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The benefits of KPI reporting can have a tremendous impact on the future success of a company, it offers the information needed to improve performance, to make informed day to day decisions and provide a structured way to develop the business from a single perspective.
However, setting up your KPI reporting can be a time consuming exercise, notwithstanding the added complexities of multiple business areas with different perspectives - throw in a dash of data overload, and what you thought would be relatively pain free and ultimately beneficial exercise soon becomes neither.
Planning is vital for success so to help you run the gauntlet of KPI Reporting implementation here are 6 simple steps to get you started in the quickest way.
- Define your KPIs - keep it simple, only key data should be included at this stage, it is always better to add the KPIs you are missing than to rehash a large amount of KPIs.
- Choose the best way to display the data, graphs are good but sometimes a good old fashioned data list will work even better.
- Establish who the audience is, this could be internal or external and could include financial or operational data.
- Decide how and when your reports will be used, perhaps at monthly management meetings or daily for production monitoring.
- Appoint a data advocate. Someone who decides how (manually, automated or a mixture of the two) and when data should be integrated into your reporting system.
- Monitor frequently. Nobody gets their KPI reporting right first time, as business needs and goals change so do the KPIs. Assessing the KPIs and the benefits on a regular basis can help you maximize your reporting.
by Stuart Kinsey
Stuart Kinsey writes on Key Performance Indicators, Dashboards, Marketing, and Business Strategy. He is a co-founder of SimpleKPI and has worked in creative and analytical services for over 25 years. He believes embracing KPIs and visualizing performance is essential for any organization to strive and grow.