KPIs for SMEs

(33 reviews)

by Ross Maynard

Updated for 2024/25. There are many different KPIs that can be used to monitor performance so it's important to identify the ones that are most relevant to you. This course looks at useful KPIs for SMEs in different areas and how to use them to improve your business.

price £100+vat
cpd hours 4 CPD hours
access 120 days' access

Use ACPD101 for 10% off any purchase.

This course will enable you to

  • Establish the framework and the tools you need for managing performance in SMEs
  • Understand the most important KPIs for customer performance and employee performance
  • Develop a set of KPIs for your SME to measure the effectiveness and efficiency of the business
  • Be confident about KPIs to measure SME financial performance
  • Continuously improve performance by analysing KPIs against your goals

About the course

There are many performance measures available – literally hundreds. We call them key performance indicators (KPIs). But they can't all be "key" and they are not all equally useful, especially not to small and medium sized businesses. SMEs require KPIs that are easy to measure and easy to understand and that provide valuable information about how to effectively run the business.

Recently updated to include extra content on how to use KPIs as part of a continuous improvement process, this course is about performance measures that work for micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The course provides a straightforward method of performance monitoring that allows problems to be identified and addressed.

This course has been reviewed and revised with content that is up to date for 2024/25

Look inside

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Contents

  • Getting started
    • KPI measures in SMEs
    • The benefits of KPIs
    • How variation impacts performance
    • Displaying performance data
    • The XmR chart
    • Collecting robust and consistent data
    • Plotting data in time order
    • Calculate the natural process limits
    • Analyse the behaviour of the process
    • Performance improvements in SMEs
    • Dealing with variation
  • People KPIs
    • The power of customer KPIs
    • Measuring customer activity
    • Measuring sales within a time period
    • Measuring delivery and quotation performance
    • Measuring customer support and satisfaction
    • The need for employee KPIs
    • Employee turnover
    • Skills matrix performance measures
    • Measuring employee involvement and satisfaction
    • The power of employee KPIs
    • Choosing employee and customer KPIs
  • Operational and financial KPIs
    • The power of operational KPIs
    • Monitoring processes
    • Inventory turnover
    • Measuring the quality of products
    • Measuring suppliers' delivery performance
    • The need for financial KPIs
    • Measuring the contribution margin by value stream
    • Measuring productivity
    • The acid test ratio
    • Measuring debtors and cash flow
    • Interest cover
    • Choosing financial and operational KPIs
  • Monitoring and managing performance
    • Selecting the final list of KPIs
    • How many KPIs should SMEs use?
    • Principles for monitoring and managing performance
    • Framework for managing performance
    • Developing practical solutions
    • Methods for monitoring and analysing performance
    • Implement your initial KPIs
    • How important are KPIs?
    • Putting it into practice
  • Facilitating improvement in SMEs
    • Effective meetings
    • KPI progress meetings
    • Facilitating meetings
    • Building trust
    • The structure of a KPI progress meeting
    • Encouraging ideas and engagement
    • Good and bad meetings
    • Refining and strengthening ideas
    • Monitoring progress
    • Giving feedback
    • Keeping it fresh

How it works

Author

Ross Maynard

Ross has worked as a consultant and trainer for over 20 years, specialising in finance processes, management information and performance measurement. He supports organisations to understand their processes; facilitates improvement teams; and supports staff to work together as a team to deliver tangible and sustainable improvements.

Reviews

4.4
(33 reviews)
5
4
3
2
1
 
 
 
 
    JH
    Jon H
    22 Mar 2025
    22 Mar 2025
    Practical and well-structured with useful and relatively simple to ideas to implement which will have a big impact on directing focus to the right areas of the business.
    EP
    Edwin P
    16 Feb 2025
    16 Feb 2025
    This was a good refresher on KPI's and how they can be used to drive company performance.
    RW
    Rosa Maria W
    31 Dec 2024
    31 Dec 2024
    A very thorough course covering the subject matter with expertise.
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