Business Metrics

Business Metrics

Numbers, numbers, numbers. It’s not the numbers themselves, but the stories that they tell that are important. Which numbers should you look at? What are the performance measures that you should pay attention to? Looking at the numbers from your accounting department isn’t enough. Having the correct numbers at your disposal will tell you about every aspect of how your business is operating.

Let’s talk about KPIs: Key Performance Indicators. These are the measures that tell you how your business is performing. These can fall into a number of different areas. They can include financial information, which would include not only your financial statements but also subsidiary reports that drive to the heart of how your business is operating. There are hundreds of relevant ratios, but which are the ones that are most critical to your company’s success and growth?

Other metrics come from your production floor. What is the information that you need to make your manufacturing more efficient? How does your current production compare to last year? Does that information tell you whether you’re improving? If you’re not looking at those numbers, you will eventually see the end result when the items that are dragging down your production success finally show up on your financial reports. It’s easier and much less painful to stop problems when they start to appear. Those problems may arise when comparing estimates to final production results, tracking inventory variances, scrap levels, set-up time on the production line, dock to stock time, order processing time, or telephone answering data.