7 indicators to evaluate the financial health of your business

We have already talked about the importance of indicators for business success, but it is never too much to remember that having defined KPIs is a fundamental part of a company’s management strategy. These business metrics allow for closer monitoring and better management of the level of success of the actions performed. There are thousands of possible indicators for each business and it is very important to know which indicators to choose to always follow the financial health of the business. In today’s article, we present the 7 most important indicators to assess the financial health of your business!

Net profit

It’s one of the most important values ​​for any company. We’ve reached this amount after adding up the entire billing volume and deducting costs and expenses.

Liquidity

Liquidity is the ability to turn an asset into cash. The faster the conversion, the more liquid an asset is. This indicator assesses the ability of the company to pay employees and suppliers.

EBITDA

EBITDA stands for Earnings Before Interest, Taxes Depreciation and Amortization and is a way of calculating how much a company generates of resources only with its operation, that is to say, before subtracting the value of the taxes. The formula for achieving EBITDA is Net Operating Income + Depreciation + Amortization. This is a very important value for companies looking for investors and serves as a comparative point with other companies in the same industry.

Cost per lead

This figure shows us how much it costs the company to acquire a lead. We get the value after dividing the amount of money invested in digital marketing by the number of leads generated. Studies report that the cost per lead generated through digital marketing is about 61% lower than the leads generated by traditional marketing. Knowing how much it costs us to generate a lead is essential so that we can redistribute the investments and improve the results.

ROI

ROI means return on investment and measures the end result of an investment: it relates all the expenses involved in a share to the profits made by that same share. The formula for calculating ROI is as follows: ROI = Net Profit (Total Investment Profit – Cost of Total Investment)/Cost of Investment. If the ROI is greater than zero, it means that the investment was positive for the company. If it has negative values, there was a loss.

Net Profit Margin

The profit margin represents what the company plans to profit from in return for what has been invested. In addition to calculating net income to obtain the net profit margin, companies must stipulate a value that is in accordance with what the market is willing to pay for their product. If the expectation of profits is well above normal there may be problems with future planning.

Market Share

Market share means the participation of a company in the market in which it is located. This value can be found through billing measurement, quantity of customers, among others.

 

KPIs are of vital importance to companies because they measure process performance and by analyzing collected information work to improve future action.

The importance of managing indicators for your company

Even the best products and services don’t support a company by itself. That is, you can market something that is very attractive to your target audience, but it takes a lot more to keep a business thriving. Therefore, the administrative knowledge is fundamental, since they have useful and efficient tools.

Among them, the management of indicators is extremely important to know if your company is going the right way and, if not, what can be done to get the business back on track. The point is that while offering quality products and services is imperative to the success of your business, it is not enough.

Other companies may also have the same quality in what they offer, noting that fierce competition is a reality of the vast majority of sectors of the economy. In this way, it is necessary to know the market, the target audience, know where to sell, how to sell and, above all, what are the objectives of your company.

It is no use having the mission written on a sign hanging on the wall of the office or the company’s website; it is essential that all employees are aware of the goal and know how to achieve the proposed goals. It is in this context that the indicators enter, being that they refer to the numbers that can be used to measure the performance of your business in the market.

With these indicators in hand, it is possible to manage them, that is, to make decisions based on what they indicate. From this, a decision is never a shot in the dark, because it is given through concrete data, without considerations or intuitions.

What are the indicators in a company

The indicators in a company are data that can be raised, helping in its administration, since it shows how its operations are happening. There are many types of indicators and for each company it may be interesting to measure more specifically some of them.

To better understand, check out some of the key indicators in a business:

  • Productivity Indicators
  • Indicators of productive capacity
  • Process performance indicators
  • Quality Indicators
  • Indicators of effectiveness
  • Profitability Indicators
  • Strategic indicators
  • Competitiveness Indicators

All these indicators refer to the data of a company that can be obtained through surveys, reports and other forms, allowing a deeper and more detailed evaluation of their performance in the field of activity in which it is inserted.

Often a company starts selling a number of units per month that seems sufficient, but as time passes they realize that it is not, and the company starts to lose market for example.

Similarly, the entrepreneur believes that the time a product takes to be manufactured is adequate, but not when the accounts are made and the time spent in relation to its cost is calculated. These are just a few examples of issues that are often erroneously assessed because the indicators are not used.

How to measure indicators

In a small business, the flow of daily information is likely to be quite large. So, you may wonder, but after all, how to measure the indicators? That is, how did you gather a lot of information? I mean, it is possible, but it would take a lot of time, would not it?

No, if this is done with the help of an online management system that, in addition to making the work of the team more dynamic, by allowing tasks to be simplified and better controlled, it also has tools to measure the company’s important numbers. By measuring indicators, through reports and other resources, more assertive decisions can be made.

In addition, there are software that has advanced functions to measure the indicators needed, helping the company’s management to create a strategic plan to more effectively achieve its goals. It is worth saying that to create a successful business plan it is indispensable to master all the data of a company.

Thus, it is necessary to know how much the company invoices, how much is spent on production, what are the other costs, such as raw material value, hands of works, etc. With full control of these and many other information, you can not only make the best decisions but also follow your progress and always be ready for the necessary adjustments.

About the guest author:

GestãoClick is a company specialized in offering business management software to managers who wish to make their employees’ routine more efficient. Click here and learn more about what technology can do for your business.

Challenges of real-time information processing

Get to know the main challenges of real-time information processing

In a highly competitive and dynamic market, to have knowledge is to have power and having updated information in real time is an important step to the success of any business. However, this new way of management brings with it numerous challenges and doubts and in this article we talk about it.

Correct definition of business indicators

One of the main problems presented by the management teams is the lack of knowledge about the indicators that are really relevant to the business. A real-time management system gives us up-to-date information on the state of the business, but we need to define the indicators we want to analyze. Often, management teams are uncertain about the indicators that should come to their attention, which is a challenge. It’s essential to have a broad and deep knowledge about the business to be possible to define the most relevant business indicators so that the best decisions can be made. Managers are responsible for deciding what information is needed to run the business in the best way, and they should be aware that it is not a responsibility of IT teams but a responsibility of all the leaders.

Prioritize security

There is still some mistrust about the use of real-time information systems, for fear of information leakage. Increasingly, these real-time business management solutions give importance to security by ensuring that no information is lost or passed on to the outside. Making systems inviolable is always a challenge for IT teams, due to the rapid technological evolution that we see today.

Fast technological evolution

These days, technology is evolving at a breakneck speed, which makes IT teams constantly face the challenge of being up to date. Often, because of a system upgrade or a software change, there are features that become obsolete or fail. Real-time information processing software must be constantly aware of what is happening in the world of technology, so as not to run the risk of facing bugs that can endanger the whole management of a business.

Veracity and reliability

Real-time information management systems face the challenge of presenting real and error-free data. This is an ever-present challenge, because real-time information management systems encompass information from a variety of sources, and the probability of error is higher. However, more and more systems are infallible, increasing the confidence of those who use them on a daily basis.

Adaptability

Nowadays, we can access the Internet anywhere and at any time and mobile phones are prepared to perform tasks that a few years ago could only be performed on a computer. For this reason, the need to receive business updates on mobile devices is greater. Real-time information management systems must be ready to be used on any mobile device because this will increase interest in the product and increase the efficiency of those who use these systems.

Efficient information management and the ability to solve problems before they have practical effects are a critical point for companies. Through the use of information management systems in real time it’s possible to have a more assertive and global monitoring of the whole business. The challenges of managing information will always be present but due to technological developments, it’s becoming easier to follow the business to the minute.

The biggest mistakes in indicators definition

Avoid the biggest mistakes in defining business metrics

Defining business indicators in a conscious way is fundamental to be able to analyze the business objectively. It’s essential that the indicators can show managers solutions in order to correct errors and implement new strategies. There is still much difficulty in defining indicators and in this article we present the biggest mistakes that happen when it comes time to decide what indicators we are going to analyze.

Wrong monitoring solutions

The team that has responsibility for choosing management software often has no enough knowledge of the real needs of the users of these tools. Therefore, the people who should choose the most appropriate software are the managers themselves because they are the ones who know in detail the problems they face daily. Increasingly, monitoring software is simple and intuitive, allowing anyone, even without technical knowledge, to understand how it works.

Using Excel as an indicator management platform

Excel is probably the most widely used tool in the world in business and it’s appreciated for presenting a simple interface to perform some much-used functions such as calculations and spreadsheets. However, Excel has weaknesses that reside in the quality and consistency of the information generated. Excel’s manual processes are very likely to fail. Therefore, it’s necessary to reduce the manual work done in Excel. Excel should be looked at as a data viewer and not as an information generator.

Look at database as the solution to all problems

Databases are a key part of many analytical systems, but shouldn’t be regarded as the solution to all information problems. Databases shouldn’t be deployed before analyzing in detail the actual needs of the organization. To avoid this error, it’s necessary to identify the best method of integration and to know the access to information.

Acquiring management products for general analysis

When the business has no specific objectives, any tool is useless because it will be useful only if you can analyze the business in an integrated way. Business monitoring software should be applied when the organization is aware of its real needs and when it knows which indicators should be analyzed to improve its performance.

 

Find the concept and applications of Business Activity Monitoring

Everything you need to know about business activity monitoring

Business Activity Monitoring (BAM) enables real-time access to business-critical activity indicators. BAM analyzes the information, reports and issues alerts related to important and relevant events for business operation. The main objective of this concept is to allow quick and effective decisions in order to guarantee the success of the company.

The sources of information that feed BAM are mainly the events generated by business applications. Implementing this concept means dealing with the complexity of gathering events from multiple applications. With a BAM tool it’s possible to monitor processes by following their steps and identifying problems in useful time, aggregating data from different systems, processing complex events and obtaining context information.

Normally, BAM tools are offered in a Web context in order to facilitate access. These tools provide a graphical interface to display the various business data, usually in the form of a dashboard. A dashboard is the set of a series of graphs viewed together, in which each graph can appear in a different format (bars, round, among others) and each one presents a different indicator of business.

The architecture of a BAM product is variable according to the tool. However, the structure normally used is as follows:

  • Development interface: it allows the development of the graphics by the developers and the definition of the data by the architects;
  • Presentation interface: it’s the user interface with the tool, allowing the visualization of dashboards;
  • Databases: it’s the repository of information that is displayed in the BAM presentation layer. The data displayed in BAM is originated from other systems (BPMS, ERP, Database, etc.), but BAM tools usually have their own database for storing this information, reducing the need of searching the information at any moment in the systems of origin;
  • Integration layer: it’s the layer that allows integration of the BAM tool with other systems and data sources;
  • Administration interface: it’s responsible for defining users and profiles/access restrictions, as well as integrations with existing user repositories;
  • Alerts/Actions Monitoring: it’s responsible for verifying the change and deviation of the indicators values ​​and triggering treatment actions (like sending e-mail or alert SMS).

A BAM tool is not a data source because it only compiles and displays data from other systems or data sources. The correct use of a BAM system depends on the correct definition of important indicators for a constant analysis of the business.

Using a BAM system will allow you to know in proper time what it’s important in your company, without having to look for information in several places. These tools are able to consolidate all the information and to present it in a practical and easy way.

Multipeers is a BAM tool that allows you to have all the business information sent to the user whenever something important happens even when he’s not at the work station. In addition to ensuring that up-to-date information is always available, the information is delivered in a graphically clean and interactive way, allowing immediate analysis and action, thereby improving individual performance and increasing organizational efficiency.