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Why Every Company Needs a KPI Strategy for Business Management

What difference can a strategy with clearly defined and achievable key performance indicators (KPIs) make in your business? As continuous growth is crucial in any business environment, and given that it relies on the performance of the organisation as a whole – it is imperative for all employees to have complete visibility over the organisation’s goals and performance.

KPIs can assist an organisation ensure that each employee is contributing towards achieving the organisation’s overall goal. KPIs also helps managers to ensure that their specific departmental activities are supporting other departments well enough to ensure growth and success.

A successful business management strategy needs to comprise KPI goals to ensure all employees and departments are working towards achieving the same outcomes.

Employee performance needs to be constantly monitored and adjusted to ensure that the overall goal of an organisation is achieved, that working tasks are sustainable and goals achievable, and that time is managed efficiently.

Once a KPI strategy has been implemented in an organisation, the success of the strategy will rely on the degree of implementation. All team members need clearly defined goals and deadlines.

How to implement a KPI strategy
1. Ensure that the KPIs you set are supporting corporate strategy.
2. To determine what your KPIs should be, determine what makes your business successful.
3. Ensure that the KPI measurable is defined.
4. Define how often the measurable will be measured.
5. Ensure that KPIs are in line with IT strategies.
6. Ensure that the KPIs set, allow for growth and expansion.
7. Define what you are trying to achieve.
8. Make your KPI strategy accessible to all staff – to ensure reinforcement.

In ensuring that all goals set out in your KPI strategy are achievable, a skills matrix can be used to measure team competency, skills, knowledge, interests and the years of experience held by each team member. A skills matrix will assist an organisation gain an overall view of the skills hosted and will therefore enable the implementation of realistic goals by aligning them to operational-specific outcomes.

Furthermore, a skills matrix helps companies identify skills shortages and gaps and highlights the need for knowledge sharing and development between team members. Should a person leave the company, any skills gaps will immediately be visible to the managers. A skills matrix will also reflect which staff have skills that need to be transferred to other staff members – thereby ensuring continuity when particular staff leave the company.