How to get your KPIs on track with data analytics

4 mins to read

Too many metrics, not enough guidance

Many data analytics vendors give users the ability to measure everything – but without clear direction, the sheer volume of key performance indicators (KPIs) can be overwhelming. Without a structured approach, teams may struggle to focus on the right data, leading to confusion rather than clarity.

At Phocas, we take a different approach. Instead of throwing endless datasets at you, we help businesses determine the right KPIs for their unique needs. By focusing on the metrics that matter most, businesses in manufacturing, distribution, and retail can use data analytics to drive better business decisions and optimize their business objectives.

To keep things simple, we recommend using three core objectives as guideposts: improving customer experience, support company growth, and increasing profitability. These priorities serve as a guiding framework to ensure that every department – from sales and inventory management to finance – is aligned and measuring what truly impacts business success.

1. Improve customer experience with actionable insights

Your customers are the foundation of your business. A poor experience – whether due to late deliveries, stockouts, or inconsistent pricing – can quickly lead to churn rate increases. The challenge? Many businesses lack the right data infrastructure or poor data quality to proactively monitor customer satisfaction and uptime metrics in real time.

To get started, ask yourself:

How do I measure customer satisfaction in today’s market?
What are the biggest factors influencing my customers’ experiences?
Do I have real-time visibility into data-driven decisions that impact customer retention?

One essential metric to track is Delivery in Full, On Time (DIFOT), but getting an accurate, real-time view of this metric is impossible if your data is scattered across different systems. Extracting data from your ERP can be a challenge, but when you have to manually consolidate it with finance, sales, and multiple spreadsheets, the process becomes slow, complex, and is often dependent on just one or two people in your business. While you're piecing together data, the problem only compounds—delaying the very insights you need to resolve DIFOT issues.

With Phocas, all your data—whether from your ERP, finance system, multiple subsidiaries, or even separate ERPs—is consolidated into a single source of truth. This means you can quickly pinpoint whether a drop in DIFOT is due to supplier issues, a data processing bottleneck, or inventory management gaps without sifting through disconnected reports. Having up-to-date data at your fingertips also allows you to monitor stock outs of high-priority items can help businesses prevent order delays and lost sales.

Phocas' BI foundation ensures fast, reliable performance, even with large data volumes, and maintains security by giving finance user-level access control. Plus, it integrates seamlessly – even during ERP migrations – so you get uninterrupted reporting and data visualization tools such as dashboards, charts and graphs to track DIFOT with confidence. By tracking these KPIs in a data analytics platform like Phocas, teams can minimize downtime, make better decisions and improve overall business impact.

2. Support company growth with smart data pipelines

Growth is not just about acquiring new customers – it’s about identifying opportunities, mitigating risks, and ensuring that resources are allocated efficiently. Data analysis and sales forecasting can reveal valuable insights into customer trends, sales opportunities, and potential threats that might otherwise go unnoticed.

Consider these questions:

What are my biggest opportunities for new customers or product expansion?
Where are the hidden risks in my customer base or supply chain?
How can I use forecasting to predict changes in demand?

For example, sales teams should closely monitor customers in decline, identifying those whose sales trends have dipped over the past few months. By tracking these KPIs, businesses can proactively reach out before losing high-value accounts. Similarly, tracking the purchasing patterns of new customers helps businesses refine inventory planning, ensuring that trending products are consistently available.

With Phocas, you can save specific KPIs as favourites, then set up ongoing automated alerts to ensure growth opportunities aren’t missed. You can also visualize KPIs side-by-side using graphs, charts or Sparklines (mini charts) to connect warehouses, branches and purchasing departments to sales performances, helping to improve strategic planning and operational efficiency.

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3. Increase profitability with smarter decision-making

Every business wants to be more profitable – but achieving that goal requires more than just selling more. Profitability is often about making small, strategic adjustments in pricing, cost control, and operational efficiency that have a competitive advantage over time.

Some key KPIs to monitor include:

Profit margins: Track fluctuations in margins across different products and customer segments.

Deadstock levels: Reduce capital tied up in non-moving inventory.

Low stock turns: Identify products that aren’t generating enough revenue to justify their storage costs.

By analyzing these metrics, finance teams can identify areas where small changes – such as adjusting pricing strategies or optimizing warehouse logistics – can make a significant business impact. With data analytics, businesses can automate reporting and gain real-time insights, allowing for smarter, faster business decisions.

A unified approach to KPIs

When cross-functional departments measure success differently, silos form. A finance team may focus on reducing costs, while a sales team prioritizes revenue growth – but without alignment, these business goals can often conflict.

By centralizing data management in a Business Intelligence and Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A) platform like Phocas, every stakeholder – from sales managers to the operations team – can track the same KPIs, ensuring a holistic approach to business success. This not only improves decision-making but also empowers non-technical team members to access actionable insights without needing a data science team.

Upon implementing Phocas, your team receives full training on how to slice and dice your datasets, customize data visualization, and automate reports to track the right KPIs. The result? A more data-driven, efficient, and profitable business.

Take control of your KPIs today

Your business generates vast amounts of data every day—but without a structured approach to measuring the right KPIs, valuable insights get lost. By focusing on customer experience, company growth, and profitability, you can ensure that every department is aligned and working towards long-term business outcomes.

Ready to take control of your data analytics? The Phocas BI and FP&A platform helps you harness the power of data-driven decisions with self-serve tools that empower your team to measure what truly matters.

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Written by Craig Medlyn

Craig is an expert in data analytics helping customers determine specific data requirements so they can enhance performance, productivity and confidence.