170 Key Performance Indicator KPI Examples & Templates

When the right types and amounts of KPIs are used, these indicators provide the data that will help benefit the overall health of an organization. This guide provides examples, templates and practical advice to help you define the right key performance indicators for your organization and team. The information from key performance indicators may be financial or nonfinancial and may relate to any department across a company, or the performance of the business as a whole.

What does KPI stand for?

These results provide an understanding of whether everything is ok or if something is wrong and you need to take action to bring it under control again. The institutionalization of KPIs, however, began with the creation of the first so-called “KPI dashboard” at a Scottish cotton mill in the 1800s. Different colored wooden cubes were used as monitors of performance above each laborer’s workstation. 💡 Learn how to partner with your data team—download the “Context is Gold” whitepaper. Lorelei Trisca is a content marketing manager passionate about everything AI and the future of work.

One thing is to deliver a project on time, but if it is riddled with issues and bugs, this means very little. This gives you an idea of whether you’re making an appropriate amount of revenue for the size of your business. For example, any customer who signs up for a recurring monthly subscription to Cascade increases our MRR. Monthly Recurring Revenue is a popular metric for SaaS companies such as ourselves. This metric looks only at the revenue you generate each month which will re-occur with little to no additional investment.

A KPI provides your business with a target to shoot for, milestones to track your performance over time, and insights to help your organization’s leaders make better decisions. From marketing to sales to finance and even HR, key performance indicators can help improve productivity, progress, and achievement across every area of your business. It is a quantifiable measurement that tracks progress toward a specific business objective over a set period of time.

They are often tracked and monitored on a sales KPI dashboard, allowing sales teams and stakeholders to visualize and analyze key performance indicators in real time. By analyzing these indicators, retailers can identify sales trends, assess store profitability, and optimize merchandise assortments. If your key performance indicators aren’t delivering the results you expect, it’s time to adjust your strategy. Here are three things you can do to ensure that people across the organization know what your KPIs mean, and how to use them to make data-driven decisions that impact your business. With so much data, it can be tempting to measure everything—or at least things that are easiest to measure.

1. This KPI measures the performance of your customer service department.
2. Connect to your warehouse, semantic layer, and hundreds of service APIs to put data analysis and dashboards into the hands of business users.
3. Analyzes sales performance across different regions to provide feedback and improve underperforming areas.
4. At the heart of KPIs lie data collection, storage, cleaning, and synthesizing.

Bonus: +40 Extra KPI Examples

Operations management focuses on the efficient production and delivery of goods and services. It involves optimizing processes, managing supply chains, and ensuring that operations run smoothly to meet customer demands. Operations teams often use Liveboards to track and analyze performance metrics for continuous improvement. The KPIs suitable for each organization and industry will vary widely.

The 3 Types of KPIs to Reference as You Build Your Metrics

Here are a few examples to consider as you define your own key performance indicators. Key performance indicators are metrics that businesses track and analyze to understand performance and meet actionable goals. Commonly used KPIs include financial, customer service, process, sales, and marketing metrics.

Operations KPIs

Now that you’ve chosen the KPIs that you’ll track, it’s time to determine the exact numerical target for each KPI. The numbers you establish should be realistic and measurable numbers to help you stay on track. Simply stating you want to earn more revenue from email marketing isn’t enough.

Measure what percentage of your customers cancel each year/month (or whatever is most appropriate for your business). Selling is one thing, but it’s easy if all your sales team is doing is applying heavy price discounts to get sales over the line. For us as a SaaS business, we look at the Life Time Value of a customer (LTV) based on what they pay in their subscription and how long a subscription typically lasts. If you were coffee shop you might instead look at the average spend in a visit.

A higher CVR usually indicates a more effective marketing strategy. Below are the 100 important business KPI examples to track & measure. 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 key performance indicators examples is essential for any organization to strive and grow.

A balanced set of KPIs also gives you the data and business intelligence you need for making decision making and strategic focus. You should only track the best and most valuable indicators that tie to your organization’s long-term strategic goals and direction. KPIs provide leaders with key insights into their organization and department. They offer valuable information that can help you understand what specific points of action are improving your business and what ones are hurting it. Remember to align your KPIs with organizational goals and goals for your department.