• Measure: Order fulfilment time
• Target: Average maximum of 3 days
• Data Source: Order management software
• *Owner: Shipping Manager

Achieve an average SaaS project time-to-market of 4 weeks per feature in 2023.

• Measure: Average time to market
• Target: 4 weeks per feature
• Data Source: Product development and launch data
• *Owner: Product Development Team

Earn a minimum score of 80% employee satisfaction survey over the next year.

• Measure: Employee satisfaction rating
• Target: Earn a minimum score of 80% employee
• Data Source: Employee satisfaction survey and feedback

Maintain a maximum of 10% employee churn rate over the next year.

• Measure: Employee churn rate
• Target: Maintain a maximum of 10% employee churn rate over the next year
• Data Source: Human resources and payroll data
• *Owner: Human Resources

Achieve a minimum ratio of 5-6 inventory turnover in 2023.

• Measure: Inventory turnover ratio
• Target: Minimum ratio of 5-6
• Data Source: Inventory management software
• *Owner: perations Department

Marketing KPIs

• Monthly website traffic
• Number of marketing qualified leads
• Conversion rate for call-to-action content
• Keywords in top 10 search engine results/organic search
• Blog articles published this month
• E-Books published this month
• Marketing campaign performance
• Customer acquisition cost
• Landing page conversion rate

Marketing KPIs as SMART Annual Goals

Achieve a minimum of 10% increase in monthly website traffic over the next year.

• Measure: Monthly website traffic
• Target: 10% increase in monthly website
• Data Source: Google analytics
• *Owner: Marketing Manager

Generate a minimum of 200 qualified leads per month in 2023.

• Measure: Number of marketing qualified leads
• Target: 200 qualified leads per month
• Data Source: Hubspot

Achieve a minimum of 10% conversion rate for on-page CTAs by end of Q3 2023.

• Measure: Conversion rate on service pages
• Target: 10%
• Due Date: End of Q3, 2023

Achieve a minimum of 20 high-intent keywords in the top 10 search engine results over the next year.

• Measure: Keywords in top 10 search engine results
• Target: 20 keywords
• Data Source: SEM Rush data
• *Owner: SEO Manager

Publish a minimum of 4 blog articles per month to earn new leads in 2023.

• Measure: Blog articles
• Target: 4 per month
• Data Source: CMS
• *Owner: Content Marketing Manager
• Due Date: December 2023

Publish at least 2 e-books per quarter in 2023 to create new marketing-qualified leads.

• Measure: E-Books published
• Target: 2 per quarter
• Data Source: Content management system

Bonus: +40 Extra KPI Examples

Supply chain example key performance indicators.

• Number of on-time deliveries
• Inventory carry rate
• Months of supply on hand
• Inventory-to-sales Ratio (ISR)
• Carrying cost of inventory
• Inventory turnover rate
• Perfect order rate
• Inventory accuracy

Healthcare Example Key Performance Indicators

• Bed or room turnover
• Average patient wait time
• Average treatment charge
• Average insurance claim cost
• Medical error rate
• Patient-to-staff ratio
• Medication errors
• Average emergency room wait times
• Average insurance processing time
• Billing code error rates
• Average hospital stay
• Patient satisfaction rate

Human Resource Example Key Performance Indicators

• Organization headcount
• Average number of job vacancies
• Applications received per job vacancy
• Job offer acceptance rate
• Cost per new hire
• Average salary
• Average employee satisfaction
• Employee turnover rate
• New hire training Effectiveness
• Employee engagement score

Social Media Example Key Performance Indicators

• Average engagement
• % Growth in following
• Traffic conversions
• Social interactions
• Website traffic from social media
• Number of post shares
• Social visitor conversion rates
• Issues resolved using social channel
• Social media engagement

Conclusion: Keeping a Pulse on Your Plan

With the foundational knowledge of the KPI anatomy and a few example starting points, it’s important you build out these metrics with detailed and specific data sources so you can truly evaluate if you’re achieving your goals. Remember, these will be the 5-7 core metrics you’ll live by for the next 12 months, so it’s crucial to develop effective KPIs that follow the SMART formula. They should support your business strategy, measure the performance of your strategic objectives, and help you make better decisions.

A combination of leading and lagging KPIs will paint a clear picture of your organization’s strategic performance and empower you to make agile decisions to impact your team’s success.

Need a Dedicated App to Track Your Strategic Plan with KPI Dashboards? We’ve got you covered.

The StrategyHub by OnStrategy is a purpose built tool to help you build and manage a strategic plan with KPIs. Run your strategy reviews with zero prep – get access to our full suite of KPI reports, dynamic dashboards for data visualization, access to your historical data, and reporting tools to stay connected to the performance of your plan. Get 14-day free access today!

Our Other KPI Resources

We have several other great resources to consider as you build your organization’s Key Performance Indicators! Check out these other helpful posts and guides:

• OKRs vs. KPIs: A Downloadable Guide to Explain the Difference
• How to Identify KPIs in 4 Steps
• KPIs vs Metrics: Tips and Tricks to Performance Measures
• Guide to Establishing Weekly Health Metrics

FAQs on Key Performance Indicators

KPI stands for Key Performance Indicators. KPIs are the elements of your organization’s business or strategic plan that express what outcomes you are seeking and how you will measure their success. They express what you need to achieve by when. KPIs are always quantifiable, outcome-based statements to measure if you’re on track to meet your goals and objectives.

The 4 elements of key performance indicators are:

• A Measure – The best KPIs have more expressive measures.
• A Target – Every KPI needs to have a target that matches your measure and the time period of your goal.
• A Data Source – Every KPI needs to have a clearly defined data source.
• Reporting Frequency – A defined reporting frequency.

No, KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) are different from metrics. Metrics are quantitative measurements used to track and analyze various aspects of business performance, while KPIs are specific metrics chosen as indicators of success in achieving strategic goals.

16 Comments

HI Erica hope your are doing well, Sometime Strategy doesn’t cover all the activities through the company, like maintenance for example may be quality control …. sure they have a contribution in the overall goals achievement but there is no specific new requirement for them unless doing their job, do u think its better to develop a specific KPIs for these department? waiting your recommendation

Thanks for your strategic KPIs

Hello Erica, Could you please clarify how to set KPIs for the Strategic Planning team?

Hi Diana, check out the whitepaper above for more insight!

Hello Erica, Could you please clarify, how to set the KPIs for the Strategic PLanning team?

exampels of empowerment kpis

I found great information in this article. In any case, the characteristics that KPIs must have are: measurability, effectiveness, relevance, utility and feasibility

How to write methodology guidelines for strategy implementation / a company’s review and tracking (process and workflow) for all a company’s divisions

support on strategizing Learning & Development for Automobile dealership

Could you please to clarify how to write the KPIs for the Secretary.

Check out our guide to creating KPIs for more help here: https://onstrategyhq.com/kpi-guide-download/

That’s an amazing article.

Could you please to clarify how to write the KPIs for the office boy supervisor

Could you please clarify how to write KPIs for the editorial assistant in a start up publishing company.

Kindly advice how I would set a kpi for a mattress factory

Comments Cancel

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KPI Case studies in action

Nov 6, 2023 | KPIs

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are more than mere numbers on a dashboard; they are vital signs that indicate the health and direction of a business. Like any powerful tool, the value they deliver hinges on their existence and thoughtful application. Through the lens of case studies, we gain a profound understanding of the dynamics that drive successful KPI implementation and the cautionary tales that remind us of potential pitfalls. In this exploration, we’ll delve into real-world scenarios where KPIs have acted as beacons leading to commercial triumph and those instances where they’ve served as misleading signals, spiralling businesses into challenges.  These stories are not just narratives but practical lessons carved out of the corporate frontlines, offering a blueprint for what to emulate and avoid. By dissecting these case studies, we equip ourselves with the wisdom to navigate the intricate world of performance metrics, ensuring that the KPIs we choose are not just numbers but actionable insights that steer us towards our intended strategic destinations. Join us on this journey as we unravel the tales of KPIs in action, where each success and failure brings us closer to mastering the art of performance measurement.

The Anatomy of a Successful KPI Strategy

A strong KPI strategy works like a compass. It guides a company towards its goals using well-chosen KPIs as its direction points. Each KPI should be SMART – this means it’s Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. These KPIs show us clearly what success looks like.

But it’s not just about picking KPIs. Everyone in the company needs to understand and work with them. This involves regular meetings to discuss the KPIs and see if they still point the company in the right direction.

Also, a good KPI strategy is woven into the day-to-day work. It makes sure that the insights from KPIs lead to real changes and improvements. It’s transparent, meaning it’s clear who is responsible for what, and it’s easy to see how things are going.

And finally, a good strategy can change if needed. It can adapt when there’s new information, when the market changes, or when the company’s goals change. This way, the strategy stays useful and keeps guiding the company to success. The following KPI case studies will illustrate these points.

Case Study 1: A Triumph of KPI Alignment

Let’s talk about a company that got it right with KPIs. We’ll call them “TechGrow,” a tech company eager to expand its market share. They wanted to grow their customer base by 25% in one year. To do this, they needed clear KPIs.

TechGrow set up a KPI to track new sign-ups every month. This KPI was SMART: specific to their goal, measurable by numbers, achievable with their resources, relevant to their growth aim, and time-bound within the year.

They also kept an eye on customer feedback scores. This wasn’t just about getting more customers but keeping them happy, too. So, another KPI tracked the average support ticket resolution time.

Here’s what they did well:

• They ensured their whole team knew about the KPIs and how each person could help meet them.
• They had monthly check-ins to see how they were doing against their KPIs.
• When they saw one KPI wasn’t moving as expected, they were quick to figure out why and fix it.

By the end of the year, not only had TechGrow hit their customer growth target, but their customer satisfaction had also gone up. Their KPIs were the stars of the show, shining a light on where to go and what to fix along the way. 

Case Study 2: Turning Data into Action

Meet “HealthFirst,” a healthcare provider who wanted to use KPIs to give better care and improve their services. Their main goal was to reduce patient waiting times by 15%. To track their progress, they chose a KPI that measured the average time patients spent in the waiting room.

HealthFirst used this KPI to see how they were doing each week. But they didn’t stop at just looking at the numbers. They used this data to make fundamental changes. For example, when they noticed waiting times were extended because of too few staff at peak times, they changed the staff schedules.

They also set up a KPI for patient follow-ups. They wanted to ensure patients were called for a check-up within a week after their visit. This helped them care for patients even after they left the clinic.

What HealthFirst did well was:

• They chose KPIs directly linked to their primary goal: better patient care.
• They checked their KPIs regularly and used what they learned to make decisions.
• They ensured everyone on their team understood the KPIs and knew how to help reach them.

By the end of their project, HealthFirst didn’t just meet their goal – they beat it. Patient waiting times were down by 20%, and their follow-ups were better than ever. Their story shows us that when you take action based on what KPIs tell you, you can make things better.

The Pitfalls of Mismanaged KPIs

KPIs are powerful, but like all powerful tools, they can cause problems if not used right. Imagine using a map with the wrong directions – it’s easy to get lost. It’s the same with KPIs. If they’re not managed well, they can lead a company in the wrong direction.

Here’s what can go wrong:

• Sometimes, companies pick too many KPIs. It’s like juggling too many balls ; they’re bound to drop one. It’s better to focus on a few that matter.
• Other times, the KPIs they choose don’t match what they’re trying to achieve. That’s like using a map of Paris when you’re trying to get around Tokyo.
• Companies might not check their KPIs often enough, or they might ignore what the KPIs tell them. Either way, it’s like having a warning light on your car dashboard and never fixing the problem.

In the following two sections, we’ll examine KPI case studies from companies that ran into these issues. They chose the wrong KPIs or didn’t use them well, and it caused trouble. But the good news is, there’s always a way back. These stories will show the mistakes to avoid and how to fix them if they happen.

Case Study 3: Lost in Translation – A KPI Misstep

Now, let’s talk about a company we’ll call “FashionForward,” a retail business that wanted to increase its sales. They decided to track the number of visitors to their website as their primary KPI, thinking that more visitors would mean more sales.

But here’s where they slipped up. They focused so much on increasing website traffic that they forgot about sales. Sure, the website got lots of visitors, but the number of people buying didn’t go up.

The problem was that they chose a KPI that wasn’t aligned with their ultimate goal – selling clothes. It’s like being excited that lots of people came to your party, but nobody ate the food you made.

FashionForward learned a few lessons:

• They learned that not any KPI will do. It has to be closely linked to the desired outcome.
• They realised it’s essential to check if your KPIs are working. If they’re not, you need to be ready to change them.
• They saw that everyone on the team needs to understand how their work helps to hit the KPIs and, in turn, reach the big goals.

Ultimately, FashionForward changed its KPI to track something more valuable: the conversion rate of visitors to buyers. This was a better way to see how well their website was selling. And with this new KPI, they started making changes that helped turn more visitors into customers.

Case Study 4: When KPIs Mislead – A Cautionary Tale

Let’s look at a company we’ll call “Build-It-Right,” a construction firm that wants to complete projects faster. They thought the best KPI to track their success would be the number of projects finished each month.

At first, this KPI made sense. But they didn’t think about the quality of the work. As they rushed to finish more projects, mistakes happened. And these mistakes led to redoing work, which cost time and money.

Here’s where Build-It-Right went wrong:

• They chose a KPI that only looked at speed, not at the work’s quality.
• They didn’t balance their KPIs. It’s like being fast in a race but forgetting to stay on track.
• They didn’t listen to their team, who were worried about rushing and making mistakes.

Build-It-Right realised that a better KPI would be the number of projects completed on time and with no mistakes. This new KPI helped them focus on doing the job well, not just quickly.

This story teaches us:

• It’s important to choose KPIs that match both the speed and quality of your work.
• It would help to have a balanced set of KPIs to ensure that you’re doing a good job overall.
• Always listen to your team. They often know best if a KPI takes things in the wrong direction.

With their new KPI, Build-It-Right started finishing projects with fewer mistakes and happier clients. They learned that the right KPI makes all the difference.

Lessons Learned and Recovery Paths

Looking at the stories of “FashionForward” and “Build-It-Right,” we can see that KPIs are more than just numbers—they’re signposts that guide businesses to their goals. But when these signposts point in the wrong direction, it’s time for a course correction.

Here’s what these companies KPI case studies revealed:

• Right KPI, Right Goal : KPIs must directly reflect your goals. If the goal is better sales, track sales conversions, not just website visitors.
• Balance is Key : Don’t focus on one KPI at the expense of others. Speedy project completion shouldn’t sacrifice quality.
• Flexibility : Be ready to adjust your KPIs if they’re not helping you reach your objectives. Being flexible means staying on the path to success, even if it’s not what you originally planned.
• Team Insights Matter : Your team’s feedback on KPIs can provide early warning signs of potential issues. Listen to them.

When KPIs misled these companies, they took steps to recover:

• They audited their KPIs to see which ones truly aligned with their goals.
• They started small, testing new KPIs on a few projects before rolling them out company-wide.
• They trained their teams on the importance of KPIs and how to use them effectively.
• They established regular review sessions to discuss KPI progress and any needed changes.

Both “FashionForward” and “Build-It-Right” came out stronger. They had a deeper understanding of how to set the right KPIs and pivot when necessary. And most importantly, they learned to value the journey of improvement as much as the destination of success.

In these recoveries, we find a universal lesson: KPIs are not set in stone. They’re a live part of your business strategy, evolving as you learn and grow. When you’re ready to adapt and realign, your KPIs become empowerment tools, driving you toward better performance and more remarkable achievements.

Integrating the Lessons into Your KPI Framework

The journey through these KPI case studies highlights a universal truth in business strategy: the power of Key Performance Indicators is not just in their ability to track progress but in their capacity to steer a company towards its desired destination. As we’ve seen, KPIs are most effective when they’re thoughtfully aligned with strategic goals, balanced across multiple dimensions of performance, flexible to shifts in the business landscape, and supported by the insights of a dedicated team.

Integrating these lessons into your KPI framework involves a commitment to continuous learning and adaptation. Whether you’re a budding startup or an established enterprise, the principles of effective KPI management remain the same: clarity of purpose, simplicity of measures, and responsiveness to feedback.

Now, it’s your turn to put these insights into action. With  Spider Impact KPI Software , you can craft a KPI framework that not only monitors progress but also empowers decision-making. Spider Impact helps you visualise your performance, identify areas of improvement, and make data-driven decisions with confidence.

Don’t let your business navigate in the dark. Illuminate your path to success with KPIs that reflect your true objectives and a tool that brings your data to life. Visit us at Intrafocus to learn how Spider Impact KPI Software can transform your data into actionable insights and drive your business forward.

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KPI Examples and Templates

Find the right KPIs for your business. This guide provides examples, templates and practical advice to help you define the key performance indicators that matter most for your organization and teams.

KPI EXAMPLES GUIDE

What is a kpi.

Let’s start with the basics. A key performance indicator (KPI) is a quantifiable measure of performance over time for a specific strategic objective. Business leaders and senior executives use KPIs to judge the effectiveness of their efforts and make better informed decisions.

KPIs vs Metrics

What’s the difference between a KPI and a metric?

KPIs represent how you’re performing against strategic goals. And by goals, we mean specific business outcomes, such as targeted quarterly revenue or targeted new customers per month.

Metrics support KPIs by representing the tactical processes or actions necessary to achieve the KPIs. Metrics track and measure the success against targets for specific actions such as monthly brochure downloads or store visits.

More resources:

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10 steps to strong KPIs

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170 KPI examples and templates

170 KPI Examples And Templates

In this guide, we’ve identified and prioritized the most impactful key performance indicators examples for each department. Use the table of contents below to find the KPI examples most relevant to your organization and teams.

Project Management

Customer Service

Human Resources

Social Media

Sales KPI Examples

Sales leaders and their teams need to track the key performance indicators that help them close more orders. Below are the 15 essential sales KPI examples:

New Inbound Leads

Lead Response Time

Lead Conversion %

New Qualified Opportunities

Total Pipeline Value

Lead-to-Opportunity %

Opportunity-to-Order %

Average Order Value

Average Sales Cycle Time

Cross-Sell %

Sales Volume by Location

Sales Change (YoY, QoQ. MoM)

Sales Target %

Learn more about Sales Dashboards

KPIs for Managers

Executives and managers need KPIs that reflect their organization’s strategic priorities. Below are the 15 key management KPI examples:

Customer Acquisition Cost

Customer Lifetime Value

Customer Satisfaction Score

Sales Target % (Actual/Forecast)

Sales by Product or Service

Revenue per FTE

Revenue per Customer

Operating Margin

Gross Margin

ROE (Return on Equity)

ROA (Return on Assets)

Current Ratio (Assets/Liabilities)

Debt to Equity Ratio

Working Capital

Employee Satisfaction Rating

Learn more about Executive Dashboards

Project Management KPIs

Project managers need to keep projects on time and on budget while also ensuring a high quality outcome. That’s why the 15 key performance indicators examples below focus on timeliness, budget and quality.

On-Time Completion %

Milestones on Time %

Estimate to Project Completion

Adjustments To Schedule

Planned vs. Actual Hours

Resource Capacity %

Budget Variance (Planned vs Actual)

Budget Iterations

Planned Value

Net Promoter Score

Number of Errors

Customer Complaints

Change Requests

Billable Utilization

Return On Investment (ROI)

Explore dashboard demos

Inspire Action With Your KPIs

10 ways to take your data visualizations to the next level. Learn how to choose the right ones to highlight your KPIs and metrics.

Marketing KPIs

Marketing leaders need to track KPIs which enable them to measure their progress against clearly defined goals. The 15 marketing KPI examples below cover all phases of the customer funnel and can be accurately tracked using  modern marketing analytics .

Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs)

Sales Qualified Leads (SQLs)

Cost per Lead

New Customers

Cost per Acquisition

Upsell & Cross-Sell Rates

Conversion Rates (For Specific Goals)

Social Program ROI (By Platform)

Organic Traffic & Leads

Return on Ad Spend (ROAS)

Total Revenue

Revenue by Product or Service

Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)

Net Promoter Score (NPS)

Learn more about  Marketing KPIs and Marketing Dashboards

Operations KPIs

Operations managers need to track KPIs around efficiency, effectiveness and quality as covered in the 15 key performance indicators examples below.

Labor Utilization

Employee Turnover Rate

Employee Absence Rate

Employee Training Rate

ROI of Outsourcing

Labor Materials

Operating Margins

Processes and Procedures Developed

Project Schedule Variance

Order Fulfilment Cycle Time

Delivery In Full On Time Rate

Rework Rate

Learn more about KPI Dashboards

Customer Service KPIs

Service and support teams should focus on KPIs that measure response times. But, like the 15 key performance indicators examples below, they should also have a clear view of the customer base and longer term, preventative KPIs such as employee engagement and knowledge base articles.

Number of Issues (By Type)

First Response Time (FRT)

First Contact Resolution Rate

Average Response Time

Average Resolution Time

Most Active Support Agents

Cost Per Conversation

Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT)

Positive Customer Reviews

Customer Effort Score

Customer Retention Rate

Support Costs / Revenue Ratio

Knowledge Base Articles

Employee Engagement

Explore more dashboard examples

Finance KPIs

Financial teams have no shortage of ratios and metrics to track. Finance managers and CFO’s should use a  financial analytics  tool to focus on margin, expense, revenue and cash management as shown in the 15 key finance KPI examples below.

Gross Profit Margin (and %)

Operating Profit Margin (and %)

Net Profit Margin (and %)

Operating Expense Ratio

Working Capital Ratio

Debt-To-Equity Ratio

Quick Ratio (Acid Test)

Current Ratio

Berry Ratio

Return on Assets

Cash Conversion Cycle

Accounts Payable Turnover Ratio

Accounts Receivable Turnover Ratio

Budget Variance

Payroll Headcount Ratio

Learn more about Financial Dashboards

Human Resources KPIs

HR managers are primarily concerned with 3 main areas: workforce management, compensation and recruitment. You can use a  people analytics  tool to track and analyze the 35 key performance indicators examples below:

Workforce Management KPIs:

Absenteeism rate

ROI of outsourcing

Succession planning rate

Open/closed grievances

Promotion rate

Time to productivity

Successor gap rate

Worker composition by gender, experience, and tenure

Internal mobility

Manager quality index

HR effectiveness

Employee satisfaction rates

Training ROI

Compensation KPIs:

HR functional operating expense rate

Labor cost per FTE

Labor cost revenue percent

Labor cost revenue expense percent

Total benefits as percentage of labor costs

Profit vs. compensation per FTE

Human capital ROI

HR functional cost per employee

Recruitment KPIs:

Quality of hire

Vacancy rate

Turnover rate

Resignation/retirement rate

External hire rate

Time-to-fill

Diversity, experience, and gender hire ratio

Recruiting funnel metrics

Talent import/export ratio

Voluntary turnover rate

Retention rate

Recruiting expense per new hire

Retirement rate forecast

Learn more about HR Dashboards

IT managers should track the on-going stream of support tickets and downtime. They should also track the projects and the team that will proactively reduce the number of these tickets in the future as shown in the top-15 IT KPI examples below.

Total Support Tickets

Open Support Tickets

Ticket Resolution Time

Reopened Tickets

Average Time Between Failures

Average Time to Repair

Server Downtime

Security Related Downtime

Total Projects

Projects on Budget

Critical Bugs

IT Support Employees Per End Users

IT Costs vs Revenue

IT Team Turnover

Social Media KPIs

Social media managers should have KPIs that represent reach, engagement, and conversion to revenue. The 15 social media key performance indicators examples below should be applied both as totals and for each social media platform that your organization is active on.

Social Share of Voice (SSoV)

Total Reach

Total Impressions

Followers or Fans or Subscribers

Audience Growth Rate

Share Rate (Shares or ReTweets)

Interest Rate (Likes, Reactions, Favorites)

Response Rate (Comments, Replies)

Key Post or Hashtag Reach

Link Clicks

Site Traffic From Social (By Platform)

Conversions From Social

Conversion Rate From Social

Revenue From Social

Social Program ROI

Learn more about Marketing Dashboards

How to Define the Right KPIs

Who, what, how. Be clear about who the audience is, what they want, and how they’re going to use the KPIs. This means working with your stakeholders to identify the core KPIs that map directly to their goals and strategy.

Be SMART. This popular acronym stands for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Time-bound. This is a useful touchstone whenever you’re considering whether a metric should be a key performance indicator. SMART KPI examples are KPIs such as “revenue per region per month” or “new customers per quarter”.

Iterate and evolve. Over time, see how you or your audience are using the set of KPIs and if you find that certain ones aren’t relevant, remove or replace them.

See KPI Dashboards in Action

Künstliche Intelligenz in Unternehmen: Innovative Anwendungen in 50 erfolgreichen Firmen

Der Bestsellerautor und Geschäfts renommierter KI-Experte Bernard zeigt, wie sterben Technologie des maschinellen Lernens das von Unternehmen verändert. Das Buch bietet einen Überblick über einzelne Unternehmen, beschreibt das spezifische Problem und erklärt, wie KI die Lösung erleichtert. Jede Fallstudie bietet einen umfassenden Einblick, der einige technische Details wichtige Lernzusammenfassungen enthält. Marrs Buch ist eine aufschlussreiche und informative Untersuchung der transformativen Kraft der Technologie in der Wirtschaft des 21. Jahrhunderts.

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Tesco PLC British-based international grocery and general merchandising retail group.The company is the third largest retailer in the world measured by profits, has over 6,500 stores and employs more than 475,000 people…

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Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, or HMRC for short, is a non-ministerial department of the UK Government responsible for the collection of taxes, the payment of some forms of state support, and the administration of other regulatory regimes including the national minimum wage…

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Case study: key performance indicators in local digital marketing.

• April 24, 2017

Finding, tracking and collating Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)* that demonstrate the performance of your online efforts has always been difficult in the local digital marketing space. But with upgrades in reporting at Google, Yelp and a newly minted web site, I took the opportunity to do just that in a case study with our favorite “guinea pig” Barbara Oliver Jewelry from the Buffalo, NY area.

Not only were we able to create a credible view of the drivers of her local business we were able to implement an in-store survey so as to be able to ascribe attribution to both her online and offline marketing efforts which we discuss in part 2 of this series .

What Is The Diamond Of Local Digital Marketing?

Barbara Oliver Jewelry created a new website last August 2016 and hired a new staffer to help with marketing. She has had an active presence on Facebook, has been doing review management with good success since 2009 , is running a very small Google Adwords Express campaign and starting last June started an active Google+ campaign.

She does have a Yext account (provided gratis by Yext) as well and a verified Yelp presence but has never advertised there.

Her high end jewelry store is located on the 3rd floor of an office building with zero walk in traffic and no street side presence. Her advertising budget is limited to a few key areas. Most money is spent on radio, some on a billboard, less on G+ and search optimization. She has been spending about the same on the Yellow Pages per quarter as on SEO. A tiny amount per quarter on Facebook boosts and GetFiveStars. Thus her potential sources of new customers are relatively clean and defined.

The last quarter of 2016 was a good time to implement a study of her KPIs and attempt to glean attribution via an in-store survey.

Local Digital Marketing KPIs

We wanted to explore the “low on the funnel” performance indicators and understand their relationship to new customer acquisition and purchases. Obviously there are many KPIs from which to choose. We identified the following as the digital components that were trackable and, given that there was no e-commerce component on her site, as close as we could get to the purchase*.

• Contact form fill
• FB messaging and comments expressing intent
• Clicks to call
• Request for driving directions

They were, in her case, the best indicators of intent.

With the new website we were sure to put in place event tracking for contact form fills, click to call actions and driving directions requests. For additional sources of this information we looked at dashboards at Yelp, Bing, Google, indexed all comments that showed intent at FB and tracked all of these in addition to those events on her website. While she has a Yext dashboard as well, they do not track any of these metrics from the websites that they post on.

We were able to track roughly 360 actions across all platforms and the sources of these actions broke out like this:

Clearly the largest percentage of these KPIs occurred directly on Google either from the Knowledge Panel, the Pack results, the Local Finder or Maps.  Typically in Barbara’s case, 70% of those come from search and 30% from Maps.

The website came in second. We have only done this study for one quarter and have no historical reference point. But my sense is that Google has, over the past two years, generally increased their share of these actions with changes to the Local search results. Due to issues with the WordPress theme not all instances of the phone number were tracked although most were.

Thus the website might be slightly under counted. Any conversions that came directly via an iPhone/Apple Maps would not have surfaced nor would have calls directly from iOS “direct answer” results and it is possible that iOS was undercounted as a result.

I was a little surprised that we found zero Bing actions according to their dashboard and our analytics. But such is the world of search.

It’s A Google World In Local

When we further looked into the web site traffic and its origination sources Facebook showed about a 3% increase in contribution. But most of the web traffic that initiated one of the KPI actions obviously came from Google.

In a very real sense, Google has become the equivalent of the new home page for the business. The bulk of direct pre-sale actions that benefitted the business were taking place there and the bulk of those that weren’t (ie web actions) came from Google.

While I don’t have the quantitative data to back this up, my sense is that Google is taking an increasing share directly compared to 4, 3 or even 2 years ago with various “updates” to the Local pack results.

Clearly there are some blind spots in our analysis but I think that they are directionally correct. And while it is only a case study, the methodology can be applied more broadly. It would be of interest to make the same analysis across different industries and markets to understand the amount of variation that we would find.

On a philosophical level the fact that more activity is taking place directly on Google is a disturbing trend, I for one do not want a web that is controlled at one end by Google and at the other by Facebook.  As to what a business should or could do to avoid this is unclear.

For now if you need leads, you need to be present on Google.

That being said any given business really doesn’t care where the new customers come from as long as they come. The local business needs to be aware of the fact that many (actually most) of their new customers are coming from Google and has in place a plan to really treat both keyword and branded search results as their primary interface to the world, then they should get their fair share of new customers.

In this new reality your website is just a data source, one amongst many, that feeds the Google results.

Read part 2 to take a look at the in-store attribution and how that correlated with these measured KPIs.

* The KPIs chosen for any given local business will vary depending on the type of business and their goals. Obviously an emergency plumber would be more interested in phone calls and driving directions would be totally irrelevant. In that case call tracking might provide very meaningful metrics. A dance studio might be more interested in form fills for class sign ups. A dentist that has scheduling on their site might more interested in actual conversions to an appointment.

There are a ton of possibilities of KPIs that have strong consumer intent to purchase. From my point of view the closer the KPI is to the purchase the better and since so much activity isn’t taking place on your website, ones that are measurable at sites besides your website make sense. A local business, unlike an e-commerce play, doesn’t really care if the activity is at Google, Yelp or their website and given the realities of the digital world has very little to say about it anyway.

Mike Blumenthal

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7 Marketing KPIs You Should Know & How to Measure Them

• 01 Feb 2024

Being a digital marketer involves rapid decision-making. With constantly evolving online platforms and channels, you must ensure you’re up to date on market trends and consumer behaviors.

Analyzing your efforts and prioritizing the right data requires focusing on key performance indicators (KPIs) —quantifiable measures for evaluating whether you meet your marketing objectives.

Here’s a breakdown of why identifying KPIs is vital to your digital marketing plan, along with common metrics you can use and how to measure them.

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Why Are KPIs Important to Your Marketing Plan?

KPIs are crucial to your digital marketing plan because they reflect your strategy’s effectiveness. By setting clear, quantifiable KPIs, you can evaluate progress toward specific marketing objectives.

Despite their importance, only 23 percent of marketers are confident that they track the right KPIs.

“It isn’t enough to measure the final outcome alone,” says Harvard Business School Professor Sunil Gupta, who teaches the online course Digital Marketing Strategy . “You also need to track intermediate metrics to understand where consumers might be getting stuck—essentially bottlenecks in the marketing funnel.”

The term “marketing funnel” refers to the three customer journey stages:

• Awareness: Introducing potential customers to your brand or product to address a problem they may have
• Consideration: Making customers aware of your brand or product while they evaluate it against alternatives
• Decision: Influencing consumers’ purchasing decisions using the information you gather during the previous stages

KPIs are pivotal to evaluating your success at each stage.

During the awareness stage, marketing KPIs—such as website traffic and impressions—help you understand how to attract potential customers.

For the consideration stage, metrics such as time spent on your website, pages viewed per visit, and social media interactions become more relevant and reflect how well you connect with your target audience .

In the decision stage, your main focus should be KPIs like conversion rate and sales revenue. Those reveal how well your marketing strategy drives tangible results, such as sales or leads.

By continuously monitoring and analyzing KPIs, you can make data-driven decisions , optimize your strategy, and achieve more successful outcomes.

Here are seven KPIs for measuring your digital marketing plan’s success.

7 Marketing KPIs to Help You Measure Success

1. impressions.

Impressions are the number of times your ad or organic content is displayed or viewed—regardless of whether it garners clicks. While this KPI doesn’t reflect how many customers engage with your content, it helps boost brand awareness.

It’s often used interchangeably with “reach,” but it’s crucial to understand the difference between the two . Impressions track the number of times users see your content—and include multiple views by the same individuals—while reach only considers the number of users who see your content.

To measure your brand’s impressions, you can use Google Ads or social media platforms’ analytics tools to track and report how frequently your content appears to users. By analyzing impressions data, you can gauge your targeting strategy’s effectiveness in the awareness stage and adjust it accordingly to maximize exposure.

2. Search Engine Rankings

Most customers will likely discover and decide to purchase from your company online. There are over 2.6 billion online buyers worldwide—more than 33 percent of the world’s total population.

To ensure you reach a large online audience, your website needs to appear at the top of search engine results pages (SERPs) . Its rankings directly influence your brand’s visibility and accessibility to potential customers in the awareness stage.

Tools like Google Analytics and specialized search engine optimization (SEO) tools provide valuable data when measuring search engine rankings, including:

• Number of ranking targeted keywords
• Volume of organic traffic
• Number of backlinks

Monitoring those metrics can help you understand your SEO strategy’s performance and any necessary adjustments, such as improving website loading speed or creating more relevant content for your target audience.

3. Click-Through Rate

Click-through rate (CTR) is a critical KPI for assessing online advertising campaigns and search engine results. You calculate it by dividing the number of clicks your ad or link receives by its impressions and then multiplying that number by 100 to get a percentage.

To measure and analyze CTR, you can use digital marketing tools like Google Analytics to gain detailed insights into ad, keyword, and content performance. No matter the marketing asset, each CTR can impart how well you communicate with customers.

The average CTR is approximately 6.6 percent for search and 0.6 percent for display, but every company has its own baseline. For example, a high CTR often means your content is relevant and appeals to your target audience.

The best way to determine your goal CTR is by analyzing industry benchmarks, historical data, campaign objectives, and your target audience’s specific patterns and preferred advertising platforms.

4. Cost per Click

Marketing KPIs aren’t just about measuring engagement with potential customers; they can also indicate changes you should make to your digital marketing budget.

For example, cost per click (CPC) is a KPI that considers the amount you pay each time a user clicks on your paid advertisement. You calculate CPC by dividing the total cost of your ad by its number of completed clicks. For instance, if you spend $100 on your ad and it receives 50 clicks, the CPC would be $2.

This KPI helps you assess online advertising efforts’ financial efficiency during consideration. A lower CPC indicates a more cost-effective campaign, allowing for more clicks within your budget.

You can track and measure CPC using tools like Google Ads that provide real-time advertising performance data.

5. Conversion Rate

One of the most important consideration-stage marketing KPIs is conversion rate —the percentage of visitors to your website or digital platform who take a desired action, such as making a purchase, signing up for your newsletter, or filling out a contact form.

You calculate it by dividing the number of conversions by the total number of visitors and then multiplying that by 100. For example, if your website receives 1,000 visitors and 50 of them complete a purchase, the conversion rate is five percent.

You can measure conversion rate using digital tools like Google Analytics that track user interactions and behavior—including how and what they convert on.

Understanding conversion rate is essential to assessing your marketing campaigns because it focuses on customers’ actions. A higher conversion rate indicates more successful engagement with your target audience. If your website has a low conversion rate, you might need to find new ways to entice customers to act.

6. Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)

You’ve probably heard the phrase, “It costs more to acquire a new customer than retain an existing one.” While acquiring new business is marketing’s main objective, it comes at a cost that you must measure and monitor.

Customer acquisition cost (CAC) is a marketing KPI that calculates the total expense incurred to acquire a new customer. You calculate it by dividing the sum of all marketing and sales expenses over a specific period by the number of new customers acquired during it.

One example is tracking marketing and sales expenditures through accounting software and analyzing customer acquisition data via customer relationship management systems like HubSpot and Salesforce .

Monitoring CAC helps you make data-driven decisions to optimize marketing efforts and allocate budget to ensure you spend money on the right customers.

For example, if your company aims to attract a new, sustainability-driven target audience, that might prove too expensive if ad copy about business sustainability has a low conversion rate.

7. Return on Investment

Return on investment (ROI) is a KPI that can provide crucial insight into marketing initiatives’ anticipated and actual results.

Check out the video below to learn more about ROI, and subscribe to our YouTube channel for more explainer content!

ROI specifically analyzes the customer journey’s decision stage. While other cost-oriented metrics focus on earlier stages, ROI compiles profit-related information into a single metric that helps communicate overall performance.

You calculate ROI by subtracting your marketing efforts’ cost from their generated revenue. You then divide that number by the cost of your marketing efforts. For example, if your digital marketing campaign costs $1,000 and generates $3,000 in revenue, the ROI would be 200 percent.

Related: How to Calculate ROI to Justify a Project

Google Analytics and marketing automation software are common tools for tracking campaign revenues and costs. It’s crucial to note that if you don’t monitor KPIs early in the marketing funnel, it can be hard to determine if your efforts contributed to your campaign’s success or failure.

By analyzing marketing initiatives’ ROI, you can identify your most profitable tactics, allocate resources more effectively, and make decisions that maximize your budget .

Measure Your Marketing Success

Measuring your marketing efforts shouldn’t be overwhelming. With the right tools and metrics, you can determine which aspects of your digital marketing strategy work or need revising.

One of the most effective ways to identify metrics for each customer journey stage is by enrolling in an online marketing course, such as Digital Marketing Strategy . Through real-world case studies, you can learn which KPIs are best for monitoring your marketing objectives.

Do you want to learn more about digital marketing KPIs? Explore Digital Marketing Strategy to discover how to measure campaigns’ success. If you’re interested in exploring online education but aren’t sure where to start, download our free guide to online learning success .

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How to identify your KPIs

Published 2017-07-25 , updated 2024-04-02

Summary - KPIs do not begin to impact your business until the moment you've identified which ones are most important. Here's how to do it.

The term KPI (key performance indicator) seems like a stodgy one reserved for executives and managers. This is a common misconception.

True, most KPIs are defined at an organizational level and pertain to your business’s ability to execute its game plan. You know—performance data like revenue, customer success, and financial outcomes.

These big-picture business KPIs can be awfully boring for practitioners who don’t have a seat at the management table. Finding KPIs can seem like an exercise in futility, particularly when it’s hard to see a straight line between your work, data, and business outcomes.

But does that mean determining KPIs for your team is a waste of time? Of course not!

Let’s set aside the jargon and excess baggage of KPIs for a moment and consider how we can think of our performance relative to positive outcomes.

Understanding your key performance indicators is an act of self-assessment

In the world of data measurement and analytics, there’s a tendency to try to measure everything that is measurable. All of a company’s data goes into a great repository, and maybe you’re lucky enough to have a data scientist sift through it to understand its implications. 

At a fundamental level and as it relates to KPIs, however, this data process defeats the purpose of key performance indicators.

Data-driven professionals instinctively want to track their KPIs’ performance and use that data to see if they’re improving or not. It’s quite simple, yet complexity is an art form many of us blindly practice. I’m certainly guilty of this.

I suspect that the root cause here is we feel like more is, well, more. More KPIs and data mean we add more value. Let me challenge you to think about this differently.

I’ve challenged my team to identify a single KPI that they are accountable for that is meaningful and that they can directly improve. We’re not executives, but KPIs have helped us rally around our performance in a way that produces positive outcomes for the business.

Rather than soul-searching whether a particular KPI directly impacts business performance (though it should), we challenge ourselves to see the process of choosing KPIs as an exercise in self-assessment.

How to choose your KPIs 

The first step in selecting KPIs is removing all the data noise in your team. Focus not on what you can measure but on the data you must measure.

Ask yourself: if I didn’t have this KPI, could I adequately report on my performance?

From a professional standpoint, I challenged myself to think of a single KPI I’d point to if I were renegotiating my salary. Take a look at this improvement! Not bad, huh?

Start by thinking of the process program or project you manage. While you may do a lot of work to support that activity, what’s the outcome of all that work?

Define tricky KPIs

A recent example nicely demonstrates the challenges contributors face in selecting KPIs. I work with an extraordinarily talented web design team; they challenge themselves every day to improve, iterate, and optimize. They’ve been effective at using data to affect positive outcomes for our business.

But when it comes to brass tax, I challenged the team to answer the question every child (in their infinite, innocent wisdom) asks: Why?

Why are you redesigning the homepage? Why are you testing this button? Why work on this section of the website instead of that section?

Suddenly, data or performance that wasn’t apparent came into perspective.

A bit of defensiveness can be a healthy sign, and the process of choosing KPIs tends to introduce the type of friction that can generate such defensiveness.

This is why it’s important to make sure you temper this friction by effectively communicating why this is not about shaming and is all about the growth of your colleagues. This may be a new process for your team, just as it may be new to you.

Our team did what all good marketing teams do: we researched and looked at the data from others in the industry. We also talked internally to determine how individual KPIs could serve as a lever for the entire team.

Ultimately, we decided the best KPI for our design team would be website conversions. It describes the best of their work and challenges them to think differently about design decisions.

It also directly impacts our lead generation efforts and empowers our SEO and content marketing strategies. It’s a great KPI and performance data for our team.

During this process, we identified other potential KPIs and data that may have served us equally well. Metrics such as bounce rate , time on page, and time on site were all serious contenders.

Look for KPIs that determine behaviors

Why did we choose website conversions as our primary web design KPI? Because we knew that tracking these KPIs would influence our behavior and force us to vet projects differently.

In a website as large as ours, there is no shortage of work that can be done. All of that work, by the way, is valuable. But we need to define value. That’s the power of KPIs.

Select new KPIs for new roles

Data on internal promotions and new hires provide an opportunity to get a fresh perspective on familiar processes. When we promoted Val Hamilton to Customer Marketing Manager, we took the opportunity to decide what KPI made sense for her to track, performance-wise.

Again, research and data gave us a real insight into industry standards for KPIs, but we wanted to know how best to distill all these KPIs into a single rallying call.

Customer marketing is awash with potentially meaningful KPIs . Imagine, for example, a customer marketing lead influencing monthly active users, feature adoption, MRR, LTV, and reducing churn.

All good things, but are they the right metrics to influence the right actions? Again, the answer here (as it was for us) is that it depends on your team and your business.

In finding our customer marketing KPI, we decided that we wanted a KPI that would influence holistic decisions. Val’s job isn’t to extract more MRR from our customers—doing so would fly in the face of our brand and voice.

No, we decided the role was about ensuring customers who had a paid subscription to Klipfolio were happy customers. That changes things from simply seeing expansion opportunities to cultivating genuine experiences with awesome customers.

The KPI and data we identified was Customer Referral Rate. We felt as though this KPI would promote positive behaviors from our team and positive outcomes for the business.

How do you get a referral? Sure, you can point to a program and some in-product logic, but that only drives success for so long. Referrals occur when someone sees so much value in your product that they feel compelled to share.

Choosing this KPI focused our efforts on outcomes and gave Val the latitude and space for creativity that she needed to be effective.

How to identify effective KPIs

I’ve discussed how we identified KPIs for our organization. Here are the ways you can determine effective KPIs for your company:

Clarify your business objectives

Let’s cut to the chase – choosing your KPIs starts with knowing what you’re playing for. What’s your endgame? This isn’t just about setting goals; it’s about defining what success looks like on your terms.

Your KPIs are your scoreboard, so make sure they’re tracking the points that actually win you the game. Every metric should map directly back to your larger strategy, giving you real-time feedback on your journey towards those business outcomes.

Evaluate your current performance

Here’s a reality check – to identify the right KPIs, you need to know where you stand today. It’s like setting up a GPS; to get to your destination, you first need to pinpoint your current location and performance.

This stage of choosing KPIs is all about leveraging your data to understand your starting point. Dive into your analytics, assess your baseline, and use this insight to determine which KPIs will best track your progress and performance toward your objectives.

Involve your team

Identifying the most impactful KPIs shouldn’t be a solo mission. Bring your team into the fold. Why? Because different perspectives can shed light on various aspects of performance that you might overlook.

Plus, when your team contributes to determining KPIs, they’re more likely to invest in the outcomes. It’s about creating a shared vision of success, where everyone understands and supports the key performance indicators that guide your collective efforts.

Prioritize your key data points

In a world awash with data, not all metrics deserve to be called KPIs. The art is in prioritizing the data points that truly matter – the ones that will genuinely inform your decisions and drive your business forward.

Ask yourself: which KPIs are most closely aligned with our strategic goals? Which data can we influence? Remember, the key in KPI is there for a reason. Focus on the data or performance indicators that are crucial for your success, not just the ones that are nice to know.

Customizing your KPIs

The most powerful key performance indicators are those that are tailor-made for your business. Here are four simple things to remember when customizing your KPIs:

Industry-specific considerations

What works for one sector might not make sense for another. Look for the KPIs that resonate most profoundly with the unique dynamics of your industry.

For instance, customer satisfaction may be an important metric for a service-based business, but inventory turnover rate may be more vital for a retail company. Tailoring your KPIs to your specific industry makes sure that you’re measuring what aligns with your strategic objectives.

Company-specific objectives

Your business won’t succeed with cookie-cutter KPI methods. It has unique needs that require a tailored approach. Your KPIs should mirror your specific goals, strategies, and operational nuances.

If you have a startup, you may want to focus on KPIs like customer acquisition cost, customer lifetime value, and monthly recurring revenue to gauge your growth and sustainability. On the other hand, a well-established company may prioritize KPIs such as market share, brand loyalty, and return on investment.

Make metric analysis easy for everyone.

Stakeholder expectations

Tune into the frequency of your stakeholders. Make sure your KPIs align with the outcomes that matter most to investors, customers, and employees.

This will vary by stakeholder group, so understanding their expectations is key to selecting the right KPIs. Investors may value KPIs related to financial performance and growth, while customers may prioritize satisfaction and loyalty data performance indicators. On the other hand, employees might look to engagement and development KPIs as the most relevant data.

Company changes

The only constant in business? Change. That’s why your KPIs need to be as dynamic as the markets you operate in.

Revisiting and refining your key performance indicators regularly makes sure they stay relevant and in line with your evolving strategic goals. It’s about being proactive, not just reactive, and evolving your KPIs in tandem with your business landscape.

Common mistakes when choosing KPIs

When you find yourself going deep into selecting KPIs, it can feel like you’re in a minefield. 

Get it right, and you’re on the path to success. Misstep, and you might see yourself bogged down by data that’s as clear as mud.

Here are some common blunders businesses make when selecting their KPIs so you can avoid them:

Overcomplicating things

It’s easy to get carried away. We’ve all been there—wanting to keep track of all KPIs we can think of so that we don’t miss anything. However, a cluttered dashboard can be as useful as a screen door on a submarine. Always keep your KPIs focused and relevant.

Vanity metrics overdrive

Falling for the allure of vanity metrics is like being enchanted by your own reflection. Sure, they look good, but do they offer any real value? Prioritize KPIs that drive decision-making, not just those that make you feel good.

Ignoring the “key” in KPIs

Not all metrics are created equal. Focus on those that are truly key to your business success. If a metric doesn’t influence your business strategy, it’s probably not something you should track.

Setting and forgetting

KPIs aren’t set in stone. They’re more like living organisms that need to evolve as your business grows and changes. Regular reviews are a must. PowerMetrics provides you with data in real time to reflect the ever-changing landscape in which you operate.

The story of choosing our marketing KPIs

Marketing has no lack of potentially meaningful KPIs and metrics. Like so many other marketers, I could draw a picture of the funnel and point to a dozen critical metrics that, if improved, could have an impact on the business.

I can even riff for days on the value of tracking web visitors, leads, MQLs, keyword acquisition, blog subscribers, trials, customer referral rates, and goal conversion rates.

All of this is a tiring exercise and one that has dubious outcomes. Does it grant you greater clarity and focus on what matters? Maybe, but likely not.

So, we decided to take a different route. We viewed KPIs as performance indicators to drive focus and guide behavior. That’s it.

40+ KPI Examples and Definitions

Although finding the exact KPIs you should track depends largely on your organization’s needs, there are many commonly used KPIs across various industries.

Finance KPI Examples

Net Profit Margin: The true measure of your business’s profitability; basically, how much of each dollar earned translates into profit.

Gross Profit Margin: This KPI helps you understand the profitability of your goods or services before overhead costs come into play.

Operating Cash Flow: One of the KPIs that keeps you in the loop on the cash your business generates from regular operational activities.

Current Ratio: A liquidity ratio KPI that measures your ability to cover short-term obligations with short-term assets.

Quick Ratio: Like the current ratio, it strips out inventory, giving a more stringent measure of liquidity.

Debt-to-Equity Ratio: Offers insight into your company’s financial leverage and risk level, comparing what’s owed to what’s owned.

Return on Equity: A profitability ratio that shows how effectively your company is using its equity to generate profit.

Working Capital: This KPI highlights the difference between your current assets and liabilities, showcasing your short-term financial health.

Accounts Receivable Turnover: Sheds light on how efficiently your company collects on outstanding credit.

Budget Variance: This KPI tracks the difference between your budgeted and actual figures, spotlighting financial management effectiveness.

Customer KPI Examples

Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT): Direct feedback on how satisfied customers are with your products or services.

Net Promoter Score (NPS): This KPI reveals how likely customers are to recommend your business, reflecting customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Customer Retention Rate: Measures how well your company retains its customers over time, indicating customer loyalty and product/service satisfaction.

Customer Churn Rate: The flip side of retention, showing the rate at which customers are leaving or ceasing to buy from you.

Customer Lifetime Value (CLV): Predicts the total value your business can expect from a single customer account.

Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC): The cost associated with convincing a customer to buy a product/service is essential for understanding your marketing ROI.

Average Purchase Value: One of the KPIs for the average amount spent each time a customer makes a purchase is a direct reflection of consumer buying behavior.

Customer Engagement Level: This KPI tracks the degree and depth of customer interaction with your brand’s touchpoints.

Service Level: The percentage of customer service or support requests that are resolved within an agreed-upon time frame.

First Response Time: How long customers wait to receive the first response to their query is a crucial part of customer satisfaction.

Operations KPI Examples

Inventory Turnover: This KPI shows how many times inventory is sold or used over a period, a key indicator of efficiency and demand forecasting.

Production Efficiency: Measures how efficiently production inputs are being converted into outputs, a vital sign of operational health.

Order Fulfillment Cycle Time: The total time from when a customer places an order to when they receive the product is crucial for customer satisfaction.

Capacity Utilization Rate: One of the KPIs for how well your business is using its total capacity, a key metric for understanding operational efficiency.

Supply Chain Cycle Time: The total time required to turn raw materials into finished goods, essential for pinpointing bottlenecks.

On-time Delivery Rate: This KPI measures the percentage of orders delivered on time to the customer, a crucial indicator of the efficiency of your logistics and supply chain processes.

Return Rate: The percentage of products returned by customers, which can highlight issues in product quality, customer satisfaction, or the ordering process.

Manufacturing Downtime: Tracks the amount of time production was halted, not including planned downtime, indicating the reliability of your manufacturing operations.

Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE): This KPI combines availability, performance, and quality metrics to assess the overall efficiency of manufacturing equipment.

Defect Rate: The percentage of products with defects found either during the manufacturing process or highlighted by customers, an indicator that points to the effectiveness of quality control.

Workforce KPI Examples

Employee Turnover Rate: Tracks how often employees leave your organization, a critical metric for understanding workplace satisfaction and retention strategies.

Employee Satisfaction Index: A composite KPI that provides insights into how satisfied your employees are.

Absenteeism Rate: Measures the rate at which employees are absent from work, an important performance indicator of workforce engagement and operational capacity.

Training Investment Per Employee: Reflects the amount your organization invests in developing each employee, an indicator of your commitment to workforce development.

Overtime Hours: The amount of overtime worked can signal operational efficiency and employee workload, impacting overall productivity.

Employee Productivity Rate: This KPI measures the output of employees over a defined period, providing insights into the efficiency of your workforce.

Employee Engagement Score: These KPIs are derived from surveys to gauge the level of employee engagement and commitment to the organization.

Time to Fill: The average time it takes to fill a vacant position, indicating the efficiency of your recruitment process and the attractiveness of your employer brand.

Employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS): This KPI reflects how likely your employees are to recommend your workplace to friends or acquaintances, a key indicator of employee satisfaction and organizational health.

Diversity and Inclusion Index: A composite KPI that assesses the effectiveness of your diversity and inclusion efforts, reflecting the variety and inclusivity of your workplace environment.

Choosing metrics is an exercise in behavior analysis

KPIs must drive behavior to achieve results. A KPI without action is devoid of meaning, abstract, and, ultimately, useless.

KPIs fail when they lack champions, accountability, and relevancy, and they are removed from business outcomes. In your process of selecting KPIs, tackle these problems head-on. Mastering KPIs is less about the quantity and more about the quality of what you measure. 

But here’s the catch: data overload from KPIs is real.

The skill lies in distilling vast amounts of data to uncover the KPI gems. That’s where sophisticated data analytics tools like Klipfolio PowerMetrics step in. We can help you uncover fresh insights and identify KPIs that truly impact your bottom line, allowing you to foster a culture of continuous improvement. 

The right KPIs data guides you to the most relevant key performance indicators. By thoughtfully finding key performance indicators that align closely with your business objectives, you empower your team to focus on what truly matters.

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FORVIA Faurecia Case Study & Video. REPLAY] Optimize your planning with KPI in DELMIA Ortems. Choose a session (French or English) and discover how to make the right KPI -based business decisions leveraging DELMIA Ortems. We welcome you to connect with us, exchange and share in the DELMIA Communities. Watch the replay.

Supply Chain Maturity Model for Capability Assessment

MAY 28, 2013

Case Studies . As you may notice, supply chain maturity model is like " KPI " but its expressed qualitatively and you have to use it strategically. Supply Chain Case Study : Executives Guide. A Case Study . Supply Chain Maturity Model for Capability Assessment. 2) Procurement Maturity Model.

Bristlecone Flash – July 2020

Bristlecone

JULY 31, 2020

Read Case Study . Get your questions answered and see how data analytics can empower businesses with rapid, KPI -driven 360° insights. Bristlecone’s AI-powered Demand app improves forecast accuracy, aligns planning cycles and provides live demand signals that enable visibility into market risks and opportunities. Register Now.

FMCG Foods Turnaround: A highly successful S&OP Case Study

JULY 23, 2014

Amongst many other enhancements the following KPIs have been implemented and are measured monthly: KPI Measurement. Budgeted monthly sales targets have been achieved for 6 consecutive months. Project Start. Project End. Business plan achievement. Growth over previous year. -15%. Stock outs finished goods.

One Of The Best KPIs Ever

OCTOBER 23, 2019

In this video, we are going to reveal and demystify one of the best KPIs ever formulated for business benchmarking (internal that is). Look closely at the simple slide presentation which came from an actual case study and get your calculators ready! Let’s watch it. Subscribe to our Youtube Channel.

Service Level Should Be Your Number One Supply Chain KPI…But What Does It Really Mean?

AUGUST 11, 2020

Most use ‘forecast accuracy’ as the main KPI to do this. Therefore it follows logically that filling orders–or order line fill rate (OLFR)–should be the number one KPI that tells you whether you’re meeting service levels. First, we need to establish: what’s the whole point of supply chains? To service demand!

6 Essential Procurement Training Courses for Professionals: How To Begin and Advance Your Career in Procurement

JULY 3, 2023

Take into account elements like the length of the course, the mode of delivery (in-person, online, or mixed), the presence of interactive exercises or case studies , and the availability of opportunities for hands-on practice.

Novo Nordisk: A Story of a Supply Chain Leader

FEBRUARY 12, 2017

Sharing this story is the goal of this case study . Forecast Accuracy and Bias are two of the key KPI s we monitor monthly basis, we also investigate root causes and continuously strive for improved forecast quality. Performance of BMS and Merck at the Intersection of Inventory Turns and Operating Margin.

7 Mini Case Studies: Successful Supply Chain Cost Reduction and Management

MAY 24, 2019

The following five mini case studies explore a few high-profile companies that have managed to sustain their supply chain cost-reduction efforts and keep expenses under control. Of course, the above case studies are merely summaries of the changes these high-profile brands made to their supply chains. Sunsweet Growers.

Your Must-Have Gartner EU Debrief: The TopTakeaways from Gartner Supply Chain Symposium/Xpo EU 2023

JUNE 15, 2023

Several end-user case studies were presented on how they are driving Increased urgency to speed up digitization and automation. Seems our European attendees were much more interested in what our SCM wheel was predicting their top KPI might be! In fact, on Tuesday the SCM wheel exactly matched the KPI goals for 18 attendees.

The Talent Gap

JUNE 20, 2017

’ You can read lots of case studies , attend other user presentations, or participate in benchmark surveys to get a bearing on where you are at and some great ideas that can be applied. So those assessments should result in some form of reasonable KPI goal setting. So the first simple idea is to get an assessment.

Migrating from Legacy ERP to Cloud-Based ERP and Its Impact on Data Collection Software

NOVEMBER 16, 2023

In this article, we will explore the state of ERP migration to cloud, its impact on barcode software and data collection, how businesses can retain custom supply chain processes when upgrading to cloud, and case studies illustrating successful transitions with mobile data collection.

Multi-echelon Inventory Optimization – guide for 2024

MAY 24, 2024

This section will provide detailed case studies , success stories, lessons learned, and testimonials from companies benefiting from MEIO. Minimizing Total Inventory Holding/Carrying Costs Another critical KPI is minimizing total inventory holding or carrying costs. manufacturing), and Johnson & Johnson (healthcare).

Digital Transformation Journey in Supply Chain Planning

MARCH 4, 2021

Data diagnostics to ensure the inputs are accurate, KPI monitoring and alerts for intervention and root-cause analysis are essential components to guide the planners. . Also, follow us on LinkedIn and YouTube for more information and read our customer case studies on the digital transformation of supply chain planning.

Impact of SMAC on Enterprise Software Applications - Infosys Blogs

Infosys Supply Chain Management

APRIL 8, 2014

Case Studies . |. « Gamification - An EAM perspective | Main | Whats your KPI ? Further the BI output would not be limited to be a summarized report or a simple KPI based on simple arithmetic, but it is going to be much more advanced. Whats your KPI ? White Papers. |. News & Events. |. Supply Chain Matters.

An Intelligent Alternative to WMS: Gaining Real-Time Inventory Visibility Without the Complexity

AUGUST 10, 2023

inventory accuracy 30-42% more efficiency and productivity KPI tracking and improvement Reduced overhead spend (labor, carrying costs, etc.) Mobile barcoding is an enterprise mobility solution that automates and mobilizes inventory management and warehouse tasks at a fraction of the cost and complexity of WMS.

Business Process Optimization in Asset Management - Infosys Blogs

JUNE 20, 2013

Case Studies . |. IT enablement in areas like Mobile work management, Health and Safety, Metrics monitoring ( KPI ) etc. Mobile Banking. Payments Treasury. Wealth Management. View all Infosys blogs. Supply Chain Management. Features & Opinions. |. Offerings. |. White Papers. |. News & Events. |. would be beneficial 9.

How Advanced Inventory Control Unlocks Business Growth

MARCH 27, 2024

Advanced Reporting and Analytics: Offers visual report dashboards and KPI analytics on inventory performance, helping businesses identify trends, make informed decisions, and optimize inventory strategies. Manual work led to unacceptable errors and inefficiency.

4 Best-in-Class Supply Chains To Watch and Learn From

NOVEMBER 27, 2016

The measurements however, are just a means to an end , with the KPI -driven conversations being considered more important than the actual metrics. Like everything else in the McDonalds approach to supply chain management, KPIs are in place to provide insight and support alignment , not to lord it over suppliers.

Gartner Session Summary: Design and Implementation of S&OE Process to Deliver Business Benefits

MAY 23, 2019

There were multiple sessions in the agenda on this topic, but the one that I found to have the most insightful information was the S&OE case study presented by Marko Pukkila, Gartner Vice President, and Aaron Baker, Director of Operations Inventory Management at Levi Strauss & Co.

No Supply Chain Strategy? Here’s How to Develop One

JULY 18, 2022

Ideally, though, evaluating your position against competitors should not solely be a KPI benchmarking exercise. They can also aid you in identifying and implementing best practices to further your performance objectives. Former employees who can give you some inside information.

Supply Chain Management and Analytics

MARCH 5, 2021

The Magic Bullet for Real-Time Supply Chain Collaboration? Cloud Visibility.

JUNE 19, 2017

Individual Plants can visualize real-time end-to-end production flow and the status of safety, compliance, and key performance indicators ( KPI ) at any level in the facility. Video case study : How Orbital ATK is Leveraging the IIoT and Visual Factory Technology to Drive Continuous Improvements.

Scottish Councils Deliver Streamlined Contract and Supplier Management

MAY 19, 2020

We considered it beneficial for both councils to meet to discuss current KPIs and scoring methodology to see if we could re-align these to some of the national performance indicators.” . To read the full case study , plus more on public sector procurement, get the white paper, GOING DIGITAL IN PUBLIC SECTOR PROCUREMENT.

10 key trends to understand Supply Chain Management

KEPLER Consulting

NOVEMBER 24, 2017

Became a case study for marketing students worldwide. KPI definition (calculation method, scope, target, top down cascading…) and dashboard set up are a basis to give Managers the right levers to drive SC efficiency. Data handling become critical to capture this vision and take arbitration accordingly.

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What Are Your KPIs Really Measuring?

• Graham Kenny

Performance is about more than just numbers.

Management teams often switch off when reviewing KPIs. This may be because they’re overwhelmed by the slicing and dicing of the measures. They need to remind themselves that KPIs are about stakeholder relationships, how what you do affects what the other does to you, and that the metrics will not always be the same.

No CEO doubts the importance of measuring their company’s performance properly. Yet the executive teams I’ve assisted over more than 25 years generally struggle to engage with the challenge. As one CEO put it to me, “when we get to corporate KPIs their eyes glaze over.” Or, as another said “they [the managers] start looking for the exits.”

• Graham Kenny is the CEO of Strategic Factors and author of Strategy Discovery . He is a recognized expert in strategy and performance measurement who helps managers, executives, and boards create successful organizations in the private, public, and not-for-profit sectors. He has been a professor of management in universities in the U.S. and Canada.

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Machine learning for KPIs prediction: a case study of the overall equipment effectiveness within the automotive industry

• Methodologies and Application
• Published: 05 October 2020
• Volume 25 , pages 2891–2909, ( 2021 )

Cite this article

• Choumicha EL Mazgualdi 1 ,
• Tawfik Masrour   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-7761-6300 1 ,
• Ibtissam El Hassani 1 &
• Abdelmoula Khdoudi 1  

1399 Accesses

16 Citations

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Key performance indicators are tools for management, decision support and forecasting; they reflect the strategy and vision of the company in terms of objectives and allow to always staying in step with the expectations of the stakeholders. Accurate forecasting of the indicators allows decisions to be reoriented to ensure performance optimization while reducing both cost and effort. This paper aims to apply different machine learning methods, namely support vector regression, optimized support vector regression (using genetic algorithm), random forest, extreme gradient boosting and deep learning to predict the overall equipment effectiveness as a case study. We will make use of several configurations of the listed models in order to provide a wide field of comparison. The data used to train our models were provided by an automotive cable production industry. The result shows that the configuration in which we used cross-validation technique, and we performed a duly splitting of data, provides predictor models with the better performances.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments and suggestions which improved the quality of this paper. The authors would particularly like to thank the managing editor, Prof. Raffaele Cerulli, for his insightful suggestions during the revision process of this paper.

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Choumicha EL Mazgualdi, Tawfik Masrour, Ibtissam El Hassani & Abdelmoula Khdoudi

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EL Mazgualdi, C., Masrour, T., El Hassani, I. et al. Machine learning for KPIs prediction: a case study of the overall equipment effectiveness within the automotive industry. Soft Comput 25 , 2891–2909 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00500-020-05348-y

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Published : 05 October 2020

Issue Date : February 2021

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s00500-020-05348-y

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