Measuring progress in business
Looking at bottom line results in areas such as spending, sales or profits does not help understand how or why you reached those figures or how to improve performance.
One of the biggest benefits of measuring performance is that you identify areas where you may be struggling. If you have a master budget, conducting a monthly analysis will show you where your results do not meet your projections. Tracking may just be what you need to realize that your projections might have been too optimistic and that the performance did not live up to its expectation. Such measurements can help you pinpoint your weaknesses while letting you put checks where needed or take other measures to support your business.
On the other hand, tracking your sales, production, marketing and labor use helps you identify which aspects of your organization are doing well and which others need more attention.
With tracking, employees are also able to see the progress the company makes. As such they may experience higher job satisfaction. Likewise, if they can see that their unit is struggling, then they might be motivated to work harder. So measuring results based on goals set for all employees and communicating the same to the staff on a scheduled basis helps keep the team motivated to do well whether they are surpassing those goals or struggling.