July 2008

 

Dear [Salutation]

This month our newsletter topic is Dashboards and Key Performance Indicators. 

What are  Key Performance Indicators?  They are quantifiable metrics that reflect the performance of an organization in achieving its goals and objectives.

Imagine the power of having easy, instant access to the key performance drivers and real-time analytics you need to steer your business to success. With Custrack, that power is as close as a web-enabled mobile device.

Dashboards provide a single, corporate scorecard for an at-a-glance overview of your entire business, covering sales, contacts, service, gross profit and others.. No more hunting around for information from multiple reports and sources. Dashboards give your organization a complete picture of the health of your business in a one-page snapshot featuring benchmarks and critical corporate metrics and targets.

A scorecard of key performance indicators from across your business is just a click away with Custrack’s dashboards.

Management can now concentrate on running the business on exception management instead of detail management!

Key Performance Indicators

Business intelligence often uses key performance indicators to assess the present state of business and to prescribe a course of action. Examples of KPI's are things such as lead conversion rate (in sales) and service level agreement escalations.

Dashboards put an end to outdated data. With one-click dashboard refreshment, you’ll know exactly what’s happening in your business, right now. Because nothing is more powerful than real-time business data delivered to you as quickly as your mouse can click. 

An Early Warning System for Potential Problems - With dashboards, you’ll easily spot potential business problems. Easy-to-use graphical data presentation enables you to identify potential problems. Drill-down capabilities allow you to dig into your underlying data and leverage Custrack’s powerful analytics tool to build detailed reports, and identify root causes of any weakness in your business.

Benefits of digital dashboards

Most organizations have various departments or teams all contributing to its overall success and thus it is important to be able to assess the progress of each department. Digital dashboards, which are a type of executive information system, allow managers to do just that. To gauge exactly how well an organization is performing overall, digital dashboards allow you to capture and report specific data points from each department within the organization, thus providing a "snapshot" of performance.

Some benefits to using digital dashboards include:

  • Visual presentation of performance measures
  • Ability to identify and correct negative trends.
  • Measure efficiencies/inefficiencies.
  • Ability to generate detailed reports showing new trends.
  • Increase Productivity
  • Ability to make more informed decisions based on collected BI (business intelligence)
  • Align strategies and organizational goals.
  • Save time over running multiple reports

Key Performance Indicators Must be Key To Organizational Success

Many things are measurable. That does not make them key to the organization's success. In selecting Key Performance Indicators, it is critical to limit them to those factors that are essential to the organization reaching its goals. Use Key Performance Indicators as a performance management tool, but also as a carrot. KPI's give everyone in the organization a clear picture of what is important, of what they need to make happen. You use that to manage performance. You make sure that everything the people in your organization do is focused on meeting or exceeding those Key Performance Indicators.

Critical Success Factors

So many important matters can compete for your attention in business that it's often difficult to see the "wood for the trees". What's more, it can be extremely difficult to get everyone in the team pulling in the same direction and focusing on the true essentials.

That's where Critical Success Factors can help. CSF's are the essential areas of activity that must be performed well if you are to achieve the mission, objectives or goals for your business or project.

By identifying your Critical Success Factors, you can create a common point of reference to help you direct and measure the success of your business or project

Dashboards in Custrack include the following:

  • Call Ratios
  • Sales Pipeline
  • Gross Profit
  • Support Calls
  • Category Calls

Setting Key Performance Targets

Setting targets for each of the above dashboards will enable management to critically view performance above all the critical success factors.  Setting call targets for employees according to their job function, will enable sales targets to be achieved and to keep customers happy by contacting them frequently enough.  Service calls can be managed to ensure that no service level agreement is exceeded,  Gross Profit can be monitored to ensure that quotes are not presented under cost rates.

If you are not already using the Custrack Dashboards, call us for a demonstration!

 
Contact Details

Ko-All Consultants (Pty) Ltd
P.O. Box 922 Jukskei Park 2153
http://www.custrack.com 		Office: 011-7042063
Alett du Plessis - 0826506808 - alett@custrack.com
Kobus du Plessis - 0836535799 - kobus@custrack.com

Newsletter Design: Colette Hugo  -  0823256093, colette@custrack.com
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