Provident Security is a successful Vancouver based security company that sets out to completely change the alarm business. In the article How to Turn an Industry on Its Head Become Masters of Delivering On Big Promises, Kevin Lawrence and I write about how Provident Security CEO Mike Jagger founded the company on the promise:
“We will be at the customer’s door within five minutes of an alarm going off — guaranteed.”
When serious security events happen, such as big wind storms, chaos erupts in the Provident operations center. To bring order to the chaos and to deliver on their five minute promise to customers, Mike identified key numbers that track the pulse of the business. In Provident’s operations center, all key indicators are displayed on large LCD monitors. All indicators are automatically updated in real time as events happen. KPIs are chosen so that zero is perfect. Employees talk about “Going for the doughnut”, that is going for zero.
Indicators are displayed in one of three colors:
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Yellow: Good
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Red: Coming up to deadline
- Flashing Red: Overdue
All organizations need a small number of forward looking key indicators that show whether the business is on track. Most businesses have either none or too many. Mike and his team have discovered the few key numbers that keep all employees focused with feedback systems that let everyone know how they are doing in real time.
What numbers do you use to measure your business?
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Okay, I see what you mean, coach. Thanks for referring this link. In fact, you encouraged me to continue my first plan just as I was considering moving on to stage two. I rather nail down one or two KPIs with my first goal instead of having none or too many because those specific KPIs can be duplicated in the next stage (adjusted for that stage).
I appreciate you explaining the value of KPIs here.
Hi Mark,
I’m glad that you found it useful. Look at finding KPIs as a process. You’ll try some, measure them, change some things, and then some will work and some will not. Keep going.
More background on the amazing job Provident Security does with KPIs can be found in my article with Kevin Lawrence called How to Turn an Industry on Its Head: Become Masters at Delivering on Big Promises. That article has been updated in my book Wind In Your Sails, along with real-life stories from nine other entrepreneurs, plus my 35-year career as an entrepreneur.
Let me know how it goes.
Cheers,
David