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