Successful business owners understand the key drivers for their business and regularly analyse data that impacts these drivers.

Analysis of real time information allows them to identify issues that are, or may, impact the operational or financial performance of their business and put in place strategies to address the issues before they become too big and costly.

Setting up a dashboard to monitor your key business drivers is an ideal way to keep your eye on the things that matter in your business.

Different industries will have specific drivers that they should monitor, including drivers such as:

• Quantity sold x sale price
• Productivity rates of staff
• Gross profit margin
• Labour costs as a % or revenue, or as a % of total costs
• % of quotes that are successful
• % of services/products delivered on time
• Profit per hectare
• Occupancy rates
• Vehicle operating costs per km/hour
• Inventory turnover

Whilst the above list is a small sample of key business drivers, the first step is to understand the key drivers in your business.

Once you understand them, you can set your systems up to capture the information you need to measure them against your forecasts, past performance and any industry benchmarks that are available.

If you would like assistance with any aspect of analysing the performance of your business, please contact our office.