Dashboards

If You Can’t Measure You Can’t Manage

By

Graham Knight

Managing Director

iuvare ltd

iuvare limited - Business Performance Improvement

Agenda

•What Is A Dashboard?•Where Should You Start?•Why Do You Need One?•What Do You Measure?•What Types Of Presentation?•What Should You Avoid? •What Does It Cost?•Some Examples•The Benefits•Summary

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What Is A Dashboard?

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A means of measuring where you are with any aspect of your business preferably in “the blink of an eye”.

Also referred to as “Balanced Scorecard” or “Key Performance Indicators” (KPIs)

Where Should You Start?

With a Business Plan

“…fail to plan you plan to fail…”

•Understand what you are expecting from your business•Determine what has to happen and by when•Identify the key drivers for your business

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Why Do You Need One?

• As a business grows there becomes just too many plates to spin

• Avoids surprises – the bigger the business the bigger the numbers (less wiggle room)

• Leads to more formality• Delegates responsibility – ties into personal

objective setting and appraisals• Enables you to “compare and contrast” – by

looking at trends for example• Assists in “What If” forecasting

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What Do You Measure?

• Financials (revenues, costs, profit, creditors, debtors, gross margin…)

• Pipeline (prospects/suspects/funnel…)

• Sales (conversions, order values, type…)

• Marketing (leads, source…)

• Product/service profiles

• Manufacturing (volume, waste, quality…)

• Fulfilment (volumes, complaints, profitability…)

• People factors (training days, utilisation..)

• Inventory (value, slow moving stock…)

• Solvency (cash vs creditors vs debtors)

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What Should You Avoid?

Paralysis through analysis!!

Essentially all information should be easy to record and extract.

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What Types Of Presentation?

• Line Charts

• Histograms

• Pie Charts

• Tables

• Kivigraphs

• Traffic Lights

• Signposts

• Business on a page

• …and variations on the theme...

…more benefit if it is “rolling”.

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Some Examples

• A group of numbers can be transformed…

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Fees £sSep Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug

Actual £s 117,009 114,840 81,277 77,363 86,256 91,961 82,039 95,098 100,023 115345 101,313 111,999Target £s 115,000 115,000 85,000 85,000 85,000 92,944 92,944 92,944 98,944 98,944 98,944 103,611

Some Examples

• Line Charts

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Some Examples

• Histograms

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Some Examples

• Histograms

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Some Examples

• Tables

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What Does It Cost?

• Like most things in life you get out what you put in

• Use data from your existing systems

• Use data that is collected anyway

• Use excel to produce graphs (ODBC from Sage)

• There may be some measurements to put in place

• Always consider the ROI

• Typically takes me 2 hours for a £1m T/O business once dashboard is in place

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The Benefits

• Reduced surprises as the dashboard evolves

• Introduces measurement in a visual way

• Changes your culture from fire fighting to fire prevention

• Gives focus to achieving the key objectives of the business

• Introduces more accountability

• Staff become more aware and so make more informed decisions

• Makes the business function more as a team

• If done correctly the business performance will improve

• Helps you make more informed decisions

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The Summary

•Start with a Business Plan•Define all the aspects of the business you

intend to measure•Define where the data comes from •Ensure that the data is easy to collect•Ensure the measurement is regularly

reviewed at a senior level

…whatever you measure gets better!!

iuvare limited - Business Performance Improvement

Graham Knight

Managing Director

iuvare ltd

Email: grahamknight@iib.ws

Website: www.iuvare.co.uk

Mobile: 0771 866 1890

iuvare limited - Business Performance Improvement