Investigation of how to implement successful KPIs for organizations – based on an empirical study at an international organization

Abstract: In the information age, KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) are commonly used for business performance measurement in organizations; however there’s no single best way about how to implement KPIs, which means that a company can select any arbitrary suitable KPIs. The thesis will do research and investigations based on existing academic theory and a case study in an international logistic company. The research was aiming at helping organizations to develop and implement successful KPIs that are effective, complete, and aligned with their business strategy and which conforms to scientific theories for how KPIs can be implemented. I designed a framework which was combined with the critical factors of successful KPIs in the scientific theories, the framework was designed for helping companies diagnosing and improving the effectiveness, completeness and alignment of their KPIs. . The aim was fulfilled by successfully testing the proposed framework in a case study. The result from the case study shows that there was a gap between how the KPIs are used and the scientific theories of how they should be used. However the framework need to be further tested in future research for a general usefulness.