How To Choose the Right KPIs for Your Business

How can you tell if your company is growing?

当然，您可以与一些团队的领导交谈，并定期获得有关他们的表现的报告。但是，如果您不针对其他内容来衡量这些信息，那么您如何知道遇到标记或跌倒时会知道呢？

正如他们所说的,就会改善。作为ntifying your current performance through key performance indicators (KPIs) will give you a framework from which to assess your progress.

但是，您如何选择合适的KPI来专注于您的业务？简短的答案是它确实取决于。

While there isn't a hard-and-fast rule for choosing the proper KPIs, there are a number of factors you should always take into consideration.

在这篇文章中,我们将介绍一些factors that influence which KPIs you should focus on and help you hone in on the metrics that matter the most for your business.

让我们开始吧。

One thing to remember about KPIs is that they're meant to measure your most impactful indicators.

例如，您的社交媒体团队可能具有大量可以用作KPI的数据点。但是，他们只能选择与更广泛的业务目标保持一致的人。假设这是品牌知名度。在这种情况下，追随者计数，邮政覆盖范围和印象可能是social media KPI metricsto measure.

With that in mind, having KPIs means narrowing your focus on一些重要指标这将最大程度地影响您的业务。

OKR vs. KPI

目标和关键结果（OKR）和KPI通常可以互换使用，因为这两个术语都涉及跟踪和测量的目标。但是，它们不同的是意图。

Put simply, KPIs indicate if your business is hitting its targets. They are often called health metrics as they tell you how the company is doing to meet an objective that's already set.

OKRs, on the other hand, are broad objectives for your business with the key results that will signify achievement in meeting those objectives. They are aggressive and ambitious goals that speak to the business's big-picture vision.

例如，假设一家技术公司的目的是成为2021年其行业前10名提供商之一。他们bob全站app的主要结果可能是：

• 通过第三季度收购1,000个新客户。
• 每月产生3,000条线索。
• 将年度会员销售增加30％。

尽管KPI是缩放缩放的理想选择，但OKR是为急剧增长而设计的。他们更雄心勃勃，并推动团队扩展自己的能力。

同样重要的是要注意，尽管KPI可以是您OKR的关键结果，但相反的情况通常不是正确的。

For example, your marketing team could have a KPI of 3,000 leads as mentioned in the example above. However, it's unlikely that any department would list the "Top 10" goal as their KPI as that speaks to a broader vision and has a more flexible timeline.

KPI报告是什么？

KPI报告是一种视觉仪表板，用于跟踪您的指标并评估团队对目标的表现。您可以根据要显示的数据和团队的需求使用图表，图形和表显示报告。

As a business, you'll likely have data coming in on a daily basis that may or may not relate to your KPIs. Having a reporting tool does a few things, including:

• Allowing you to track your most impactful metrics and filter out irrelevant data
• Making the data easily accessible to decision-makers and collaborators
• Giving you a quick and digestible snapshot of your team's performance
• Aligning everyone on the goals

How To Measure KPIs

在测量KPI之前，您需要确定要跟踪哪些指标。这将在很大程度上取决于您的目标和团队。

Once you narrow that down, set your targets. They're usually based on a combination of factors, including historical performance and industry standards.

您还必须回答谁，何时以及原因。谁负责此KPI？确定您团队管理此KPI的人，因此在解决可能影响性能的障碍时，他们可以成为首选。他们还将负责报告进度。

As for the "when," you'll need to know the timeline to reach these targets. Many businesses set them on a monthly or quarterly basis, but your timeline can be shorter or longer depending on your team.

Lastly: the why. It's the most important thing to keep in mind when measuring your KPIs. Having your goals clearly identified can help motivate your team and make sure everyone is aligned on the direction you're going in.

关键性能指标的类型

KPIs can be set on a team basis. Sales' KPIs will be completely different from HR's KPIs. Beyond those differences, there are also variations in the types of indicators you can measure.

Here are a few of the most common types of KPIs:

• A quantitative KPI依靠数字来衡量进度。例如，“销售团队每月产生100个销售资格的潜在客户”。
• A qualitativeKPI查看观点或基于感觉的数据。例如，“品牌情感”。
• 领先的KPIcan predict future performance. E.g., "Website traffic." More traffic can mean more conversions, more leads, and more revenue.
• A lagging KPIdescribes a past result. E.g., "Turnover rate."
• An input KPImeasures the assets, time, and resources needed to complete a certain action or project. E.g., "Employee count, budget."
• 一个过程KPI评估业务内的效率和生产力。例如，“平均销售电话时间”。

KPI Examples

Your organization's business model and the industry in which you operate will influence the KPIs you choose.

例如，B2B软件即服务公司（SaaS）bob电ĺbob全站app54;官方下载公司可能会选择专注于客户获取和流失，而实体零售公司可能专注于每平方英尺或平均客户支出。

Here are a few examples of some industry-standard KPIs:

While you will most certainly want to consider industry standard KPIs, it is more important that you choose the KPIs that are relevant to your specific company and the goals you are working toward.

How To Determine KPIs

选择与您的业务目标直接相关的KPI。

KPIs are quantifiable measurements or data points used to gauge your company's performance relative to a goal. For instance, a KPI could be related to your goal of increasing sales, improving the return on investment of your marketing efforts, or improving customer service.

您的公司目标是什么？bob全站app您是否确定了改进或优化的任何主要领域？您的管理团队最大的优先事项是什么？

Answering these questions will bring you one step closer to identifying the right KPIs for your brand.

专注于一些关键指标，而不是大量数据。

当您开始为您的业务识别KPI时，更少的价值。而不是选择数十个指标来衡量和报告，您应该只关注几个指标钥匙ones.

如果您跟踪太多的KPI，则可能会被数据淹没并失去焦点。

As you can imagine, every company, industry, and business model is different so it is difficult to pinpoint an exact number for the amount of KPIs you should have. However, a good number to aim for is somewhere between two to four KPIs per goal.Enough to get a good sense of where you stand but not too many where there's no priority.

Consider your company's stage of growth.

Depending on the stage of your company – startup vs. enterprise – certain metrics will be more important than others.

Early-stage companies typically focus on data related to business model validation while more established organizations focus on metrics like cost per acquisition and customer lifetime value.

以下是在各个增长阶段的公司潜在的关键绩效指标的一些示例：

Identify both lagging and leading performance indicators.

The difference between lagging and leading indicators is essentially knowing how you did, versus how you are doing. Leading indicators aren't necessarily better than lagging indicators, or vice versa. You should just be aware of the differences between the two.

Lagging indicators measure the output of something that has already happened. Total sales last month, or the number of new customers or hours of professional services delivered, are examples of lagging indicators. These types of metrics are good for purely measuring results, as they solely focus on outputs.

On the other hand, leading indicators measure your likelihood of achieving a goal in the future. These serve as predictors of what's to come. Conversion rates, sales opportunity age, and sales rep activity are just a few examples of leading indicators.

Traditionally most organizations have solely focused on lagging indicators. One of the main reasons for this is they tend to be easy to measure since the events have already happened. For instance, it is very easy to pull a report of the number of customers acquired last quarter.

But measuring what happened in the past can only be so helpful.

You can think of leading indicators as business drivers because they come before trends emerge, which can help you identify whether or not you are on track to reaching your goals. If you can identify which leading indicators will impact your future performance you will have a much better shot at success.

With every business, growth is the goal. KPIs help you track your progress and scale progressively to grow in whichever way that matters to your company.