Operational and administrative activities are very heavy when it comes to supermarket or hypermarket business, it becomes more complex in the case of multi branch entities. As a business owner it is very hard to get the key business performance indicators other than the typical financial figures such as total sales, cost of sales etc. Looking at only such narrowed financial numbers may not help an organization to run the business in a sustainable manner, and gain competitive edge in the market.

There are many other factors affecting or might affect the business in a longer run. There could be indicators on revenue leakages, operational loss, internal frauds, customer experience issues, dead stocks, pricing issues, staff performance etc. which are not easy to detect in a traditional reporting methods. However, data sitting digitally in their machines can tell lot many stories about all these factors.

We helped couple of retail business to understand their business in an entirely new way, the information which they should be knowing are precisely plotted on to their mobile devices which are accessible from anywhere. We created interactive dashboards using Microsoft Power BI connected with their Point of Sales and ERP systems. They became more aware of their business, decisions are made based on the data, and team meetings become more productive than earlier.

Power BI is becoming the most popular tool when it comes to data analytics and visualization. The excel like features, drag and drop development methods, cloud adoptions, competitive license cost, integrated AI power, interactive graphics etc. are pushing Microsoft Power BI to the front .

Its quick and easy data integration methods help to collect and consolidate data from various sources, reduce burden on maintaining multiple tools to maintain a data warehouse or intermediate storages. Many of our customers use more than 5 data sources from entirely different technologies in their dashboards.

The key performance indicators which every retail business owner should be interested to know are:

Sales per Square Foot – This is a quick way of comparison to know the business performance when they have multiple branches in various size. They can correlate it with the rental cost and help to take decision on locations. Also, they can give a generic goal measures to every branch managers, eg:- increase the sales per square foot by 20%, this can be applied to all locations irrespective of their shop size.

Customer retention – Returning customers are the indication of customer satisfaction. In a typical reporting, such information is ignored. In the executive dashboard, the customer retention is presented as a ratio figure along with monthly trend will help the business owners to understand the customer side view of their business.

Inventory turnover –Effective stock management is a critical element to make a retial business profitable.  Inventory turnover can be arrived by a formula – cost of goods sold / average inventory.

It give an idea about how much stock is used up in a given period, less the ratio indicate the risk of overstocking or dead stock.

Gross Margin Return on Investment

GMROI gives you the real value of your inventory. It tells you how much revenue your inventory has generated over a fixed period, which can help determine if your business is making a profit

Year Over Year Growth

Business owners want sustained growth over time. They want their venture to bring in more customers and increased revenue each year. Comparing the current year’s performance with the previous year’s records can help provide some insight.

If you see a downward trend in growth, you may need some remedial action to put the business back on the right track.