{"id":44678,"date":"2020-01-07T08:46:47","date_gmt":"2020-01-07T08:46:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/me\/2020\/01\/07\/why-your-business-should-be-looking-beyond-traditional-kpis\/"},"modified":"2020-01-07T10:34:45","modified_gmt":"2020-01-07T10:34:45","slug":"why-your-business-should-be-looking-beyond-traditional-kpis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/me\/2020\/01\/07\/why-your-business-should-be-looking-beyond-traditional-kpis\/","title":{"rendered":"Why your business should be looking beyond traditional KPIs"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Thanks to automated software, we have a wealth of real-time business data right at our fingertips. But as Gerhard Hartman, Vice President: Medium Business, Sage Africa and Middle East explains, it can become too easy for a medium business or scale-up to become too obsessed with the wrong metrics, and often at the expense of measuring and managing the things that really matter<\/strong>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For\na starting point, traditional key performance indicators (KPIs) are sometimes\nnarrow in their focus. They might not catch the real issues that are affecting\nbusiness performance, may focus only on one dimension, or might not be useful\nfor making predictions about the future. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For\nexample, many marketing departments place a heavy emphasis on net promoter\nscore (NPS). This can be an invaluable metric, but could there be other\nmetrics that are just as important, such as predictive data about customer\nchurn?  Or if a sales KPI is down, can the business look at the problem\nfrom fulfilment perspective, or a customer service perspective to understand\nwhere the issue originated? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

KPIs\ncan be demotivating too <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s\nsay sales has a KPI for a particular product line. A competitor drops the price\nof their similar product. As quickly as the sales team responds, their top-line\nwill be affected. When the negative data is fed back to the sales team, they\u2019re\nhardly going to feel encouraged. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Making\nKPIs work for you <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

To\nget the most from KPIs, companies should shift from a measurement culture to a\ngrowth culture \u2013 looking beyond metrics for their own sake towards how they can\nhelp the company\u2019s people to do better.  This starts with focusing on the\ngrowth of employees and the real needs of the customer rather than on the KPIs\non a dashboard. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

With\nthis in mind, you can start to gather the right data and use the correct\nbenchmarks for your business goals. Rather than drowning yourself in data\npoints, you will make good, fast decisions based on actionable information. The\nkey is to avoid analysis-paralysis and to align your metrics behind your\nstrategy \u2013 rather than doing it the other way around.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another\nsuccess factor is responding to information in real-time. Many businesses\ncontinue to act on historical reports about what happened days, weeks, or even\nmonths ago. Instead of responding to today\u2019s trends, they are reacting to old\nevents. The fresher the insights, the better the potential for making the right\ndecisions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s\nalso important to break down organisational siloes. Different departments may\nrun systems that have different approaches to data and KPIs. Such data might\nnot catch issues that are affecting business performance, may focus only on one\ndimension, or might not be useful for forecasting. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Run\na smarter, faster, more connected business<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Evolving\nthe finance function to be able to gather and benefit from real-time insights\nstarts with putting the right technology and processes in place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An\nintegrated business solution can provide specialised, accurate reporting based\non a holistic view of the business. This enables decision-makers to\nidentify trends and opportunities and to track, analyse and manage customer and\nsupplier interactions for fast and effective decision-making.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thanks to automated software, we have a wealth of real-time business data right at our fingertips. But as Gerhard Hartman, Vice President: Medium Business, Sage Africa and Middle East explains, it can become too easy for a medium business or scale-up to become too obsessed with the wrong metrics, and often at the expense of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":44693,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5307,6,9961,13],"tags":[10997,10998,10999,2463,2464,557],"class_list":["post-44678","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-analysis","category-insights","category-thought-leadership","category-top-stories","tag-gerhard-hartman","tag-key-performance-indicators","tag-kpis","tag-net-promoter-score","tag-nps","tag-sage"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/me\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44678","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/me\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/me\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/me\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/me\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44678"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/me\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44678\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44692,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/me\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44678\/revisions\/44692"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/me\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/me\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/me\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/me\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}