Each task within a process can have Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) related to Efficacy and/or in terms of Efficiency.
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- Efficacy KPIs measure the quality (e.g. number of failures per period) or the scope of the task result (number of repeat customers in a period).
- Efficiency KPIs measure the effort required to achieve a certain level of Efficacy in the result. Continuing with our examples, they could be savings in the quality control budget needed to achieve X number of failures; or savings in commercial human resources to maintain the customers' repeat purchase rate.
The Task Outcome Unit is the value of the metric at two different points in time, before implementing the IA solution and after implementing the IA solution. In our example, the number of repeat customers before the implementation of the solution was, for example, 100, while after the implementation it becomes 150 for the same time period.
The Tasks Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
Below you can find some definitions of KPIs:
"A set of quantifiable measurements used to gauge a company’s overall long-term performance."- Investopedia
KPI, or key performance indicators, are measurable values used to evaluate how successful a person or organization is in reaching a target. You can have high-level KPIs that look at the performance of your business, or KPIs that drill down into processes at the individual or departmental level, too.
According to the above, the KPIs that we will use to measure the impact of the IA solution when applied to a specific task is Low-Level KPIs. Every process has a goal, every task within the process has its own and specific objective (maybe a set of them). The Task KPI is the primary measure of the task performance, the metric that allows us to know how effective and efficient its execution is in a given period.
KPIs and Metrics
Let´s see an example:
The Task Outcome Unit
As we stated before, the Task Outcome Unit is the value of the metric at two different points in time, before implementing the AI solution and after implementing the AI solution.
Sometimes metrics are expressed in percentages. In order for us to calculate the return on an investment in AI, we need to express the improvement in the metric's Task Outcome Unit in a number that can be converted into a euro value of the improvement. In our example above, going from a result of 100 repeat customers to 150, thanks to the AI solution, implies a 50% improvement in the "repeat purchase" metric. In order to use this data in the return calculation, we will have to multiply another metric, the "average purchase per period", let's say a value of €1,000, by the number of new recurring customers, 50.
If it were an Efficiency metric, we would have a similar case. Let's suppose that to achieve a recurring purchase of 10% of our 2,000 customers per year, we need the work of three salespeople. Let's also assume that using a robotic assistant AI solution for the purchase we achieve the same result with only one salesperson. To calculate the improvement in the Task Result Unit, we will have to take into account the average cost of one salesperson per year, e.g. €30,000, and by saving two with the AI solution, the improvement is €60,000.
