Key Performance Indicators
Key Performance Indicators, or KPIs, are the metrics shown in a scorecard. There
are different types of scorecards, which will be discussed later in this chapter, but all
the scorecards will contain KPIs. KPIs are the primary drivers of a business and are
similar to the measures discussed in Chapter 3. In fact, many measures are also used
as KPIs, although KPIs have additional attributes. It is important to understand the
difference between KPIs and measures and how they are used.
KPIs and Measures
Many of the KPIs described so far, and in fact many KPIs in general, are the same
as the measures that will likely be in the data warehouse. An easy example is sales:
almost any organization wants to know its gross revenue. This is usually the most
common aspect of measuring any business, to the point that companies are often
talked about as a ???five billion dollar company??? or in some other dollar terms. The
size of companies is almost always measured in terms of revenue.
C h a p t e r 4 : S c o r e c a r d s a n d K e y P e r f o r m a n c e I n d i c a t o r s 63
Assume for a moment that a company had sales last month of $10M (where ???M??™
stands for million.) Here, sales is clearly a measure, because it has a value, because
it??™s for a specific period of time, and because it is for all products, all customers, and
so forth. This is a value that could easily be found in a cube. However, is $10M in
sales last month good or bad? By itself, the measure provides no information about
the quality of the number.
Pages:
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111