by Kiran Shrimant Kakade, Nagalakshmi T.J, Pradeep S, Tapas Bapu B. R Abstract: Hackers have always regarded getting information on the health of computer networks to be one of the most significant aspects that they need consider. This may include breaking into databases as well as computer networks that are utilised in defensive systems. As a result, these networks are constantly vulnerable to potentially harmful assaults. This paper provides an assessment technique that is based on a collection of tests, with the goal of measuring the effectiveness of the individual elements of an IDS as well as the influence those components have on the whole system. It evaluates the deep neural network’s potential efficacy as a classification for the many kinds of intrusion assaults that may be carried out. Based on the results of the studies, it seems that the level of accuracy achieved by intrusion detection using deep convolutional neural network is satisfactory. Keywords: machine-learning; networks intrusion detection systems; and networks.
by Ravi Kumar, Kiran Shrimant Kakade, PRISCILLA M, Santhosh KÂ Abstract: Cloud computing has been adopted by a wide variety of businesses and organisations in order to give services to customers in a secure and certified manner, protecting cloud providers from fraudulent actions. To investigate cloud-based cybercrimes, however, cost-effective forensics and successful implementation is essential. The topic has been the subject of several surveys and reviews thus far from researchers. An iCloud investigative tool taxonomy is presented in this study to find the products that meet their technical needs in a searchable catalogue. The authors of this study developed the taxonomy. The research results demonstrated that the recommended solution may effectively help digital inspectors in their mission to look into cloud-based cybercrimes. This research paper aims to analyse the digital forensics issues raised by the cloud computing paradigm and to offer the appropriate solutions and recommendations. Cloud computing and more conventional types of digital forensics are also given in-depth examination. Keywords: computer crimes; cloud technology; computer forensics; forensic investigations; forensic software tools; cloud crime; cloud forensics; cloud framework.
Happy to share that 41th research paper published in UGC care list Journal “Samridhi” A Journal of Physical Sciences, Engineering and Technology. ISSN 2454-5767 Volume No. 14, Issue- 4 , October – December 2022 Paper entitled”STUDY ON IMPACT OF LABOUR WELFARE PRACTICES ON EMPLOYEE JOB SATISFACTION WITH REFERENCE TO MSME’S OF MUMBAI REGION”
Writing a strategic plan can be a daunting process, even for seasoned strategy professionals. However, if you have an intimate knowledge of your business, and have a clear strategic model to follow, writing a strategic plan is actually surprisingly easy.
This guide will teach you how to write a strategic plan using a simple model that will help you to define precisely what you want to achieve and how you’re going to get there. Whether or not you’re using a strategic planning software like Cascade, or going old-school with Excel (or even pen and paper!) – simply follow the steps outlined here and you’ll have written a strategic plan to be proud of before you know it.
This article is part one of our mini series ‘How to Write a Strategic Plan’. This first article will focus on giving you a solid strategy model for your plan. Think of it as the foundation for your awesome new strategy. Subsequent parts of the series will show you how to actually create the content for your strategic plan.
Before creating your strategic plan, you need to decide on the structure you will use. There are literally hundreds if not thousands of ways to structure a strategic plan. You’ve likely heard of famous strategic models such as OKRs. But beyond the well-known ones, there’s also a myriad of other models ranging from extremely simple, to bewilderingly complicated.
The trouble with many of the strategic models out there, is that they work reasonably well on-paper, but when it comes to reality, they don’t actually walk you through exactly how to write a strategic plan – or at least one that is truly meaningful to your organization. Here’s just a few of the issues we see which affect many of the popular strategic models:
They’re too complicated. People get lost in terminology rather than focusing on execution.
They don’t scale. They work well for small organizations, but fail when you try to extend them across multiple teams.
They’re too rigid. They force people to add layers for the sake of layers.
They’re neither tangible nor measurable. They’re great at stating outcomes, but lousy at helping you measure success.
In this article, we’ll show you a simpler, more effective way to write a strategic plan. We call it the Cascade Strategy Model. Whilst not dis-similar to some of the most popular strategy models – we find that this approach to strategic model is simply more effective when it comes to execution than any other model we’ve tried. That holds true for small organizations right through to multinationals trying to figure out how to write a strategic plan. It’s easy to use, and it works.
The Cascade Model
To give you an idea of how a strategic plan following the Cascade Model will look once finished, we’ve created a simple diagram below. It’s fairly self-explanatory, but we’ll explore the individual components in a moment.
Think of your strategy as a flow chart that reads from top to bottom, with each step being mandatory before going down to the next. There is a reason that we called our product ‘Cascade‘ – and that is that strategy needs to not only cascade down throughout your organization but it itself needs to cascade from a Vision Statement, to Values, Focus Areas, Objectives, etc.
Most of all, the Cascade Model is designed to be execution ready – in other words, it’s been tried and tested in delivering success far beyond the strategic planning phase, it adds to an overall successful strategic management process.
Core Elements of Your Strategic Plan
Before we get into how to write a strategic plan, we first need to explore the different components of one.
Vision
Your vision statement defines where you want to get to. Do not start your strategic plan without defining your Vision Statement! Lots of articles have been written about the value of a good Vision Statement – but we’ll summarize as follows:
Your Vision Statement is the anchor that stops you getting lost at sea.
It will help to tunnel your strategy towards the outcomes that matter the most to your organization.
Every single thing that you write into your plan from this point onward, will ultimately be helping you to get closer to your Vision.
One of the biggest blockers to the successful execution of a strategic plan is when it tries to achieve too much in one go. Creating a Vision Statement will help you to avoid that trap right from the start. Not only that – but a truly well written Vision Statement will provide guidance and inspiration for your people. It might even help you to attract talent and investment into your organization.
A bike manufacturing company may have a vision statement such as:
‘To be the premier bike manufacturer in the Pacific Northwest’.
This vision statement clearly articulates where the organization would like to be, and the value of the organization. If you’re ready to start creating you vision statement, check out ‘How to Write A Good Vision Statement’ – the second article in our ‘How To Write A Strategic Plan’ mini series.
Values
Unfortunately, the notion of ‘corporate values’ has been abused to the point of ridicule over the past century or so. Volkswagen’s ;corporate values include: ‘Integrity & Accountability’. When it comes to how to write a strategic plan – values represent how you’ll behave as an organization as you work towards your vision.
Too often, organizations simply throw out words that they think will sound good in a glossy marketing brochure but have little relevance to anything else. Our take on ‘Values’ is subtlety different and hopefully somewhat more pragmatic. Think of Values as the ‘enablers’ to your Vision Statement. Don’t be afraid to be honest about how you want your people to act and think.
It can be easy to become over-focused on outcomes. Outcomes matter, but if the way in which you go about achieving them is wrong, the outcomes themselves risk becoming irrelevant. Not only that – but organizations are ultimately nothing more than the sum of the people within them. The need for basic rules about how you want those people to work together is no different as to why the game of soccer needs rules. They exist to give a common purpose to your team (scoring goals), and to provide boundaries as to what people can to do achieve that purpose (no foul play).
Using the bike manufacturing example from earlier, some good values would include:
Innovative
Passionate
Accountable
Compassionate
These values reflect the organization’s beliefs to strive to be the leading bike manufacture – but not at any cost. How they get there is also important, and treating employees, customers and all other stakeholders with compassion and staying accountable is vitally important. When you’re ready to start creating some company values check out our guide ‘How To Create Company Values‘.
Focus Areas
Your focus areas are the high level things that you’ll be focusing your efforts towards as you strive towards your vision. Focus Areas should be tighter in definition than your Vision Statement – but not to the level of having any particular metric or deadline. Following our manufacturing example above, some good Focus Areas might include:
Aggressive Growth
Nation’s Best Bikes
Modern Manufacturer
Top Place To Work
We usually suggest creating between 3 to 5 Focus Areas. Any fewer and they will probably be too vague. Any more, and well…..I for one certainly can’t focus on more than 5 things at once!
You absolutely want your people to feel empowered to come up with innovative and creative ways to be successful. But for the same reason that you’re reading this guide right now – giving them a framework within which to do so, will be hugely helpful.
Well-written Focus Areas can themselves be inspiring and motivational. Once again, they will help to unite your organization behind a common purpose – and bring a sense of togetherness and belonging which should help to ease the tensions that can sometimes arise between teams and colleagues.
Strategic Objectives represent what you want to accomplish – they’re reasonably high level, but should still have a deadline attached. Your Strategic Objectives should align to one or more of your Focus Areas. Typically you’ll have between 3-6 objectives for each focus area.
It’s here that for the first time in our journey we need to start being a bit more specific. How specific? Let’s take a look at an example of a well written Strategic Objective:
-Continue top line growth that outpaces the industry by 31st Dec 2020
This is too specific to be a Focus Area. Whilst it’s still very high level, it indicates what they want to accomplish, and includes a clear deadline. Both these aspects are critical to a good Strategic Objective.
To be honest – your Strategic Objectives are the heart and soul of your plan – without them, you have no plan!
More helpfully perhaps, the reason they’re important as distinct to your Projects (see below) is that jumping straight into Actions is a sure-fire way to either (a) miss opportunities or (b) lose the connection between your Actions and your Vision Statement.
If you’re ready to start creating your strategic objectives, check out article 5 of this mini-series – ‘How To Write Strategic Objectives‘.
Projects
Projects describe what you will do to accomplish your objectives. They must be extremely specific and contain a deadline and a clear articulation of your actions. Your projects should align to at least one of your strategic objectives and describe how you will actually achieve your strategic objective. Typically you will create multiple projects for each Strategic Objective.
Let’s take a look at an example of a well written project continuing on with our bike manufacturing company. Using the strategic objective from above –
‘Continue top line growth that outpaces the industry by 31st Dec 2020′
A good project that would link to this could be –
‘Expand into the fixed gear market by 31st December 2020’
This is much more specific than the objective it links to, and it clearly details what you will do to achieve the objective.
Projects are the layer of the strategic plan that outline the tangible actions that people in the organization will take to actually achieve outcomes. Another common problem area for strategic plans, is that they never quite get down to the detail of what you’re actually going to do. It’s way too easy to simply state ‘we need to grow our business’ – without concrete projects, those plans will sit forevermore within their PowerPoint templates, never to see the light of day after their initial creation / review. Learn more about writing effective projects here.
KPIs
KPI’s are how you will measure progress towards your strategic objectives. They’re measurable values that show your organization’s progress towards achieving key business objectives. KPIs should be developed to contribute to achieving a specific goal or objective. If they’re not developed with a specific objective in mind, they run the risk of stealing attention, time, and money from KPIs that actually help to achieve strategic objectives. You’ll ideally want to include a mixture of both leading and lagging KPIs for each of your objectives.
Key performance indicators are a form of communication in an organization. They allow you to determine whether you’re behind, on track, ahead, or have achieved your objectives. They inform business leaders of their organization’s progress towards reaching key business objectives. KPIs are able to provide this information because they actually track the most important performance measures, which can be taken together to represent how successful you are in achieving an objective.
Let’s take a look at a real-life example of how this all fits together:
Here’s a quick info graphic to help you remember how everything connects and why each element is critical to creating an effective strategic plan:
To summarize:
Vision – where you want to get to.
Values – how you’ll behave on the journey.
Focus Areas – what you’ll be focusing on to help you progress.
Objectives – what you want to achieve.
Projects – how you’ll achieve them.
KPIs – how you’ll measure success.
This simple approach for how to write a strategic plan avoids confusing jargon, and has elements that the whole organization can both get behind and understand.
Scaling the Cascade Strategic Framework
One of the issues we highlighted with other strategic models is that they often fail to effectively describe how to scale the model across multiple teams, or through multiple layers of the organization. In other words, how to effectively cascade the strategic model throughout your organization.
In an ideal world, you want to have a maximum of 2 layers of detail underneath each of your focus areas. That means, you’ll have a focus area – followed by a layer of objectives – followed by projects and KPIs on the same layer as each other, directly underneath the objectives.
This works well for a single team, but if you want to implement a strategic plan across multiple teams (let’s say for example you have a HR team, under which is a Recruitment team), what do you do?
Depending on how much time you want to invest in strategic planning, there are two approaches that you can take:
Option 1: Create aligned cascading objectives
This approach involves simply adding lower level objectives that link to your higher level objectives, like this:
For each lower level objective, you simply repeat the Objective – Project – KPI structure as follows:
You can keep doing this as many times as you like, but do be aware that if you have a lot of layers, your strategic plan can get quite messy. Furthermore, the owners of the objectives towards the ‘bottom’ of the plan are managing things that are very far ‘downstream’ from the focus areas they link to. That could create an engagement problem with people struggling to really understand how they contribute to the top levels of the strategic plan.
Because of these challenges, this approach is best suited to smaller organizations who only need to add a couple of extra layers of objectives to their plan to get down to the level of detail they want.
Option 2: Created aligned / nested strategic plans
This approach involves creating a network of aligned strategic plans for each team within your organization. Each plan contains a set of focus areas, one single layer of objectives, each with its own set of projects and KPIs. Something like this:
The key to making this successful is to ensure that the objectives of each of your lower level strategic plans, links directly to the objectives in the plan above it. Doing so ensures that you maintain alignment throughout your organization, but still allows you to cascade your strategy as deep as you want, across a near-infinite number of people.
The other major benefit to this approach is that typically you’ll see much higher levels of engagement in the strategy throughout your organization, as objective owners will be able to clearly see the links between the objectives they own and the focus areas of their ‘nearest’ strategic plan.BOOK A DEMO
How To Write a Strategic Plan – Conclusion
Let’s take a quick look at how adopting the Cascade Strategic Framework solves the most common issues that people encounter with writing a strategic plan:
Not too complicated. Terminology is simple to understand and the linkages are clear, without ever deviating from the objectives – project – KPI ‘triangle’.
Scales easily. By linking objectives (either in a single plan, or across multiple nested strategic plans) the model scales infinitely without losing clarity or focus.
Extremely flexible. The model balances the flexibly of linked layers with the minimum requirement of always having an outcome (the objectives), an action (the projects) and a measure (the KPIs).
Tangible & measurable. By incorporating KPIs directly in the model, you’re forced to think clearly about what success looks like and you’ll always have a relevant set of KPIs to track for your strategy.
When it comes to the question of how to write a strategic plan – you’d be pretty hard pushed to find a better starting point. The Cascade Strategy Model is inspired by the best models out there already (we like OKRs a lot for example) but is simple, effective and proven to work in organizations large and small.
Whilst strategic planning is an important part of striving towards success – it’s actually only the beginning. Strategic execution is the part which most organizations struggle with. That’s why we created the Cascade Strategy Model. It’s the culmination of thousands of experiences implementing strategy with our clients (large and small) and we think it’s quite simply the best way to structure your strategic plan – regardless of your industry or size.
If you need a hand implementing any of the above in Cascade, just drop us a line.
Let us know what you think about our take on how to write a strategic plan. Comment below or jump onto our Facebook Group to discuss it in more detail with other members of the strategy community.
Questions about KPIs are frequently heard here at Cascade, whether that be from one of our 6000+ users or 60,000+ subscribers. We noticed a lot of people struggling to find examples on the web that were the right fit for their needs. So we thought we’d put together our own 4 step approach to writing great KPIs, and share it with you. This article will walk you through our 4 simple steps to writing great KPIs as well as answer a few commonly asked questions about KPIs, such as KPI meaning, how many KPIs should you have, and what are they used for in a business.
KPI Meaning
KPI stands for Key Performance Indicator…but what does key performance indicator mean? Well, the KPI definition that we use is, a measurable value that shows the organization’s progress towards achieving key business objectives. Organizations can use Key Performance Indicators as a way to track whether their key business objectives are on track, behind, ahead, or have been achieved.
Writing KPIs – The 4 Step Approach
Possessing knowledge on how to write KPIs is extremely valuable for any business professional. So, if you need a hand to get going, follow our 4 step approach to writing KPIs:
Determine strategic objectives
Define success
Decide on measurement
Write your SMART KPIs
NOTE: At this point, I should mention that when I use the term ‘strategic objectives’ in this article, I’m referring to the purpose of your actions. While some may argue that this should be called a goal or an initiative rather than an objective, I would argue that the terminology is not as important as the concepts they represent. As long as the concept behind each term is well understood in your organization, there is no reason to change your terminology (even if your terminology doesn’t match that of our post – as long as the concepts do).http://www.youtube.com/embed/RJDA7wLey6M
Tip: Don’t copy your KPIs straight from someone else’s list!
While there’s a wealth of KPI examples available online – scrolling through industry lists, picking out a KPI and attempting to force it into your strategy won’t do you any favors.
Why?
Well, KPIs should be developed to contribute to achieving a specific strategic objective. If they’re not developed with a specific strategic objective in mind, they run the risk of stealing attention, time, and money from KPIs that actually help to achieve strategic objectives. The best KPIs for YOUR business are designed by starting with YOUR specific business objectives. Now, this is not to say all the content available on KPI examples is useless, because it’s definitely not – it’s actually an important resource. But, looking through KPI examples shouldn’t begin till AFTER you have determined your own key strategic objectives.
Alternative vs Value-Based Decision-Making
To get a better understanding of why you should always start the KPI process by having first defined strategic objectives, consider the two potential ways of deriving your KPIs:
Alternative-based decision-making
Value-based decision-making
Alternative-based decision-making relies on choosing your preferred option from the alternatives offered.
Example:
Decision maker: I would like a coffee
Waiter: Sure, what milk would you like?
Decision maker: What do you have?
Waiter: We have full cream, skim, or soy milk?
Decision maker: I’ll take the full cream milk.
Value-based decision-making relies on assessing what matters most to you and then making a decision that meets your needs.
Example:
Decision maker: I would like a coffee
Waiter: Sure, what milk would you like?
Decision maker: (Considers objectives: I like a good tasting coffee, but also want to keep the fat content down because I’m watching my weight) I’ll take soy milk with one serve of artificial sweetener.
Waiter: No problem.
As you can see, the decision maker in the first example listened to the alternatives presented and then selected their preference based on the options given. However, the decision maker in the second example examined their objectives and what they really wanted from a cup of coffee first, and then made a decision which met their needs.
When writing KPIs, using the alternative based approach and scrolling through industry KPI lists will leave you with your preferred KPI from that list, but achieving that KPI won’t necessarily mean you’ve achieved your strategic objectives. On the other hand, using the value-based approach and considering your key strategic objectives first will ensure you end up with KPIs that once achieved, will mean you’ve also achieved your strategic objectives.
Your organization’s business model, industry, and even the department in which you operate will have an impact on the type of KPI you need. Luckily, we’ve devised a best practice process for how to write KPIs that will allow you to create the perfect KPIs every time.
Step 1 – Determine the Key Strategic Objectives
Before writing KPIs, you’ll first need to determine which of your organization’s strategic objectives you’re trying to gauge. If you’ve been following along our mini series “How To Write A Strategic Plan: The Cascade Model’ then you will have already defined some strategic objectives for your organization, and you’re ready to create some KPIs.
If you haven’t defined any strategic objectives (or goal) for your organization yet, check out this article first and then jump back over here to create your KPIs.
E.g. Strategic Objective: Increase the flow of the marketing pipeline.
Step 2 – Define Success
Now that you’ve identified your strategic objectives, you’ll need to begin thinking about what the success of each objective looks like. Sticking with the same example used in Step 1, if my objective is to increase the flow of the marketing pipeline, the success of this objective means increasing the number of contacts that enter the pipeline, and increasing the number of contacts that pass through the end of the pipeline and get handed over to Sales. By first defining what success looks like, deciding how you will measure the success of your objective becomes a lot easier.
When defining the success of your KPI, you will usually find there are multiple parts to the definition of your objectives success. In the example used above, we found there were two parts to achieving success of our objective –
Increasing the number of contacts that enter the pipeline.
Increasing the number of contacts that pass through the end of the pipeline and get handed over to Sales.
As mentioned earlier, this is the time when it might be useful to look through a few KPI examples to help get some inspiration for how you can define the success of your key business objectives. Again, you should avoid copying KPIs straight from a list, as, chances are, they won’t perfectly fit your strategic objectives. Instead, use the KPI examples as a way to ideate how you can measure the success of your own strategic objectives.
We’ve collated a whole bunch of KPI examples already and grouped them by the department to help give you a little inspiration:
Step 3 – Decide on measurement
Next, you’ll need to decide how you will actually measure success. Going back to our example once again, we’ve identified that the success of our objective means increasing the number of contacts that enter our pipeline AND increasing the number of contacts that pass through the end of our pipeline
Let’s start with the first part of this – Increasing the number of contacts that enter our pipeline. Contacts enter our marketing pipeline when they subscribe to our mailing list or exchange their details for content for the first time. When contacts engage in either activity, they automatically get added to our marketing automation platform as a subscriber. Using the number of new subscribers added to our marketing automation platform over a time period is an easy way for us to measure the number of contacts entering our marketing pipeline.
Now let’s look at the second part – Increasing the number of contacts that pass through the end of our marketing pipeline. Contacts pass through the end of the marketing pipeline when they’re ready to be handed over to our Sales Team. We use the term “SQL” (Sales Qualified Lead) to define a lead that has moved through the end of our marketing pipeline and is ready for our Sales Team to pick up. Our marketing automation platform adds a tag on each contact profile to identify which life-cycle stage they are in based on certain activity. Again, through our marketing automation software, we can use the number of contacts who become a SQL in a given time period to measure our success.
This is where it might be wise to start considering dashboard software to track and display your KPIs. You’ll likely use various platforms and tools across your business to measure your KPIs, but having a central location to track and view all your departmental and organizational KPIs will ensure you have a clear view of your success. Cascade’s Dashboard tool is extremely powerful and allows you to pull data from all around your business, so you can display your most important information, real time, to whoever in your organization needs it.
Step 4 – Write your KPIs
Finally, it’s time to begin actually writing your KPIs. KPIs should follow the SMART format (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound), to ensure your KPIs meet this criterion, we’ve devised a formula that you can follow to ensure you end up with SMART KPIs every time. The main advice here is to keep things simple. KPIs should be understood by everyone within the organization. That means no jargon (if possible), and keeping them to one sentence long.
We suggest a structure as follows:
Action Detail Value Unit Deadline
Putting it all together, our KPIs may look something like this:
Example 1
Increase new HubSpot lead profiles to 40,000 people by 31st December 2019
Example 2
Increase new SQL profiles to 20,000 people by 31st December 2019
Starting off with a verb forces you to be specific about what you’re trying to do. A metric and unit ensure your KPI is measurable and a deadline will do wonders for staying timely on your progress.
Cascade does a great job helping write KPIs this way with it’s goal designer (See screenshot below)
How Are KPIs Used in an Organization?
Key performance indicators are a communication tool for organizations. They inform business leaders of their organization’s progress towards reaching key business objectives. KPIs are able to provide this information because they actually track the most important performance measures, which can be taken together to represent how successful you are in achieving an objective. This information channel is extremely valuable as, in a well-designed strategy, an organization’s key business objectives should have a direct impact on the organization’s overall performance. Therefore, KPIs will communicate whether your activities are achieving, for example, business growth at the rate expected or not, and how much growth you’ve actually achieved.
KPIs also assist in identifying issues with organizational processes. If the progress on an objective falls behind, the key performance indicator associated with it will communicate this to business leaders as soon as the trend begins to show itself (assuming you have leading & lagging KPIs). The organization will know that something has gone wrong and an investigation is required. A strategy to mitigate the issue can then be created and implemented before it has far-reaching effects on the organization’s performance.
How Many Key Performance Indicators Do You Need?
The question of how many key performance indicators you need will vary with every company. However, we do have a framework which you can apply to help you assess how many KPIs you’ll need to implement for your organization. The number you need will depend on how many key business objectives you have in your organization. As a rule, we generally say you should have 2-3 KPIs per objective, to ensure a variety of measures without overwhelming the picture. The reason we use a minimum of 2 KPIs as a rule, is because we believe each business objective should have at least 1 leading indicator and 1 lagging indicator. This allows you to predict future performance as well as record the actual performance and compare these to the direction of your business objective.
What Are Leading and Lagging KPIs
Leading and lagging KPIs are often mentioned when it comes to strategy, but what is the difference between the two? A leading KPI indicator is a measurable factor that changes before the company starts to follow a particular pattern or trend.Leading KPIs are used to predict changes in the company and future performance, but as predictors, they cannot always accurately forecast the future. On the other hand, a lagging KPI is a measurable fact that records the actual performance of an organization.
Leading key performance indicators are often easier to influence than lagging KPIs, however, generally measuring them can prove more difficult. Lagging KPIs, on the other hand, are usually easier to measure, though much harder to influence. If you’d like to learn more about Leading and Lagging KPIs, check out this post.
KPI Reporting
Creating relevant, measurable and time-bound key performance indicators is great, but it’s only half the job done. The other half (which can often go overlooked) comes down to figuring out how to actually track and report on them appropriately and accurately. While it can be tough setting up this kind of tracking and reporting, if you don’t create an easy way to view and stay on top of progress, the KPIs aren’t going to be much use. A KPI report is a presentation which displays and communicates the current performance of an organization compared to its business objectives. It’s a tool used by management in order to analyze performance and identify issues. These reports can take many formats, including formal written reports, spreadsheets, powerpoint slides, or dashboards.
Dashboards
Creating a KPI dashboard is a great way to provide at-a-glance views of key performance indicators relevant to a specific business objective, department, or the whole organization. Now, before your eyes glaze over with boredom as another business term is introduced, dashboards are just another name for a progress report. However, what makes dashboards more powerful than your typical business report is that they’re usually hooked up to business systems so the data is automatically updated. The benefit of this is it ensures the data is always relevant, as it doesn’t rely on someone in the organization continuously updating numbers. This is just one of the many benefits of using dashboard software for your strategy report.
Dashboards also give you total visibility of your business performance instantly, display KPI progress in a visual presentation to keep reporting engaging, and save time when compared to the hours poured into creating regular reports. If you’re looking for help creating a great KPI dashboard, check out this article we wrote a little while back. We walk through how to set up a great strategy dashboard which includes all your business KPIs for an instant snapshot of your performance. We’ll also be adding more examples of key performance indicator dashboards for specific department in the coming months.
Dr. Kiran Kakade (Ph.D.,LL.M.,MCA,MBA(HR)) 