KPIs to Grow and Improve Your Business

At the moment, many companies in the digital and creative space are in ‘survival’ mode, focused more on existence than growth. So what are some of the steps that SMEs can take to move on to create value? KPIs are commonly used to help a company define and evaluate how successful it is. They are meant to help your company to track progress and to grow in the process. Ideally they should be a source of motivation. In a talent-based and people-based environment, an agency is often selling its people, skills and services as opposed to physical products. So while financial KPIs are obviously important, in this sector there is much more to company success than such metrics. For example, if you only use financial metrics, they can sometimes become soul-destroying because they measure a performance based on previous experiences and results. In a similar way to a diet or exercise regime, it becomes an emotional engagement – and can become a stick rather than a carrot. A typical danger is when agencies start fixating on financial KPIs at the expense of realizing more holistic KPIs that take into account the broader facets of what makes their business successful.” “People” KPIs“Measuring the performance of your people is critical. This could mean making a customer survey, or talking to your clients and asking them to score the people in your organisation. In some ways this is a financial metric, but it does more than just measuring the financial performance of your business. It helps you to understand just how to leverage talent within your organisation. Organisations in this sector still talk about the challenges of managing staff, and of finding the right talent. It also informs difficult staffing decisions and helps you to decipher the right staff mix in your organization. Often tough decisions are not made early enough – some managers may complain that they retained certain staff for too long, and in the process of having to let them go and replace them, they lost valuable time!”  “Client” KPIs “KPIs could focus on setting objectives for clients' development. Few organisations actually have client development plans with key targets for the projects they are hired to carry out. Tracking client responses requires a consistent system and set of criteria, and while many companies talk about how designing a client survey is a fantastic idea, few actually get around to implementing something and following up on the results. Diets often fail because people want immediate results. There is not enough engagement for true commitment, because often what people crave are short-term fixes. Similarly, while client care reports require discipline, and the benefits might not be immediately apparent, in the long-term they introduce a mindset change where client feedback becomes essential.”  “Creative” KPIs “For some agencies this could be about winning awards. For others, it could be about press coverage or feedback from clients. Creative KPIs could also be set on an individual basis, for self-reflection and improved future performance. Managers could give out internal awards to reward individual creativity and innovation. Creative KPIs benchmarks for a project could be determined by either the manager or by colleagues. As creativity is often a process, and the member of staff’s behavior in the process – their openness to collaboration, their listening skills, as well as their contribution to the final product – could be taken into consideration when they reflect upon their performance. In short, using performance indicators around people, client development, and creativity can all help to boost business performance by providing a holistic view of progress, and giving positive encouragement in various areas of operations.”