Download ProServe Tech Times Bi-Monthly Newsletter ISSUE 02 OCT/NOV 2014 this issue

ProServe Tech Times
Bi-Monthly Newsletter
ISSUE 02 OCT/NOV 2014
this issue
Measuring Your Marketing P.2
Finding the Right Data P.3
Network KPI’s P.4
Upcoming Events P.5
Message From the President
Back from an incredible trip to Inforum
ProServe’s President Julie Zindle Writes an
open letter to our customers:
Read It Here: Letter to our Customers
Marketing Analytics P.2
Fostering REAL Business Intelligence
Whether by owner’s intuition, or by structured processes, measurements are a crucial part of maintaining and
growing a successful business. What is measured and how the measurements are communicated are major drivers in establishing company culture and results. Author Michael LeBouef is credited with the much quoted mantra, “The things that get measured are the things that get done.” He also expanded this statement to “the things
that get measured and REWARDED are the things that get done WELL.”
Businesses spend lots of money trying to attract new customers. But
how do you know if all of your time
and effort are paying off?
Learn about the best ways to measure the success of your marketing.
What are the Key Indicators for a
successful marketing plan?
In this issue of our newsletter we provide an opportunity for you to review a few measurement concepts to apply
to your business. Although there are many definitions and reference names for Key Performance Indicators (KPI),
Creating the Right KPI’s P.3
R. John Rehr states; “Key Performance indicators are quantifiable measurements, agreed to beforehand that
reflect the critical success factors of an organization. They will differ depending on the organization.” This definition supports the concept that measurements need to be consistent (agreed to beforehand) and predictive
(reflect critical success factors).
Getting access to KPI’s is the easy part. There are a plethora of “analytic” tools available in the market, all contributing to our “dashboard overload.” The hard part, and of course the most important, is sorting through the “big
data” and mining the information that can drive change and results for your organization. With the help of the
right tools and our professional micro-vertical expertise, ProServe Solutions is the perfect partner to help you
foster REAL business intelligence!
A quick search on the internet for
KPI tools will bring back an astounding number of results. The dashboard mania that has hit the technology industry makes it simple to
have standard KPI’s at your fingertips.
But are they the right KPI’s? Once
you have the indicators how do we
drive change in our performance?
Beyond Sales: The Business KPI's of Marketing ROI
Newman, Daniel. Beyond Sales: The Business KPI's of Marketing ROI Forbes. Retrieved September 30, 2014, from http://www.forbes.com/sites/nielnewman/2014/06/24/beyondBy this point we all know that at the end of the day
the top priority of marketing should be to create
customers for the business– whatever the business
may be.
As a marketer, you live in a world that is adding channels on seemingly a daily basis, while at the same
time the consumers’ attention are being drawn in a
hundred different directions making it increasingly
difficult for any brand (especially those without an
endless budget) to stand out.
In the end the mission is sales, well at least that is the
myth, but I think we would all agree that when we
invest in marketing we seek a return. More times
than not those upstairs that write the checks and
control the budget want marketing to drive more
sales. But in a world of short attention spans and
unprecedented options are there key performance
indicators (KPI’s) that should be attached to marketing and social media efforts that span beyond just
customer acquisition and sales?
The short answer is yes, there are, and while these
new KPI’s should, by no means, replace the onus on
marketers to create customers and revenue, they do
measure different aspects of a business that are
equally, if not more important, for long term performance than their traditional counterparts. In the
vastly evolving landscape of marketing, the new KPI’s
must also reflect the following:
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Customer Retention: How successful are we in
keeping customers and building repeat business?
Customer Satisfaction: Are our customers happy? How well are we doing in getting them to
share their satisfaction to build word of mouth?
Product Improvements/Optimization: Is our
community driving ideas to help us innovate?
Whether products or services, do we have our
finger on the pulse and how much are our customers helping us accomplish this?
Employee Productivity: Does the company
adequately equip and empower employees to
succeed?
customer satisfaction.
For instance, Zappos, from their earliest days, have
set out to build the ultimate customer experience.
With almost a “Never-say-no-to-a-reasonable (or
unreasonable) customer demand,” their customer
experience teams will do whatever it takes to maintain a happy customer.
I suppose a marketer may say that is a customer
service expense, but I would beg to differ. When an
unhappy customers’ situation is flipped on its head by
a small expense approved by an empowered customer service professional what you have is an investment in your customer; to create and keep them, and
that is without a doubt a marketing investment. Furthermore, the cost of replacing a customer is 6x the
cost of retention, so why wouldn’t we want to keep
our customers happy?
Another great example is the way companies such as
Dell and Starbucks use online communities to drive
product development and innovation. While one
company is a technology company and the other is a
beverage company, both have invested substantially
in building their brand evangelists by making their
most loyal customers ideas and input feel welcome
and sometimes even utilized in their product optimization.
While Steve Jobs may have been known for never
putting his ear to the street and just “knowing” what
his customers want, he was the exception and not the
rule. Companies that can find ways to listen and
adapt to their customer feedback can build a new
type of loyalty that translates into dollar returns. The
challenge again is how do you attribute that to a
campaign? Is it even possible?
Where Marketing ROI Is Heading?
In the future Marketing ROI will have to spread its
wings to move beyond just customer creation and
measurable dollar value returns. However, I want to
be clear when I say that doesn’t mean those activities
aren’t important, because they are.
Employee Retention: Are we creating a brand
that employees are proud of and a place of work
where they can grow personally and professionally?
Happier Customers, Better Products, Satisfied Employees
The creation and continued evolution of metrics that
measure the baseline value of more satisfied customers, the involvement of a brand’s community in product development and the investment in more satisfied
employees will all become anchor points in the process of building a marketing strategy.
The business of the future should not simply measure
their marketing by the dollar value returns that it
creates. If you look at the numerous studies that have
shown the value of a satisfied customer or the return
on stronger employee morale, you would have to be
crazy to dismiss these items when determining the
success of a marketing program.
Perhaps the biggest difference will be the way will be
the way smarter businesses big and small will apply
the new marketing KPI’s to enhance their marketing
24/7/365 rather than placing a hyperawareness on
the peaks and valleys created by a traditional marketing strategy, which is dependent on campaigns
that do little to build loyalty within the brands’ stakeholders.
The challenge that remains is how, or perhaps if it is
possible to measure the direct value of investing in
Pro Business Intelligence
The Pro Business Intelligence (Pro BI)
solution takes data collected and
stored in your ERP and turns it into
meaningful information that you can
use in your daily activities. With information in accessible reports and
analysis, you can make better and
more timely business decisions. It
gives you the means to understand
the "why" behind your business performance.
Pro BI delivers an affordable and
fully integrated set of business intelligence capabilities so you can perform your own multidimensional
analysis, create reports and easily
share the results to make better
decisions. Novice to advanced users
across your company can explore
large volumes of summarized data in
seconds.
Business Intelligence in All Areas
• Accounts Receivable History
• Customer Returns
• General Ledger Details
• Inventory Adjustments
• Inventory Turns
• Quotes
• Inventory Value & Aging
• New Customer Accounts
• Open Accounts Payable
• Open Accounts Receivable
• Open Purchase Orders
• Open Sales Orders
• Purchase Order History
• Sales Analysis
• Sales Order Booking
Are Your Performance Indicators Driving Results?
Is what you are measuring now working? Could there
be better indicators to predict business success?
Take a few minutes now and consider your measurements. Think about what you are measuring and how
that is communicated. ProServe customers vary
greatly in their general practices for measurement
methods in depth and detail. In this article we will
explore concepts presented by distribution expert,
Grant W. Howard, GWCO, and in addition list a few
basic scorecard measurements applicable across all
industries.
Grant W. Howard presents analyzing by using three
groupings: Approach, Capabilities, and Breadth/
Depth.
Approach:
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Dashboard
KPI’s
Metrics
Scorecards
Report Cards
Capabilities:
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Goal Seeking/Management by Objective
Exceptional Reporting/Management by
Exception
Summary, Detail, Drill Down
Performance Drivers
By Rank, By Category, By…
Breadth and Depth:
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Warehouse, Segments, Customer, Vendor,
Product, Employee
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Sales, Gross, Costs, Net
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Quadrants
Improvement, Reduction, Year to Year
Service, On-Time, Accuracy, Defections
Understanding the big picture from the strategic plan,
management’s objectives/priorities, and/or the
team’s desired results will help establish what to
measure. Grant W. Howard recommends the following steps:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
Management, Objectives, Team
Plan. Execute. Measure.
Standard and Correct Formula
Review Data
Benchmark in the Industry
Take Action (compliance, maintain, improve) –
Drive Results
Plan. Execute. Measure.
The essential components are accuracy, consistency,
and efficiency (ACE). Howard goes on to describe that
if you plan and execute you will get performance,
when you plan, execute, and measure you end up
with results.
The Financial reports will provide critical measurements such as Sales, Cost of Goods Sold, Gross Margin, Cost/Expenses, Net Income, Assets, Liabilities,
Net Worth, Asset Turnover, Return on Assets, Owners
Equity, Financial Leverage, and Return on Net Worth.
Longevity can be maintained by using measurements
such as Customer Experience consisting of Fill Rate,
On Time Delivery, Accuracy, Issue Resolution, Fair
Pricing, and % of Lost Sales/COGS; Vendor Performance consisting of Fill Rate, On Time Delivery, Accuracy, Issue Resolution, Pricing Accuracy, and Lead
time variance; Employee Productivity consisting of
Sales per Employee, Gross Margin per Employee,
Payroll per Employee, and Personnel Productivity
Ratios; and lastly with Owner Happiness consisting of
measures such as Return on Equity in Net Profit,
Return on Assets, Net Worth/Financial Leverage, and
Growth Potential and Realization.
Growth Factors
Immediate Goals, Long Term Goals, Industry
Standard
Growth can be measured in both new and existing
customer growth with customer segments, products
and offerings. Key Performance Indicators for growth
include Growth Potential Index, Cash Cycle (Days),
Cash to Current Liabilities, Defensive Interval (Days)
and Sales to Working Capital.
The overall idea behind Grant Howard’s teaching, and
many other experts in the industry, is that just looking
at KPI’s is not enough. Creating the right KPI’s and
having a plan of action behind each is the key to allow
you to drive business results based on the information you are viewing.
Microsoft’s Balanced Scorecard
General Business Practices for Measuring:
Financial Metrics:
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Sales Growth by Segment
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Customer or Product Profitability
% of Revenue from new Products,
Services, or Customers
% of Unprofitable customers
Revenue per Employee
Cost Reduction
Working Capital Ratio
Asset Utilization throughput
Economic Value Added
Customer Metrics:
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Market Share by Dollars and Units
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Customer Acquisition
% of Key Customers within Target
Market
Customer Retention
Customer Profitability
Customer Satisfaction
Operations Metrics:
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Product and Service Quality
Labor Efficiency
Purchase Price Variance Reduction
Process cycle time
Process Cost reduction
Post Sale Service
Learning and Growing
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Employee Turnover, Annual, Voluntary, Key Personnel %
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Employee Satisfaction
Employee Productivity
Training Budget/Expenditure per Employee
Monitoring You Network Performance Indicators
ProServe Solutions is proud to be a partner of Spiceworks.
it’s easy to get the alerts you want when you
need them!
Spiceworks is the industry leading Network monitoring tool.
Free to download and use, Spiceworks can be configured to measure every important Network KPI to help
determine what can be done to optimize your network and reduce your risk of security breaches and
device failures.
Monitor Everything on Your Network
Monitor & Manage Email
Keep track of everything that’s happening on your
network – from when a user installs a piece of software they shouldn’t have, to when your printer’s
toner level gets low! Spiceworks lets you monitor and
receive alerts on all the network happenings you care
about most!
From the message load on your Exchange server
to the size of your users’ inboxes – Spiceworks
provides a thorough overview that’ll keep you in
step with your email health and usage. You can
even monitor, add and edit Rackspace hosted
email accounts right from Spiceworks!
Analyze Bandwidth Usage
Curious as to how much bandwidth a device
or router has been using? Spiceworks lets
you quickly access charts for all of your
network interfaces – so you’ll know in a
snap what’s consuming all your bandwidth!
Real-Time Windows Performance Monitoring
Get real-time performance monitoring of all
of your Windows devices - from overall
health to performance counters like disk
and processor queue lengths.
Create Custom Monitors in Seconds
Easily set monitors for anything you like – from how
much disc space a device has left to whether or not a
server is online. If Spiceworks collects info on it, you
can monitor it!
Is your website working for you?
Google Analytics is a powerful Free website analytic tool that can help your business determine the effectiveness of your website. Using the information provided by Google Analytics, ProServe can help recommend changes to your website that will drive the exposure you are looking for!
Google Analytics features include:
The Alerts You Want When & Where You Want
Them
Whether you need to see a chart or graph of your
overall network state; a detailed alert specific to a
single device; or would like to receive an email the
next time a user downloads a specific application –
• Data visualization tools including a dashboard, scorecards and motion charts, which display changes in
data over time.
• Segmentation for analysis of subsets, such as conversions.
• Custom reports.
• Email-based sharing and communication.
• Integration with other Google products, such as AdWords, Public Data Explorer and Website Optimizer.
Professional Development
The FACTS User Group
Every other month the FACTS User
Group holds a meeting to discuss
different topics chosen by the members. The idea is to share information and business practices with
other users, to increase the effectiveness of the FACTS product.
Upcoming Events
FACTS User Group
Date: October 16th, 2014
Topic: Credit and Service Hold, Open Order Review
Time: 9:00—10:30 AM (EST)
Location: ProServe Solutions, 2402 North Forest Rd. Getzville, NY 14068
Or GoToMeeting Online
Summary of Last Meeting: Using Notes in FACTS
At the end of each session we reserve time so that the attendees
may ask any questions they might
have to the ProServe FACTS expert
attending that meeting. This is an
opportunity for FREE training!
ProServe Tech Times
ISSUE 02 OCT/NOV 2014
What If You Could Wednesday
Date: Novemeber12th, 2014
Topic: What if you could produce REAL business Intelligence
Time: 12:00 PM (EST)
Location: GoToMeeting Online
Summary of Last Meeting: What if you could feel secure about your data including security
setting option review in your ERP, Network, Hardware, and Back Up
Link to Last Meeting Recording: Click Here
ProServe Solutions, LLC
2402 N. Forest Rd
Getzville NY 14068
716.635.5080 ph
716.635.5099 fax
www.proserve-solutions.com