Mind Your KPIs: Top Metrics Product Companies Should Be Monitoring

What do Coke, Ford, and Google have in common?

For one, they’ve each had epic product failures that likely could have been avoided. Google had Google Glass (and dozens of other false starts), Coke had New Coke and Ford had the Edsel. Each had the marketing know-how, the customer relationships, and the money and each failed to get the data they needed about the market for their product. The bigger and more egregious the failure, the more likely it could have been prevented by the disciplined use of data.

Conversely, when manufacturers, distributors, and retailers consistently make profitable decisions, you can bet there are teams constantly pouring over data to understand supply chains, sales forecasts, process efficiencies, and customer trends. Collecting good, timely data with careful analysis to guide proper business decisions is critical to thriving in business today. And we’re not just talking about how enterprise-scale companies succeed. Every company can and should collect data to inform business decisions.

With that in mind, we’ve collected a set of key performance indicators (KPIs) that every product company should be monitored consistently. Most organizations will need to go beyond what we’re presenting here to understand the unique circumstances of their own suppliers, processes, and customers, but starting with this set will form a solid foundation for developing the right KPIs for any organization.