Business performance defines how effectively a company uses its resources to achieve strategic, operational, and financial goals over time. Strong business performance is often a key factor for long-term success and investor confidence. There are multiple ways to measure and improve performance using structured indicators and tracking methods.
So, how to improve your business performance in 2026?
Key performance indicators (KPIs) in business
Key performance indicators (KPIs) are measurable values that organizations use to evaluate how effectively they are achieving specific business objectives. They are commonly used to assess employee performance, financial performance, and overall business success, and are typically classified in two ways: as quantitative and qualitative indicators. Both of these indicators can be measured by combining both internal and external data.
The main difference between quantitative and qualitative KPIs is that quantitative KPIs are based on numerical data and objective measurement, while qualitative KPIs focus on subjective factors such as quality, perception, and experience.
Quantitative indicators
Quantitative indicators are mostly about financial metrics that can be assigned a numeric value, such as revenue and profits. Sales made, employees hired, leads converted, etc. It's relatively easy and straightforward to measure.
Examples of quantitative KPIs include revenue growth, sales volume, and conversion rates:
- Revenue and profit growth tracks whether the business is financially expanding or stagnating.
- Sales volume measures how many products or services are sold in a given period.
- Lead conversion rate shows how effectively prospects turn into paying customers.
- Employee headcount and productivity indicates hiring success and workforce efficiency.
Qualitative indicators
Qualitative indicators cannot be assigned a number. Qualitative measurement focuses on intangible values such as experiences and feelings. It might also include data-driven but still complex areas such as brand perception. Examples of qualitative KPIs include customer satisfaction, brand perception, and employee engagement:
- Customer satisfaction reflects how customers feel about service quality and support.
- Brand perception shows how the market views your brand’s trust and reputation.
- Employee engagement indicates motivation, morale, and commitment within teams.
- Customer experience captures overall impressions across touch points and interactions.
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are measurable signals used to evaluate employee performance, financial results, and overall business success. They combine quantitative metrics like revenue and sales with qualitative insights such as customer satisfaction, brand perception, and employee engagement to give a complete view of business performance.
Why is it important to track business performance?
Tracking performance in business is one of the main indicators that signal your business' well-being. Setting business goals is important, but tracking them and making sure they bring value is essential. Tracking business performance effectively requires defining relevant KPIs, collecting reliable data from multiple internal and external sources, and reviewing the results on a regular basis.
Mainly, there are two reasons why keeping track of business performance is important.
Ensuring business success
The definition of business success can vary from business to business. For example, some companies rely on attracting investors, seeking to get financial influx to grow their business. Other companies might want to avoid publicity and try to achieve their goals on their own, without the help of investment institutions.
In this article, we focus on companies seeking to attract investor attention.
With that said, good business performance attracts investors to your company. Investors, in turn, can help your company grow exponentially. Therefore, it's crucial to track and maintain performance to notice poor financial management and other vices before it's too late.
Competitor analysis
Tracking your business performance means you can also track your competitors and compare them with your own performance. It's an essential step in keeping up with other players in your field.
Market research helps you realize what products or services are in higher demand and how your competition reacts. You may find that your business is doing better in some areas and your competitors take the lead in others.
That way, you know what you need to improve to be more successful and stay ahead of the competition.
How to improve business performance?
There are 5 main steps to help you improve performance in business:
- Define where you want to go
- Select business goals
- Make a plan to achieve those goals
- Find the best-fit talent
- Monitor performance and results
Let's discuss those steps in more detail.
1. Define where you want to go
First and foremost, it's imperative to establish what you want to achieve. To do that, you need to commission specific market research.
Find out about new, emerging services in the market, the financial perspective of your business growth, establish key metrics by which you will be measuring success, take into account some external factors that could positively or negatively impact your business, and collect competitor information in the field.
These are a few essential things you need to do to define where you want to go with your business ventures.
2. Select business goals
Setting specific business goals can be a very valuable management tool for your company's success. However, don't make the mistake of falling into the void of making unrealistic goals.
Annual goals are good, but quarterly goals are even better in the long run. Dividing the work as much as possible will help avoid burnout and set you up for a successful run.
For instance, if you'd like to reach 1 million recurring revenue at the end of the year, it would be logical to divide that into four quarters of 250K revenue. Goals are one of the most objective criteria for business performance measurement.
The same applies to onboarding new people, implementing sound financial strategies, and overall business procedures.
3. Make a plan to achieve those goals
Once you have established some of your business goals, now it's time to pave the way for them. Achieving goals might vary in difficulty, depending on your market position, competitive advantages, and overall business efficiency.
If you're a new company looking to enter the market, chances are you're not yet in a very good position to make consistent, large-scale sales. Therefore, you need to analyze the competition. Specifically your closest competitors.
Monitor their actions, marketing techniques, target audience, product development, etc. Take note of any business inefficiencies that competition shows. Build your business strategy based on data. Plan effectively. Make it better. Gather business intelligence that will help you make better decisions.
4. Find the best-fit talent
Now that you have sketched a plan, it's time to source the needed talent. Establish a number of specialists needed to reach certain objectives in every department. Define the qualities that you expect of the candidates, both personal and professional. Try to gather a team that will work well on both levels.
The best way to source talent is through data. Coresignal's employee data allows you to find the best talent without accidental hiring bias. You can see the candidates' experience, location, education, connections, and more.
Forget about screening the internet manually in hopes of finding a person that even remotely fits your job description. Instead, choose from a list of candidates that fit your criteria and save massive amounts of time and resources.
5. Monitor performance and results
At this point, you will have defined where you want your business to go, set business goals, made plans to achieve them, and found relevant people. Now what's left to do is enjoy the results. That is, if you had put enough effort in the previous steps.
Monitoring performance can be done in a variety of ways. From financial review, customer satisfaction, net profit, cash flow, and number of current customers, to employee performance, company accounts, and what market research companies say about you.
As you can see, there are many options for measuring performance and it's up to you to implement specific management systems that will help keep track of the information.
Final overview: business performance, KPIs, and performance tracking
Business performance reflects how effectively a company achieves its strategic and financial goals and maintains long-term sustainability. It is commonly evaluated using key performance indicators (KPIs), which help translate business objectives into measurable results.
By defining relevant quantitative and qualitative KPIs and tracking them consistently, businesses can monitor progress, identify inefficiencies, and make informed, data-driven decisions based on financial data, customer feedback, and market insights.
