| l Dashboards are pictures of spreadsheets used by | | | | information about the KPI activities within that store. |
| executive managers to visually identify around five key | | | | Once the merchandise and store displays have been |
| performance indicators. Dashboards have gauges, like | | | | checked by the area manager, the next logical step is |
| the speedometer in a car, and graphs and colour, to | | | | to look at the POS (Point of Sale) reports to identify |
| draw attention to areas of strong and weak | | | | poor areas of performance. And here comes the |
| performance of each retail store and the organisation | | | | surprise! - Not a single POS system is able to tell |
| as a whole. They may display: sales per hour, items | | | | managers which Salespeople performed better than |
| per sale, average sale, conversion rate, and wage to | | | | others. Why, simply they do not have a time sheet |
| sales ratio – at the store, regional, and national | | | | (roster) attached to Sales Targets so have no way of |
| level. | | | | calculating predicted or actual individual sales goals. |
| The purpose of the Dashboard is to enable executive | | | | Some attempts use spreadsheets to figure out |
| managers to effectively communicate strategy and | | | | individual sales goals but spreadsheets fall over. They |
| objectives to area managers who then reinterpret the | | | | inaccurately produce goals as they do not weight fast |
| strategy into actions for each store manager. | | | | and slow periods of the day. They are not connected |
| Ultimately it is the Salespeople on the shop floor who | | | | to a dynamic time sheet – meaning if the roster |
| carry out the activities that satisfy the objectives of | | | | changes the goals do not, but should. Spreadsheets |
| the company. | | | | take time to copy, past, edit, modify, and correct |
| Sophisticated Dashboards allow executives to | | | | mistakes. And there is no feedback system for |
| produce ‘what if’ scenarios, save them, | | | | comparing actual performance – compared to |
| and send them down the line to their area managers. | | | | everyone on the shift. |
| But mostly, there is an upward reporting of numbers | | | | While an executive manager can see that a particular |
| and a downward communicating of strategy - | | | | store is underperforming, because a KPI is lower than |
| meaning that the statistics are lost at the individual | | | | the other stores, they cannot determine who in the |
| Salesperson level. | | | | store is underperforming on the same KPI. |
| For example, an executive dashboard may show | | | | So what’s the big deal? If you cannot |
| each store’s ‘sales per hour’ KPI | | | | determine low KPI’s at the individual |
| (Key Performance Indicator) compared to each other | | | | Salesperson level in retail then you cannot improve |
| store but it does not show each Salesperson’s | | | | individual sales performance based on statistics |
| ‘sales per hour’ compared to each | | | | – and dashboards are pretty pictures about |
| other Salesperson within the store. Therefore it is | | | | statistics - which we interpret as instructions for |
| impossible for the executive to know – at the | | | | changing behaviors. Dashboards cause executive |
| individual Salesperson level – how to improve | | | | mangers to want to change behaviors across the |
| sales performance. | | | | organisation but, as you can see, they do not help front |
| Particular to the retail industry sales are made on the | | | | line store managers change behaviors at the individual |
| shop floor. Not by telephone or meetings, or online | | | | staff level. |
| purchase. While branded merchandise and store | | | | Effectively increasing sales in retail – by focusing |
| design attracts customers to the shop it is almost | | | | on the sales skills and behaviors of each individual |
| always the Salesperson who makes the sale. But in | | | | salesperson, requires a sophisticated, easy to use, |
| almost all cases Salespeople have no individual daily | | | | web-enabled system, that communicates the |
| sales target because there is no system in place to | | | | objectives of the organisation to each individual |
| generate objectives, goals, targets at the individual | | | | salesperson – on a level playing field. Such a |
| sales level. | | | | system will report both up and down the organisation |
| This represents a problem because area managers, | | | | so that staff at every level can understand the |
| who have been tasked by executive managers to | | | | objectives of the organisation clearly, statistically, and |
| improve sales performance, have no further | | | | fairly. |