How Will You Measure Success in 2015?

‘Tis the season for budgeting, planning and forecasting. As you huddle around conference tables setting goals, establishing plans and directing your future for 2015, have you outlined how you will monitor your progress?

What are the key performance indicators (KPIs) that are vital to monitoring your success throughout the year? Selecting the right KPIs gives you visibility into the bright spots and areas of risk at any given time. With performance indicators that are measurable and meaningful, staff can rally behind goals and have a clear understanding of what success looks like.

But, what are the right KPIs for your firm? The most popular include:

• Client satisfaction ratings
• Cost of client or opportunity conversion
• Company, department or client profitability
• Financial growth
• Staff growth
• Employee utilization
• Projects delivered on time
• Budget vs. cost on projects

Once you determine the performance indicators you will use to measure your firm’s success, you can set up your business intelligence tool to monitor progress and identify potential problems, empowering you to take corrective action when needed.

Ultimately, a business intelligence tool modeled on appropriate KPIs can foster:

• Goal-driven decision-making

Your strategic goals should be the foundation for every decision your organization makes. With the appropriate tools, you can set goals at multiple levels to monitor progress quickly and easily, allowing you to make informed decisions in a timely manner.

• Historical and predictive analysis

You may have heard the old saying that past behavior is the best indicator of future success, but that doesn’t always hold true in the A/E/C market. It is a key data point for business intelligence.By combining both historical data and accurate forecasts, you can better align strategic goals, priorities, resources and budgets to achieve your desired outcome. You can also check where you are at any given time – and how your data compares to key historic markers.

• Smart, faster, more effective decisions

With the right tools, you can move beyond financial reports to focus on the strategic and operational KPIs of your choice. With that information at your fingertips, you can quickly and easily refine presentations, reports and even your decision-making process.

To make 2015 your best year yet, establish clear goals, determine the performance indicators that best suit your organization and establish tools that allow effective monitoring. By this time next year, you’ll be celebrating time well spent.

Tags: budget, Deltek, forecast, goal, Herndon, key performance indicators, KPI, Market, Megan Miller, performance, plan, success

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