Interactive tool
KPI Selector
Most dashboards fail by measuring everything. Pick the goal your leadership team keeps arguing about, and this tool hands you the five numbers that actually inform it, with an honest note on how each one lies.
Educational guidance for choosing management metrics; not financial, audit or investment advice. Nothing you select is stored or sent.
The recurring question
Where will the next rupee of sales come from, and at what margin?
Every metric below exists to answer some version of this question sooner, or with less arguing. The first three are the starter set: if you track nothing today, start there.
Revenue growth rate
Starter set- What it is
- How fast sales are growing (or shrinking) between two comparable periods.
- How to compute it
- (This period revenue minus prior period revenue) divided by prior period revenue, as a percent. Compare like with like: month vs same month last year beats month vs last month in seasonal businesses.
- How to read it
- Look at the trend over at least six points, not one number. Steady single-digit growth with stable margin usually beats spiky growth with margin erosion.
- Where it misleads
- One big one-off order can flatter a whole quarter. Track it with and without exceptional items, or the exception becomes the plan.
Gross margin percent
Starter set- What it is
- The share of each rupee of sales left after the direct cost of what you sold.
- How to compute it
- (Revenue minus cost of goods sold) divided by revenue, as a percent. Compute it per product line, not only in total.
- How to read it
- Watch the direction more than the level; a slow slide of 1 to 2 points usually means price pressure or cost creep that nobody has decided to accept.
- Where it misleads
- A healthy blended margin can hide one line sold at a loss. The total is a comfort number; the per-line view is the decision number.
Pipeline coverage
Starter set- What it is
- Whether enough qualified opportunity exists to hit the next period target.
- How to compute it
- Value of qualified open opportunities divided by the revenue target for the period they would land in.
- How to read it
- Read it with your win rate: coverage of 3x at a 30 percent win rate is roughly on plan. Falling coverage predicts a miss a quarter before the revenue line shows it.
- Where it misleads
- Pipelines inflate to please. Keep a dated definition of "qualified" and age out stale deals, or coverage becomes fiction.
Average order value
- What it is
- How much a typical order is worth.
- How to compute it
- Revenue divided by number of orders, per channel and per period.
- How to read it
- Rising AOV with stable order count means better selling; falling AOV with rising count can still be fine if margin holds. Always read it beside order count.
- Where it misleads
- Averages hide the shape. A few huge orders pull it up while the typical basket shrinks; check the median occasionally.
Customer concentration
- What it is
- How much of your revenue depends on your biggest few customers.
- How to compute it
- Revenue from your top 3 (and top 10) customers divided by total revenue, as a percent.
- How to read it
- The higher it is, the more your plans should include a named risk and a diversification action. Above roughly a third from three names deserves a standing agenda item.
- Where it misleads
- It looks stable right up until it is not; the metric matters most in the months when nothing seems wrong.