KPI Boards: Why are businesses better with them in place?

Workers using visual management boards

Key performance indicator (KPI) boards are an easy way to see if your business is meeting goals.

Imagine this. You’re keeping score for your kid’s little league team. The bases are loaded and the most valuable player is up to bat. You think it’s a sure win for the team. But after the first swing, you have your doubts. After three strikes the player is out of the game and the team loses by just a hair. Would you throw your clipboard on the floor and storm out because they missed the win? Would you encourage them and show them how close they were to winning the game?

Most people agree that to measure successes and shortcomings is a fundamental part of reaching your objectives. The way you translate the information is equally important.

With Key Performance Indicators, you can gauge how your business or team is performing against its strategic goals. KPI boards let you show them, instead of telling them how they’re performing and provides a focus for the entire team or business.

KPI boards can help you track:

  • Inventory – Track and maintain the level of inventory. When inventory isn’t managed you can end up with overstock and ongoing costs. Communicate common goals your entire business is working towards to keep inventory at a manageable level.
  • Shipping – Track and monitor how many packages have shipped out of your building on specific days, weeks, and months to see if your shipping team is reaching goals. If goals can’t be met, it’s time to make modifications to your shipping processes so more items can ship out on time.
  • Sales – Choose a tracking metric that works for you – something like lead flow, qualified opportunities, conversion rates, or booked revenue – and measure how individual sales team members are doing or track the entire progress of your sales force. Periodically assessing the progress of your sales will help you motivate your team to meet personal or group goals.
  • Production – Track the number of items pulled through your production floor and set goals. Seven common production KPIs are: count, reject ratio, rate, target, takt time, overall equipment effectiveness (OEE), and downtime.
  • Performance Status – This KPI will provide measurable data that shows the progress of a company’s business goals and how they’re doing collectively. With a performance status KPI your entire company will understand the goal so your business can strive to meet it.
KPI Board measuring performance status.

A good KPI should act as a key decision-making tool.

Use KPI Boards designed to create structure to show how effective your key business objectives. With KPIs, you can highlight common goals, which help you achieve strategic goals.

Many organizations use different types of KPI boards to measure their successes, based on specific targets.

How to create an effective KPI board:

  • Do your research.
  • Identify the questions that decision-makers, managers, supervisors, and stakeholders need to have answered.
  • Provide clear and measurable data.
  • Be unique to your business or department.
  • Thoroughly communicate information throughout your organization and department.

Check out some KPI Board ideas.

Use Accessories for A More Visual Workplace

Make positive, negative or neutral metrics stand out on your Key Performance Indicator (KPI) board with quick and easy labeling. Repositionable cling indicators like ultra-cling faces stick to flat, smooth and clean surfaces such as glass or a whiteboard. Here’s what makes them a good choice:

  • Removable, repositionable, reusable
  • Leaves no residue
  • Great for non-magnetic whiteboards.

3 Data Points Your Team Needs for Success

Here are three different types of KPIs that can help operations run smoothly:

1) Inventory Turnover

  • You need to know what’s being sold and what’s sitting on a shelf collecting dust. This KPI measures how often you sell out your inventory.
  • Plus, slow-moving inventory takes up valuable shelf space and can drain your facility’s efficiency.
  • You’ll want to track your customers’ buying behaviors. Then, adjust your purchasing habits and aim for a higher inventory turnover rate.

2) Inventory Costs

  • You don’t want inventory hanging around too long.
  • It takes up space and accrues additional costs such as labor, risk (needing insurance), storage and freight.
  • This KPI can help you calculate how much profit the current inventory will bring and limit loss.

3) Efficient Receiving

  • Receiving can make or break your efficiency.
  • KPIs for this area can help identify any “weak links” in the process, such as space and materials your team needs for the job at hand or how fast new inventory is being processed.
  • If receiving is not making the cut, it will cause negative effects across the board.
  • So those are a few important KPIs for efficient operation.

The question is: Does your team know which KPI is their responsibility?

You’re smart. You know that in order to hit your KPIs, everyone needs to be on board. Document Display Holders and Dry Erase Magnetic White Boards are a winning combo to easily relay metrics and KPI data. You can even use Magnetic Color-Coded Document Display Holders so you can say in the morning meeting:

“Just a reminder, everyone. Check the red document display so you know what’s needed for this metric.”

It can be just that simple. And it makes your job of keeping everyone informed about KPIs and metrics less of a hassle.

Peter Drucker knew that when a company had a process for measurement, IT had a recipe for success.

Achieve success with Document Display Holders and Dry Erase Magnetic White Boards. These work beautifully together and keep everything neatly organized. Know your team is getting the information they need—without fail.

There isn’t one specific design to track key business objectives – what works for one company, might not work for another. KPIs are closely linked to strategic objectives. KPIs assist in answering the most critical business questions while echoing the main goal – to aim for success!