The store was selling 25% less than expected in defiance of the demand planning model so carefully implemented in the business. Executives and managers questioned the validity of their dashboards based on their apparent miscalculations. “How could this be?”, “Is the data being fed correctly?”, “Check the algorithms!!!”.
I am a strong advocate for data-based decision-making. That is my profession and my skill. I teach businesses to rely more on data than intuition. But that is not to say that I advocate not being thoroughly familiar with daily operations at the floor level. On the contrary, I advise my clients to marry their new dashboards with the discipline to be present across all levels of the organization. Your experience on the floor gives the dashboard indicators a better chance to be understood and consumed.
“Leadership and management by walking around will never lose its value and will never be replaced by dashboards. Data Analytics complements your daily walk through your operations.”
F. A. Barillas
If any of the managers had bothered to return to the retail floor and observed, they would have noticed the frustrated look on customers as they walked in. Later on, the number of customers, their arrival time, and their purchase amounts, would be factored into different KPIs displayed on dashboards. The drop in sales would be exactly calculated. But what would not be captured is the frustration of the customers that day.
The explanation for the drop in sales was simple. The new maintenance manager had rescheduled the repainting of a large section of the parking lot and building for that day. Several parking slots had been closed down and traffic was a mess around the store. Many customers left without attempting to find parking.
“The best Business Analysts have experience as Process Engineers”
Francisco A. Barillas, Principal Senior Consultant
My experience as an operator affirms my practice of understanding the processes of my client BEFORE attempting to build or correct any dashboards. The reason is simple: I have had enough bad painting days in my career to bury my attention exclusively on large datasets and statistical analyses.
Dashboards are an incredible tool for capturing and visualizing enormous amounts of data.
They work best when their users are intimately involved in their processes and spend time observing the real world.
Together, data analytics and good management can improve performance tremendously.
For more information about our services, email us at solutions@vectoraldata.com or directly to our senior partner at fbarillas@vectoraldata.com
