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5 Essential Measures Of Charting Business Success

StrategyDriven Organizational Performance Measures Article |Charting Business Success|5 Essential Measures Of Charting Business SuccessWhen you think about it, ‘success’ is often a broad term, and it applies to many different desirable outcomes. For instance, a post-injury patient overcoming the long journey of learning to walk again, alongside their physiotherapist, will no doubt feel the same kind of personal success that a major athlete feels when coming in first – both have had to put in work, aim for goals, and battle adversity, even if the outcomes seem very different on the surface; success abounds with each.

The same principles could apply for business. A small company that couldn’t hope to compete with a multi-national entity may be adored within its community and have generations of patrons select them first, ultimately guaranteeing a small market to serve for some time, and won via fantastic goodwill efforts.

That said, while thinking of your success in relative terms is a smart place to start, it’s also important to know what format by which to present real, tangible metrics you can use to plan for the future. Let’s consider how to achieve that, below:

The Essential Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

It’s important to recognize that the key metrics for growth can be defined in more than one way. This list of customer success KPIs is a fantastic place to start. They allow you to understand where your risks and opportunities are when it comes to net revenue retention and driving business growth. One recommendation provided will show you how to calculate net revenue retention (NRR) to see the growth of revenue even without onboarding new customers.

In addition, seeing the churn rate of customers who may come and go can help you determine what your actual growth figures are and how they trend. In addition to this, managing your relationships, especially with long-term customers, is an essential measure to focus on, as anyone can generate new clients, but if they stick around, that suggests you’re doing something correctly.

Sales Growth & Retaining Customers After Promotions

Retaining customers after a promotion is a healthy means of showing if your product or service is delivering its value, or is perceived as valuable, once the real charges are applied. Anyone can sign up to a month free trial, but if a customer is happy to retain your service after signing on during that period, then odds are you’ve kept them for the time being.

It can be helpful to also push surveys out to these accounts for an incentive, perhaps offering 5% discount on their next purchase for completing a five-minute survey. Here you can determine why they stayed, if they would in the future, and what their main decision was to keep their subscription ticking over. You may reformat this depending on the general intent of your business, but it’s not hard to see how this perspective makes a difference.


Customer/Client Favorability

It’s healthy to consider the customer and client favorability that you grow over time. Note that this means more than just enhancing your relationship and remaining on good terms, but analyzing just how long term clients or even recently onboarded clients regard your service.

Comment cards, feedback, and analyzing their behavior using your services (are they receptive to upselling, do they preorder your newest items, what packages do they go for?) can make a huge difference.

In addition, you may be able to track this feedback through online customer reviews, seeing the discourse regarding your company on social media platforms like Twitter, and seeing what aggregate websites like TrustPilot have to say about your particular brand. This might not be a particular numerical measurement, but it does give you an insight into the wider cultural conversation about your brand, and how it’s viewed from various levels of your customer base.

Market Share

Analyzing your share of the market by calculating your total sales and dividing them by the reported sales of your industry can be a good idea. It will help you understand what share of the market your business is cornering, or at least give you an approximate idea.

Of course, you can adjust this depending on your niche, your specific location and the markets you serve. Note that you probably will occupy only a small corner of the market, and that’s okay, even this can serve businesses competently for years upon years going forward.

Market share can give you a somewhat decent understanding of how you might be fairing compared to your competitors. In some ways, this may be obvious, but again, one more tool in the arsenal to determine your position is never a bad thing, and should never be considered as such.

Staff Feedback & Satisfaction

It’s healthy to consider the staff feedback and satisfaction that you gain over time. Sure, no business will run solely that its staff feel happy and comfortable in their roles, as this is not enough to support their salaries.

That said, it’s an essential measure of if your internal management structure has been working effectively or not, and if that’s backed up with meeting realistic targets and solid productivity metrics, then odds are you’re doing something right.

A staff survey, listening diligently to the reports of your managers, and making sure staff are permitted to review working for you online in any way they wish will make a big difference. Sure, staff being happy and feeling capable in their roles is a good thing no matter what. But it will also lead to benefits such as them going the extra mile, staying at your company and lowering staff turnover (which is good if you’ve invested money in training them), and even promoting working for your brand to people they know.

In some cases, companies that are awarded ‘best employer’ status in your area have candidates lining outside of the gate for a chance to work for you. A great number of promising staff members hoping to apply the best years of their innovative thinking and hard work is never a bad thing for your brand.

With this advice, we hope you can understand some of the most essential measures of charting business success. With a little luck and a willingness to keep on top of these metrics, you may feel more secure in your position than ever.

Developing Performance Measures

StrategyDriven Organizational Performance Measures Article |Performance Measures|Developing Performance MeasuresIn any industry, businesses pursue profits as a measure of success. However, profits can disguise many variations in effectiveness behind the scenes. In competitive sectors with a confluence of variables, businesses need strategies that reveal their performance over the long term. Without this, businesses will be adrift, lacking in focus or direction whilst their competitors get ahead. Developing performance measures is essential to allow businesses to develop strong strategies and continual performance at the top of their industry.

What Are Performance Indicators?

Performance indicators are deliberately structured measures to gauge your company’s performance in the long-term. Performance measures will have to be curated to the unique environment in which your company operates, the markets you’re operating in and the specific challenges of your sector.

“Once KPIs (key performance indicators) have been identified and constructed, they will help to determine the direction and focus of your business in its finance, operational and strategic objectives,” says Leonard Johnson, a writer at Last Minute Writing and Writinity. “These are key to a business’s continued high performance as well as the contextualization of your company within its sector.” Without KPIs businesses are adrift, lacking a sense of their direction and performance. Let’s take a look at how to effectively develop performance measures.

Identify Outcomes

To have meaningful performance measures, an organization needs a sense of the outcomes it wants to achieve. Rather than using abstract concepts to guide your strategy, find objective results that have clear indicators of success. Make sure that everyone on the team understands how each outcome is being understood as individuals can have radically different interpretations when it comes to identified outcomes.

StrategyDriven Organizational Performance Measures eBook

Compare Measures

Recognizing that there are multiple measures for different outcomes enables you and your organization to select the measures that best express your objectives. “When comparing measures, you should be asking whether results can be measured directly or if you need a secondary measure that indicates performance in certain strategies,” says Jerry Dubose, a KPI expert at Draftbeyond and Research Papers UK. “If results can’t be measured directly, how you assess your performance can be based on the performance of indirect hypotheses that are linked to your outcomes.”

Tailor Measures To Objectives

When selecting the final measures your organization will use as performance indicators, there are a few criteria to consider. Metrics for your performance should be able to answer key questions about the orientation of your organization’s strategic decisions as well as providing actionable information that can guide future strategy. Negative consequences of your measures should be kept to a minimum, such as laborious data collection or incentivizing employee behaviour that “shortcuts” the objective.

Define Targets

Equally as important as selecting accurate performance measures is the process of defining the organizational targets your company needs to achieve. Targets should be aspirational, yet realistic and encourage everyone working in the organization to optimize their performance.

As well as identifying targets, a number of thresholds can be created with different action plans indicated by each. A minimum performance threshold can be as valuable as an aspirational target, or more so, when measuring organizational performance. A traffic light system of red, amber and green target/thresholds can provide a valuable visualization of performance as well as a motivator for when action and strategy needs to adapt.

Document Performance

Lastly, performance as related to defined outcomes needs to be documented. These documents can be issued quarterly and will become valuable for reflection on past performance as well as an indicator of future trajectory. Documentation should be systematic and complete – a data definition table provides an excellent structure for overarching documentation of performance. Software can streamline performance documentation as well as create compact performance reports that will indicate how strategy is performing.

Wrapping Up

Developing performance measures should be a cornerstone of every business looking to secure their future. In a fast-changing world, organizations need to have a strategic approach to development and objective ways to assess their performance, otherwise fluctuations in market environments can catch you out. This approach to developing performance measures, as articulated in the article above, will strengthen your business and enable resilience in the face of an unpredictable world.


About the Author

StrategyDriven Expert Contributor |Ronald CainRonald Cain is a tutor at UK Essay Writing Services. He is a professional writer, a blogger, and a contributor to Gum Essays. His passion for communication and organizational strategy has led him to roles which support businesses in achieving selected outcomes and, for Ronald, nothing comes close to the thrill of success in a competitive environment.

How to Develop Performance Measures?

StrategyDriven Organizational Performance Measures Article |Performance Measures|How to Develop Performance Measures?Have you ever thought of improving the quality and productivity of your organization, achieving set goals, and recognizing hard-working employees?

Well, one sure way is by developing the right performance measure.

Organizations often measure employee performance to achieve set goals. Most times, determining how to develop the right Key Performance Measure (KPI) may lead to hassles and failure that might bring unwanted results. However, it is important to develop the KPIs using the right approach as it aids better decision-making, makes employees more responsible for achieving set goals, evaluates the growth of the business better, and manages the employees’ performance better.

Steps to develop performance measures

1.Familiarize with the concept of performance measure/What is KPI?

It is needless to say that the misconception of KPI is a common organizational problem. Organizations need to comprehend what KPI is all about so they can apply it correctly. KPI is not a data collection strategy, nor is it an employee productivity tool.

It is the value of the numeric work input and evidence of the reoccurring performance result. Simply put, KPI refers to the reliable data generated from the efficiency of programs. After a proper understanding of the subject matter, other processes would yield better results.

2. Evaluate the KPI’s Criteria

If your company has existing KPIs, it is advisable to conduct another review on it and select the one that would yield better results based on the performance measurement. However, if you don’t, you should create strategies according to your company’s achievable goals.

The goals must also align with the measures and must be proven to work efficiently, i.e., someone else must have used this plan. The measure must also be understandable, inspirational, and capable of being regularly tracked. Remember to keep the measurements lesser in numbers and detailed.

StrategyDriven Organizational Performance Measures eBook

3. Set Measurable Goals

Your company’s goals should be specific, clear, realistic, and understandable. All this aids an excellent performance measure with meaningful results. Try to make the objectives less action-oriented, vague, and multi-barrelled. Instead, write about intended results with precision, and list your goals separately. Setting up small goals is better for a start.

4. Be Deliberate

While developing your performance measurements, employ the deliberate technique rather than a brainstorming one. Visualize the end, evaluate the potential measures that expose the capability of achieving positive results, and look at the bigger picture. This would allow you to decipher what is being measured and take your stance regardless of the unforeseen circumstances. It should be visible, countable, and measurable.

5. Let your supporters buy-in

Without those who support and understand your performance measure, your KPIs would not get the required attention. To make your KPI meaningful, you have to put them into use. They would fulfill the purpose by building buy-in with those you have been working alongside.

Building buy-in is by creating a measure team and ensuring that they comprehend the problems and how the KPIs work. Also, build an open environment where others can critique and give feedback on the KPIs.

Required characteristics for performance development

Before developing the KPI’s, there are some characteristics an organization should possess; they are:

  • Target An organization aiming for success should have some achievable targets within a specific period. The period may be within six months or annually
  • Measure The measure and the target work together. Measure here may refer to the number of acquired customers for the various products and services. Set a means to achieve the target.
  • Frequency The review of the KPI’s progress should be done regularly. It could be on a monthly or weekly interval depending on the nature of the target
  • Data Discover where your data would come from, as this would boost your progress level. Discovering this would prevent a waste of time.

Conclusion

Developing performance measures is an essential business tool to achieve your organizational goals. It also goes a long way to fulfill other organizational needs like setting realistic goals, recognizing employees’ hard work, timing employees through task timer online, and building a supportive team that understands your business challenges. You can try out our opinion on the steps in developing a performance measure, leave questions on where you need clarification, and tell us about your views.


About the Author

StrategyDriven Expert Contributor | Lori WadeLori Wade is a journalist from Louisville. She is a content writer who has experience in small editions, Lori is now engaged in news and conceptual articles on the topic of business. Time management is critical to career success. That is why she uses the task timer online to stay in the lead at all times. If you need more tips on time management, entrepreneurship, or leadership, you can find her on LinkedIn.

Don’t Get Left Behind With Poor Marketing, It’s Time To Step Up

StrategyDriven Marketing and Sales Article |Poor Marketing|Don't Get Left Behind With Poor Marketing, It's Time To Step UpTechnology is evolving rapidly and nothing is stagnant anymore. Our daily life changes, everything around us changes. So how could Marketing be stagnant? It has evolved and with the tools now available we have the greatest efficiency ever. Let’s take the things from the beginning.

What actually is Marketing?

The truth is that the word Marketing is quite misunderstood in different countries and means different things to different people. When you hear the word Marketing, you may think that it is something that only large companies and corporations use.The reality is completely different. You use Marketing every day in your business and you do not know it. Marketing is the coordinated and organized effort of a business to meet the needs of consumers by promoting its goods or services. In this way we manage to attract new customers, build relationships and gain loyal consumers. No matter how good your product or service is, without a clear Marketing Plan you will not be able to attract customers and grow your business. So Marketing is vital in a business no matter how big or small it is. It is also a basic expense of a business and not something optional that you can skip. Which is what makes lending so important and small business loans can really contribute massively. You should look at funding options available and see how they can help build your strategy.

Audience Targeting

Targeting the audience is more than accurate. We can show an advertisement for example to Women, 26 – 45 years old, who live in the area of Utah, have 1 child and are interested in sports items and have it specifically targeted to them depending on the type of advertising platform we choose. This is when SEO becomes a huge thing for businesses.

Measurable Results

We have at our disposal really valuable information and statistics. For example, we can see what users did when they saw your ad, how long they watched your video and how long they browsed your site. Which ad was most effective, which one had the most clicks and which demographic audience was most interested. And all this is just the beginning.

Effectiveness

The effectiveness of Digital Marketing is spectacular. The most important thing is not that it turns out. How can you prove, for example, how effective the billboards you put up in the city columns were? In contrast, the digital poster you promoted on Facebook will tell you how many people saw it, what they did when they saw it, how many were interesting and to which demographic and age audience they belonged. Facebook ads can be great but you should certainly look to hire an expert to ensure you’re hitting the right people.

Speed

So imagine that you want to promote an event quickly, very quickly. You want things done on the fastrack. While it will take days to create and send a brochure, a Social Media campaign can not only “run” in 24 hours but also bring results. You should never be slow with your marketing because you can be sure that other companies are nailing it and it’s time that you do too.

3 Steps to Creating an eCommerce Strategy for Your Business

StrategyDriven Strategic Planning Article |Ecommerce strategy|3 Steps to Creating an eCommerce Strategy for Your BusinessFor an eCommerce store to be as successful as it can be, the business or individual behind it needs to have a clear strategy. This is because a strategy helps keep the business-focused, and also allows you to measure how your business is doing, which can give you critical insight on how to develop and change your approach in the future.

A strategy is an outline of how your store is planning to achieve its goals and improve its market position. Strategies can alter depending on the specific goals for the business, and these can range from reaching more customers to boosting customer engagement. There are a few things to consider when making a strategy for your ecommerce strategy, here are some essential steps you can’t miss.

Create a Buyers Persona

When making a strategy that targets your audience in some way, you must get a good understanding of who that audience is. It’s useful to know their interests, demographic, age, income, location, as well as other factors, as this can inform how you go about your strategy.

One of the best ways to get to grips with your audience is to create a buyer persona. These are semi-fictitious representations of your customers, which are informed by some of the data you have on previous buyers. A good persona will go deeper than the surface level details and investigate their desires and wants in terms of buying, what challenges they may face and what they’re interested in, as these can help you implement the right procedures and processes into your eCommerce website. If you’re unsure where to start, you can use a template to make sure you cover the essentials.

Set SMART Goals

SMART goals help you define what you want to accomplish and puts tangible metrics in place that can be used to track your progress. For example, your overall goal may be to boost customer engagement. As SMART goals, this will be translated into things that are numerical and measurable, such as increasing the number of shares, comments or likes, or boosting the number of reviews customers leave. SMART goals have to be the following:

  • Specific, meaning that it’s defined and not too broad.
  • Measurable means that that you can track your progress.
  • Achievable, so that it’s realistic.
  • Relevant, meaning that it’s useful.
  • Timely, meaning that it has a deadline to be achieved by.

It can be challenging to know what goals you should be aiming for, and which of them would help improve your business. That’s why a lot of ecommerce businesses turn to third-party companies such as this Magento agency in Manchester, as they can help you find the perfect strategy and build a fantastic website.

Define Your KPIs (Key Performance Indicators)

KPIs are pieces of data or information that can be used to track how well your strategy is performing. There are many different performance indicators and metrics, with some being only useful in certain situations and criteria, meaning that it’s essential to identify which indicators are useful for your specific goals.

It’s important not to get performance indicators confused with outcomes. An indicator is something that’s active and tracks efficiency, and is usually represented through percentages or ratios, such as a click-through rate or bounce rate.