In 2025, the global telecommunications industry is expected to surpass USD 1.7 trillion in market value, driven by rapid advancements in 5G, growing data consumption, and the continued convergence of digital technologies. The sector is not only a backbone of global connectivity but also a key enabler of innovation across industries. 

As telecom providers expand infrastructure and launch new services to meet rising demand, the importance of data-driven decision-making and performance optimization has never been greater. In this context, performance measurement has become a strategic priority. As service delivery becomes more complex and customer expectations evolve, key performance indicators (KPIs) offer critical insights for improving network efficiency, enhancing customer experience, managing operational costs, and driving sustainable growth.

To support telecom professionals in navigating these changes, The KPI Institute has released the Top 25 Telecommunications KPIs – 2025 Edition. This report features the most impactful KPIs, selected based on global usage and their relevance to real-world industry practices. 

To provide a glimpse into the report, here are five of the top KPIs featured in the 2025 edition:

•  % Call setup success rate (CSSR) – Measures the percentage of call attempts that successfully connect to the dialed number, out of the total call attempts. It is used to assess the accessibility of the telecommunication network.
•  $ Telecom subscriber acquisition cost –  Measures the average cost of acquiring a new subscriber. It helps optimize acquisition spending by ensuring each new subscriber provides long-term value.
• % Answer seizure ratio (ASR) – Measures the percentage of calls successfully answered out of the total call attempts. It is used to evaluate the effectiveness of call handling. 
• $ Telecom subscriber retention cost (SRC) – Measures the costs associated with retaining a customer, including customer service, retention marketing, and related expenses. It aims to track net retention spending per subscriber.
•  % Data network availability – Measures the percentage of time the data network is operational and accessible. It is used to monitor the overall availability of the data network.

This report is part of the Top 25 KPIs – 2025 series developed by The KPI Institute. The series provides a comprehensive framework for effective performance measurement and addresses key challenges in KPI implementation. Each KPI is documented with practical definitions, calculation formulas, analysis guidelines, and recommended usage scenarios to support integration into performance management systems.

Explore the full report to strengthen your organization’s performance measurement practices. The Top 25 Telecommunications KPIs – 2025 Edition is now available on the TKI Marketplace, with printed copies available for order on Amazon. Get your copy today!

Speed, stability, and effectiveness are more than industry buzzwords—they define how organizations compete in a rapidly changing landscape. As industries race to launch products faster, retain talent amid shifting work dynamics, and convert leads into loyal customers, three key performance indicators (KPIs) stand out as mission-critical: # Time to Market, # Employee Tenure, and % Conversion Rate.

Recent data from a Gartner survey reveals that 45% of product launches are delayed by at least one month, with these delays making companies far more likely to miss their internal targets. At the same time, median employee tenure has dropped to 3.9 years as of January 2024—the lowest since 2002—underscoring the growing difficulty of maintaining workforce stability. Meanwhile, average landing page conversion rates reached 6.6% in Q4 2024, offering a benchmark for organizations striving to turn interest into action. Together, these indicators tell a compelling story: sustainable success depends not only on moving quickly but also on keeping talent engaged and transforming opportunities into measurable results.

In this article, we spotlight three key indicators from the third quarter of 2025—exploring how organizations perform in terms of innovation speed through # Time to market, workforce stability through # Employee tenure, and marketing effectiveness through % Conversion rate.

KPI of July: # Time to market – This indicator tracks the duration between a product’s initial concept and its launch, serving as a measure of how efficiently an organization drives innovation from idea to execution.

This indicator is crucial for organizations aiming to stay competitive in today’s fast-moving landscape. While it may seem straightforward, its measurement is influenced by various factors. To ensure accurate assessment and meaningful benchmarking, download the free digital poster from the TKI Marketplace.

KPI of August: # Employee tenure – This measures the average length of time employees remain with their organization, providing insight and revealing trends into overall workforce stability and retention over time.By segmenting data by demographics or role duration, managers can make more informed decisions on promotions, rotations, and tenure-related benefits—supporting fair and strategic workforce planning. Explore this indicator further by downloading the digital poster from the TKI Marketplace.

KPI of September: % Conversion rate – This reflects the percentage of individuals who take a desired action—such as making a purchase or signing up—out of the total exposed audience, offering a clear view of how effective an organization’s marketing strategies are in driving engagement and results.

How well does your organization turn interest into action? Benchmark your % Conversion Rate against industry standards and discover ways to measure it more effectively. Download the digital poster from the TKI Marketplace to learn more.

These digital posters are part of the KPI of the Month series by The KPI Institute. It is a free infographic series designed to provide practical insights into the application of key performance indicators. Each edition focuses on one specific KPI, offering clear explanations of terminology, addressing common challenges in its use, and outlining essential details such as its definition, calculation, Balanced Scorecard relevance, data profile, typical targets, and actionable recommendations. Explore the other featured KPIs from the past quarters, visit the TKI Marketplace today!

Similar to how a rowing team synchronizes its strokes to move swiftly across the water, organizations must align their strategy, execution, and performance management practices to stay on course. The 2025 State of Strategy Management Report captures this dynamic, offering an in-depth view of how strategy and performance management practices are unfolding across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) regions.

This year, the majority of participants came from Saudi Arabia (91%), followed by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Egypt (3% each), with smaller representation from Jordan, Qatar, and other MENA countries. Public and social services formed the largest industry group (36%), followed by professional services (21%) and industrial sectors (15%). Respondents were almost evenly split between public (50%) and private (43%) institutions, with not-for-profit organizations making up 7% of the respondent pool. This balanced representation ensures that the findings can be generalized and reflect both government priorities and private-sector dynamics.

What’s new in the report

This fourth edition of the State of Strategy Management Practice Report uses a more refined approach than in previous editions. More than just documenting the current state of strategic practice, the report also seeks to drive meaningful improvement. As Daniela Vuta, Chief Operating Officer at The KPI Institute, explains, “Our vision is to create a collaborative resource that equips the leaders and practitioners on the front lines of business excellence with the insights necessary to turn strategic intent into operational reality.”

Vuta emphasized that the report’s impact is twofold: first, to deliver a data-driven perspective that pinpoints the planning-execution gap, replacing assumptions with clarity on challenges such as weak cross-functional coordination.

Unlike earlier editions that relied on a single, comprehensive questionnaire requiring all participants to answer every topic, the 2025 study employed subject-specific surveys: strategy planning, strategy measurement, and strategy execution. This shift enabled deeper insights, reduced respondent fatigue, and encouraged broader participation.

Another key enhancement was the release of an Arabic version of the survey. To ensure both accuracy and cultural relevance, a rigorous translation protocol was followed, which included stages of professional translation, back-translation, and evaluation by bilingual experts familiar with regional business terminology.

Bridging evidence and experience

Through the State of Strategy Management – 2025 MENA Report, The KPI Institute aims to inspire organizations to break free from strategic inertia by adopting proven best practices and turning research data into a solid foundation for informed decision-making and agile improvement initiatives.

Beyond quantitative findings, this year’s report integrated semi-structured interviews with strategy and performance management professionals across various industries in the MENA region. Each interview, lasting between 30 and 45 minutes, offered participants the opportunity to share practical experiences, challenges, and success stories. These qualitative insights enrich the survey findings and provide a holistic view by adding real-world perspectives and contextual examples.

According to Vuta, “The Voices from the Field section complements the quantitative data, providing practical context and real-world examples that enrich the analysis. This approach, combined with a reduced margin of error (between 5% and 6%), ensures the report offers a superior standard of precision for strategy practices across the MENA region.” 

The 2025 edition also introduces several new features designed to guide readers through the material. These include a one-page roadmap outlining the report’s structure, a high-level overview of the most significant findings, and a concluding section that consolidates insights and highlights the evolving direction of strategy management practices in the MENA region. Beyond presenting data, the report places strong emphasis on practical application. Each section contains recommendations from strategy and performance management experts and offers actionable steps organizations can take to strengthen their strategy management efforts.

By combining data-driven results with expert commentary and firsthand accounts, the State of Strategy Management Practice – 2025 MENA Region Report delivers a comprehensive view of current trends in the field. It equips leaders with evidence-based findings and actionable guidance to close gaps, overcome challenges, and drive smarter decisions. To access detailed results and practical recommendations for advancing your strategic journey, download the full report via the TKI Marketplace.

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From The KPI Institute

This report is more than a collection of data; it is a strategic resource that redefines excellence. While the focus is on the MENA region, the challenges identified—the execution gap, the need for alignment, and the difficulty in shifting from instinct to data-driven decisions—are universal. What MENA organizations are learning and implementing in their active effort to reinvent themselves serves as a powerful observation window and a set of applicable lessons on a global scale. 

We urge you to use this study not only to benchmark your performance but also to challenge your own assumptions. Our role at The KPI Institute is to empower the world to achieve performance excellence, and this report is the tool that will help you navigate strategic complexity, turning your vision into lasting impact and measurable results. True performance excellence requires a holistic, agile, and well-executed strategy; this report shows the way.

Daniela Vuta

Chief Operating Officer

According to the World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Survey, 86% of employers expect artificial intelligence (AI) and information processing technologies to significantly impact their business by 2030. However, realizing this potential faces a major challenge: the shortage of skills needed to support its integration. Nearly half of global executives identify this as the top barrier to adoption, followed by lack of leadership vision and high costs. In response, 77% of employers plan to upskill or reskill their workforce by 2030, while many also aim to hire AI-proficient talent and reorient business models. Yet, alongside opportunity, there is disruption: 41% of organizations expect to reduce staff as AI capabilities evolve. 

Amid the accelerating shift toward AI-driven operations, the Functional Areas Enablement Institute (FAEI)—a research-driven entity within The KPI Institute ecosystem dedicated to enhancing operational efficiency across key functional areas—has developed the Certified AI Enablement Professional course in partnership with The KPI Institute. This course is designed to meet the increasing demand for professionals skilled at applying AI technologies, especially natural language processing (NLP). It empowers them to effectively engage with AI systems, leverage foundation models, and implement AI strategies aligned with organizational goals. By fostering AI literacy and cultural readiness, the course aims to drive sustainable growth in AI-enabled enterprises. 

The Certified AI Enablement Professional course stands apart from other AI training programs by leveraging FAEI’s proprietary AI Enablement Framework, which offers a systematic approach that guides organizations from early-stage readiness to full integration across the business. The framework covers critical components such as the strategy roadmap, governance, performance metrics and analytics, maintenance mechanisms, and capacity building. At its core, this course supports the alignment of technology with goals, resources, and talent. This approach allows businesses to optimize AI applications, navigate potential challenges, and deliver greater value, all with the goal of driving cost savings through higher efficiency and productivity. 

Offered by maentae, a premier provider of transformative learning experiences, the Certified AI Enablement Professional course arms participants with practical knowledge in areas such as NLP, prompt engineering, and AI deployment, complemented by access to handbooks, templates, and implementation toolkits. The course’s modular structure spans 10 agendas, from fundamentals to advanced practices, and is delivered through a flexible three-stage learning process: pre-course preparation, in-person or online training, and post-course application. For more information, visit these links: Live- Online: Certified AI Enablement Professional and Face-to-Face: Certified AI Enablement Professional.

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Editor’s Note: This article was first published in the News section of Performance Magazine Issue No. 33, 2025 – The AI Edition. To explore more AI-focused insights, download the free digital copy of the magazine via the TKI Marketplace. A print edition is also available on Amazon, subject to standard printing and shipping fees.