The acronym KPI represents the term “Key Performance Indicator”. Let’s find out about some of the different types of KPI’s.
“What is not measured cannot be managed.”
This famous quote is from Peter Ferdinand Drucker, a renowned writer, teacher and Austrian consultant who is considered today the father of modern management. But what do the famous words of Peter Drucker have to do with KPI’s?
Find out: How to increase business productivity here.
What are KPI’s exactly and what is their purpose?
KPIs are management tools widely used by companies worldwide to measure and evaluate the performance of processes and manage them as effectively and efficiently as possible, aiming at the achievement of goals and objectives previously laid down by organizations.
There are several types of KPI’s each with a different purpose for a different circumstance. These tools can be quantitative or qualitative, meaning that, depending on the intention of the manager and the types of KPI’s chosen, they can both numerically evaluate the processes and measure their quality.
In addition to being robust process management tools, KPI’s also function as organizational communication vehicles because through them the development of enterprises is shared with employees from different hierarchical levels.
Thus, the various types of KPI’s help to simultaneously transmit the mission, vision, and values of the company to its employees, keeping them integrated and making sure they understand the importance of their roles within a corporate context.
Have a look at Process performance metrics
And find out about Productivity metrics here.
Check out the most used types of KPI’s
Currently, there are several types of KPI’s available to managers, who can choose what and when to use them depending on the needs and planning of the company.
The most used method to facilitate the decision-making process is the Balanced Scorecard. It’s true due to for its ability to integrate strategic, operational and organizational actions in a company while also allowing for defined businesses strategies, business management, service management and the focus on total quality.
Some of the main types of Key Performance Indicators are:
- Time to Market: Corresponds to the launch time of a product, from idea and concept to sale availability.
- Lead Time: Is the length of time of a given process.
- Stock Out: Indicates the number of times or days that an item or product in stock is at its zero balance.
- Market Share: Points to the market share achieved by a product during a period.
- Idleness: Calculates the percentage of time that a machine, team or construction unit is not producing.
- Inventory Turnover: The direct relationship between consumption (or output) and the average balance in stock.
- Turnover: The replacement rate of employees which corresponds to the numerical difference between admissions and dismissals.
- Average Sales: Total revenue divided by total sales.
There are also some types of KPI’s used exclusively by companies engaged in online business as E-Commerce or Social Networking sites such as:
- Conversion rate: Total sales divided by total visits to the site
- Bounce rate: The percentage of how many visitors have accessed a single page of the company website and soon after left without further navigation on to the next page.
- Engagement Index: The total number of visitors who had some interaction with the page divided by the absolute total number of visitors.
- Social Influence Index: Widely used on Facebook and Twitter, it’s the total ‘likes’ or shares divided by the total number of published posts.
Counting on technological tools for managing indicators is essential. Watch the series of videos below a solution on the cloud that allows you to create management dashboards.