In simpler words, you can’t improve what you don’t measure. And it’s why we set goals, objectives, and operational metrics for ourselves, our teams, and our business.Â
However, are you measuring the right aspects of your business? Are you tracking them over the right timelines? Do you have the insights you need to make improvements? Here’s a primer on getting operational metrics right.
Operational Metrics Examples and How to Track
Summarize this article for me pleaseWhat Are Operational Metrics?
Operational metrics are pointers that businesses use to assess the efficiency and effectiveness of their day-to-day operations.
For example, if you’re a customer service organization with operations involving receiving and resolving complaints, the efficiency of your operations would be measured by average response times, % of first-time resolutions, etc.
How are operational metrics different from strategic KPIs?
Strategic key performance indicators (KPIs) are high-level outcome-based metrics associated with the success of the business over the long term. Operational metrics focus on the details of everyday operations.
Here are some of the other key differences between strategic KPIs and operational metrics:
| Strategic KPIs | Operational metrics |
|---|---|
| Measures long-term business performance | Measures the efficiency of daily operations |
| Relates to the overall goals of the business | Relates to each department’s regular functioning |
| Includes qualitative and quantitative measures | Shaped by specific quantitative data points around efficiency and productivity |
| Customized based on the vision, strategy, and capabilities of a company | Typically standardized to the department, industry, or process being measured |
| Tracked over a longer term, such as a quarter or year | Tracked in real-time or for a shorter term, such as every day, weekly, or per sprint |
Why should you track operational metrics?
Most organizations start with high-level goals around revenue, talent acquisition, etc. However, when the company scales and operations expand, they lose track of all the moving parts. It is precisely this problem that operational metrics solve. They enable the following.
Data-driven decision-making
Good operational metrics inform key decisions. For example, if your customer satisfaction score (CSAT) is low, you might look at an operational metric like wait time.Â
If the wait time is too long, you might hire additional resources, automate some processes, or invest in self-service customer support.
Strategic alignment
Operational metrics ensure that day-to-day operations align well with broader business goals. They also help you track progress better.
For example, if your business strategy is customer retention, you will invest in strengthening the operations of your customer success teams.
Early problem detection
Consistent tracking helps you identify potential issues or negative trends early. This allows you to intervene and course-correct proactively.
For example, if your operational metrics show that a particular customer is repeatedly delaying payments, you might talk to them, add a penalty clause, or adjust prices accordingly.
Employee performance
Operational metrics help in fair and effective resource distribution. These metrics also help give employees tangible goals and feedback.
For example, if your developers are tasked with building x number of story points per sprint, it sets clear expectations and helps prevent overwork or burnout.
Ultimately, operational metrics provide actionable insights for your business. They help spot trends and benchmark performance against industry standards or historical data. They hold teams accountable and inform long-term business planning.
Right, so what should you be tracking? Let’s find out.
Summarize this article for me pleaseKey Operational Metrics to Pay Attention to
The metric you use determines what you improve, which, in turn, impacts your performance. So, every business needs a foundation of key metrics. Here are some for every organization to consider.
1. Revenue growth (Y/Y)
What: Revenue growth measures the increase or decrease in revenue compared to the previous year’s period.
Why: As Eliyahu Goldratt says, the primary goal of every business is to make money. This metric tracks if you have achieved that goal.
How: % of revenue increase over last year
2. Gross profit margin
What: Gross profit margin is the difference between the money earned and the money spent manufacturing the product or delivering the service. In other words, it reflects the percentage of revenue that exceeds the cost of goods sold.
Why: Making money isn’t just about revenue. If you spend more than you’re making, it’s not a profitable business. Gross profit margin measures how well you’re doing.
How: (Revenue – Cost of Goods Sold)/Revenue. The higher the margin, the better the control over product cost and pricing strategy.
3. Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)
What: Customer acquisition cost is how much your organization spends to acquire a new customer. This typically includes all costs associated with sales, pre-sales, marketing, advertising, promotions, etc.
Why: CAC is a significant cost bucket for any business. One of the primary indicators of success is whether the business generated by the customer far outweighs the costs of acquiring them.
How: (Total marketing expenses + sales expenses)/new customers acquired. The lower the CAC, the better for the business.
4. Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)
What: Customer lifetime value is the value/revenue generated from a customer throughout their association with the business. Some organizations also consider their referral impact, including revenue generated from those they recommend the company to.
Why: This is a crucial metric, especially in SaaS businesses, because a customer who renews their subscription year-on-year generates exponential value over time. A strong customer retention rate increases CLV.
How: Total sales made to a customer over the course of their business relationship. A higher CLV indicates a more profitable and investable business.
5. Inventory turnover rate
What: Inventory turnover rate is a measure of how soon products get sold. It tracks how frequently inventory is cleared and replaced over a specific period.
Why: Inventory turnover rate is an indicator of market demand for your product or service. It is also useful in managing production.
For instance, if you’re going out of stock too soon, you might not be manufacturing enough products to meet demand.
How: Cost of goods sold/average inventory at cost. A higher turnover rate indicates efficient inventory management and strong sales performance.Â
6. EBITDA
What: Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization (EBITDA) is the operational profit of a company. It takes into account direct and indirect costs without the incidentals or capital expenses.
Why: In any given year, a business may buy a new manufacturing plant or acquire another business. These expenses can reflect disproportionately on the profit and loss statement. EBITDA takes only the operational expenses into account, painting a more realistic picture of the business.
How: Revenue – (direct costs + indirect costs). The higher the EBITDA, the more the company’s earnings potential.
7. Net income
What: Like gross profit margin, net income or net profit also measures profitability. Except, it goes beyond the direct costs of building a product/delivering a service to include indirect costs as well.
Why: An organization incurs several kinds of costs. Direct costs are included in the cost of goods sold. However, indirect costs such as software, travel, etc., which add to the operational expenses of a business, and other fees, like interest on loans or taxes, are not. Net income accounts for all of that.
How: Revenue – (direct costs + indirect costs + other costs). Positive net income indicates a profitable business.
8. Burn rate
What: Burn is the rate at which your company spends its capital.
Why: As a monthly figure, this is an essential metric for startups to understand how fast they are depleting cash reserves and how soon they will need additional funding.
How: Total monthly expenses
These eight operational KPIs give business leaders, shareholders, and investors a complete picture of the organization. They show them how well the company is doing and what the future looks like. They also help them compare against industry benchmarks to understand where the business stands against competitors.
However, the above is just the big-picture view. A good set of operational metrics also pays attention to the minute details. This is why organizations set operational metrics for each department. Let’s look at what those are and how they help.
Summarize this article for me pleaseOperational Metrics by Department
Each department’s metrics and KPIs rely heavily on the organization’s overall strategy and goals. For instance, if cost savings is the organizational goal, every department will need to set metrics around reducing expenses. If growth is the goal, then departments would focus on expansion, ROI on growth costs, etc.
Either way, there are some standard operational metrics for each department that help track efficiency, productivity, and effectiveness. We explore each of them below.
Operational metrics for sales
The foundational goal for the sales department is to increase revenue, of course. To achieve that goal, the sales department can use a number of metrics to improve operational efficiency, such as:
Lead-to-opportunity ratio
What: This metric compares total leads against qualified leads. It measures how many of the leads you are generating actually have the potential to become customers.
Why: It shows whether your marketing campaigns target the right customers, without which the funnel would be clogged.
How: No. of qualified leads/no. of total leads. For example, if you generate 100 leads, of which 25 are qualified to be your ideal customer persona (ICP), then your lead-to-opportunity ratio is 25/100, i.e., 25%.
Sales cycle length
What: Sales cycle length is the time taken from a customer’s initial contact with your business till the completion of sale.
Why: A long sales cycle delays revenue realization. It runs the risk of accounts being forgotten in the pipeline or the prospect changing their mind. Length of the sales cycle measures the efficiency of the sales process.
How: Date of deal closure – date of first contact
Sales pipeline value
What: This metric is the potential revenue from all active opportunities in the sales pipeline.
Why: A healthy pipeline brings in opportunities to be converted by the sales team. It indicates that the inbound and outbound marketing and sales efforts are effective.
How: The potential value of qualified leads across all stages in the funnel
Conversion rate
What: Conversion rate refers to the number of prospects who become customers as a result of the company’s sales or marketing efforts.
Why: This metric is an indicator of the effectiveness of sales and marketing efforts.
For instance, if the conversion rate is too low, it might mean you’re attracting the wrong people, or there isn’t a product-market fit.
How: Converted leads/total leads. If you get 100 leads and close 20 deals, your conversion rate is 20%. The higher your conversion rate, the better.
Operational metrics for marketing
Marketing teams today perform a range of activities, including organic search optimization, content marketing, paid search, social media, digital advertising, influencer marketing, online events, and more. These operations can be measured with the following marketing KPIs.
Return on Advertising Spend (ROAS)
What: ROAS is the revenue generated by each advertising campaign. While it is typically used in SaaS for digital and social ads, it can also be applied to television or print advertising.
Why: ROAS is a key optimization tool. It helps teams experiment with campaign ideas and optimize investments based on what’s working.
How: Revenue generated by customers acquired through an ad campaign/cost of the ad campaign
Marketing-sourced revenue
What: This is the total revenue generated directly from marketing activities.
Why: The metric compares marketing success to other customer acquisition activities like cold calls. Especially when organizations are increasingly spending money on digital marketing, this metric tracks its effectiveness regularly. It helps achieve product marketing KPIs and refine growth strategies.
How: Total revenue from customers acquired through marketing as the first source
Click-Through Rate (CTR)
What: This is an even more granular operational metric to track the effectiveness of digital ads and content in driving engagement.
Why: Higher CTR indicates better ad/content performance, which will positively impact CAC, CLV, and profitability.
How: No. of clicks/no. of visitors or impressions
Operational metrics in logistics
Logistics is a humungous machine of multiple moving parts. From packaging to shipping to doorstep delivery, several people and processes are involved. Running an efficient logistics operations requires strong metrics, such as:
Order fulfillment rate
What: Fulfilment rate refers to the time taken to process and fulfill orders.
Why: Faster delivery leads to customer delight and better inventory management efficiency.
How: Date of order – date of delivery
On-time delivery
What: Difference between the promised delivery time and actual delivery time.
Why: In retail, CPG, and fashion industries, on-time delivery improves customer experience and builds trust, which is fundamental to metrics such as CLV.
How: Delivery date promised – date delivered
Supplier lead time
What: In every supply chain, there are several vendors who need to complete their jobs on time for your work to get done. Supplier lead time measures this. It is the lead time each supplier needs to deliver your raw materials from the date of order.
Why: Supplier delivery can become a roadblock in your own manufacturing process. Shorter lead times help with optimal inventory management.
How: Date of order – date of delivery
Operational metrics for human resources
People management, especially in the knowledge economy, is much harder than it seems. HR has their job cut out for them in designing and tracking operational metrics.
Absenteeism rate
What: Absenteeism rate is the volume of unplanned absences per employee.
Why: Absenteeism throws schedules off, creates delays, and negatively affects productivity metrics.
How: Total unplanned absences that do not include approved sick days or vacation days
Employee retention rate
What: Retention rate is the number of employees who choose to remain in the organization over a specific period, typically a year.
Why: Hiring, onboarding, and training are expensive; a higher retention rate expands ROI and indicates higher employee satisfaction.
How: (Employees who remain at the end of the year – employees hired in that year)/total employees at the start of the year
Utilization rate
What: Utilization rate is the percentage of time the employee spends in revenue-generating activities.
Why: An organization needs to have enough capacity to meet project requirements without wasting resources; utilization rate helps track this.
How: Number of billable hours/number of total working hours
Diversity, equity, and inclusion metrics
What: DEI metrics refer to the organization’s performance in hiring, retaining, promoting, and encouraging employees from diverse backgrounds.
Why: Diversity is not only fair but also makes perfect business sense.
How: Some of the key DEI metrics are % of women in the organization, % of women in senior leadership, racial distribution of employees across roles, compensation based on gender or race.
Operational metrics in finance
Operational metrics in finance help manage the department’s performance, ensure compliance, align strategies with business objectives, and ensure that inflow/outflow is handled in the company’s interest. Key operational metrics are:
Debt-to-equity ratio
What: As the name suggests, it is the total debt measured against shareholder’s equity.
Why: This metric helps evaluate the company’s ability to raise further capital or fund its operational expenses.
For instance, if a startup has $1 in debt for every $0.5 in equity, it shows that investors don’t trust the company enough to take the risk.
How: Total debt/total equity.
Quick ratio
What: A company’s ability to cover short-term liabilities immediately.
Why: This metric shows if the company can weather a storm in the short term; by extension, it also indicates resilience and financial stability.
How: Short-term liabilities/liquid assets
Operating cash flow
What: Operating cash flow is a check of whether more money is coming in than going out.
Why: Though cash flow is different from burn rate, they both address the problem of inflow/outflow. Negative cash flow indicates struggles with paying immediate liabilities like salaries or software expenses.
How: Cash in – cash out for any given period
Budget variance
What: Budget variance refers to the difference between the money you planned to spend and what you actually spent.
Why: Budgets are a financial vision of the future of the company. They are designed to support the goals of the business. If there are regular overruns, it means the planning is flawed, which will have downstream consequences in raising capital, sales, marketing, etc.
How: (Overrun budget items/total budget items) x 100
💡 Pro Tip: If you’re an engineering leader and don’t see your department above, no sweat. Here are some product management KPIs and metrics you can use.
From the above examples, you might think calculating these metrics is a simple task. Take the last one, budget variance, for example. You just need to know how many of the line items on your budget overran. Simple? Nope.
An average organization has hundreds of line items, each with specific budgets based on their strategy. For instance, marketing alone might budget for:
- Salaries
- Consultant expenses
- Software costs
- Online events, such as webinars
- On-ground events (including travel, venue, accommodation, etc.)
- Advertising (broken down by channel)
- Influencer collaborations
- Analyst collaborations
Setting goals and tracking these can soon become unwieldy, unless you have a project management tool like ClickUp specifically designed to do this. Let’s see how you can track and manage your operational metrics to monitor performance and improve outcomes.
Summarize this article for me pleaseHow to Track and Manage Operational Metrics
Creating a comprehensive way to set, track, and manage operational metrics needs a strategic approach. Here is a framework that encompasses its various aspects and offers you helpful tools like a KPI software, dashboards, and templates.
1. Define your goals
Outline what you want your department to achieve for this year. Derive these from the organization’s objectives to stay aligned.
For instance, let’s say the sales team’s goal is to increase revenue by 50% over the next year. You will choose the operational metrics to achieve this goal. So be thoughtful.
The best set goals are those that are actively embraced by the teams. To ensure this, define your goals collaboratively. Use ClickUp Whiteboards to review last year’s performance, discuss the vision for the future, and set this year’s goals.
If you’re new to this, try some of ClickUp’s goal-setting templates to get it right.
2. Select relevant metrics
The next step here is to choose the metrics that align with the goals you just defined. If revenue increase is your goal, your operational metrics and sales KPIs would include:
- Increase in revenue per customer
- Conversion rate
- Pipeline value
- Lead-to-opportunity ratio
- Sales cycle length
For example, conversion rate is a great metric because it shows you that you either need to increase conversion rate or increase pipeline value to achieve sales targets.
For some help with setting the right metrics for your business operations, try ClickUp’s Project Metrics Template. This fully-customizable, beginner-friendly template enables you to track project performance in real time and keep the team goal oriented.
3. Set timed targets for each metric
Setting timed targets and benchmarks helps us understand what’s working and what’s not. This is the foundation for making improvements to operational processes. When you set targets, make them SMART, i.e., specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound.
In the previous example, you might set the conversion rate from opportunity to deal as 20% for this year.
ClickUp Goals is one of the best goal tracking apps to monitor each metric in real time across multiple users. With ClickUp, you can set monetary targets to track how much revenue you’re making.
You can set task targets to monitor work completed. For instance, you can set up each opportunity as a Task. When each Task is completed (or the Status changes), ClickUp will automatically evaluate performance on your metrics!
What’s more? You can also organize related goals into folders and track performance across multiple targets in one view.
For inspiration on setting the right targets, try Clickup’s KPI template. Use it to visualize KPIs, align team members towards goals, and visualize outcomes.
4. Set up systems to collect data for each metric
One of the biggest reasons metrics turn unhelpful is when accurate and timely data isn’t collected on each of them. For instance, how do you know what your conversion rate is if you’re not tracking every single lead, opportunity, and deal on one platform?
Set up a comprehensive platform that captures all related data. Give all relevant users access to this platform to update information regularly.Â
ClickUp enables you to convert goals and targets into Tasks. You can assign users, set deadlines, link dependencies, create custom statuses/fields, collaborate on comments, and ace your goals all in one place.
5. Review performance
Once you’ve collected all the data, use a reporting tool to compare your operational performance against established benchmarks, industry standards, or historical performance.Â
If your conversion rate isn’t yet 25%, conduct retrospectives with the team to understand why. Investigate the root causes of any issues or underperformance. Implement strategies to improve conversion rates quickly.
ClickUp Dashboards help operations managers monitor team’s performance in real time across projects. Use ClickUp to:
- Track granular metrics
- Visualize progress
- Create a single-pane view of metrics that matter
- Understand day-to-day operations
- Make adjustments and gain improvement
Summarize this article for me pleaseUpgrade Your Operations with ClickUp
At its core, operational metrics are a way to pay attention. It is a business’ way of looking at the granular detail of everyday work.
If the cost per lead suddenly shoots up, the metric warns the marketing analyst. If the team faces constant budget overruns, the finance head has a cause for concern. If the sales team is converting at a record rate, the growth head has a reason to celebrate. Important operational metrics keep businesses in touch with ground reality.Â
Without the right tools to set, track, and manage these metrics, a business can trip and fall or fly too close to the sun.Â
Avoid either of these scenarios with ClickUp’s purpose-designed metrics tracking systems. With ClickUp, you can set targets, break them down into tasks, gather data, build KPI reporting, and glean insights to improve operational efficiency exponentially.
Everything you need to stay organized and get work done.
