In the business world, whether you are in a manufacturing or service environment, there are metrics and measurements that people watch to gauge how business is doing. Now you’ve probably heard the term “Big Data” being thrown around these days like it’s the greatest thing since Hot Pockets or sliced bread, and you’ve probably heard someone say, “there is so much Big Data out there that I don’t know where to begin”. As big data becomes part of our everyday vocabulary, we are going to need to figure out what the important metrics are that we need to pay attention to. It doesn’t matter if you’re running a company or your individual desk – there are always key metrics that you’ll want to pay attention too in order to operate wisely, profitably and efficiently.
Once you have your important metrics the next question you might ask yourself is, “how do I know if these are good numbers? What are my benchmarks?” You’ll be able to figure some of that out by reading industry publications and through conversations with other industry professionals, but I’m going to dumb it down a little bit. Once you identify your key performance indicators (KPI’s), focus on where they are at and set a goal to improve upon them. Don’t worry if they are good, bad or where your competition is currently; just focus on making self-improvements and make it a competition against yourself.
So whether you are a store clerk, a recruiter, a production manager or a cook, there are most definitely KPI’s that you can monitor to gauge the performance of your company, your team or yourself.
