In today’s uncertain environment, it is essential for management to be fully on top of their organisation’s performance so that progress towards goals can be monitored and any corrective action can be taken as quickly as possible. There are numerous risks that have to be understood and managed.

An essential part of managing them is the use of a meaningful set of key performance indicators (KPIs). Indicators are not just seen as driving a set of traffic lights but providing essential insights into recent, current and future performance. 

Trends are especially helpful in answering questions such as:

•    Are the KPI values increasing or decreasing?
•    How do they compare to last year, target or to external benchmarks?
•    How do we know if our performance is good, average or poor?
•    Even if it is good, is it as good as it could be?
•    Can we identify important changes in performance?