Operations··6 min read
Five metrics every SME should review every week
A few well-chosen numbers are worth more than a hundred reports. Here's where to start.
Many companies produce more data than they can read. The result is leadership that skims long reports and decides on instinct. The answer isn't more numbers, but the right ones.
The first metric is contribution margin by product line or client: it shows where you really make money. The second is working capital, especially days sales outstanding and inventory days, because growth without cash is fragile.
The third is on-time delivery, which captures the health of production and logistics in a single number. The fourth is the 90-day order book, the best leading indicator of revenue. The fifth is about people: turnover and absence are often the first sign of an organisational problem.
Five numbers, updated weekly and discussed in a thirty-minute meeting, can improve decision quality more than any software.
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