You are what your numbers say you are!

Bill Parcells noted NFL coach when asked about his team replied, ” You are what your record says you are.” Well, the record in retail is based on your numbers, but the question is which numbers matter. The newer POS systems have added Dashboards to provide ready access to KPI’s. Key Performance Indicators are those key numbers  that provide insights into critical numbers. The typical numbers you see on a daily report are top line sales day, month and year with year over year comparisons. The number of sales, gross margin, gross margin % and returns.

The problem with dashboards is that the information is easy get and view but does the information promote actions that lead to decisions that drive profit. In some cases yes, but most cases it requires getting deeper into the numbers to get to the core numbers that can drive profit. Tomorrow I will provide some insight into an actual case study of one of my clients and how together we developed a Key Indicator spreadsheet that provide some great insights. My parting questions is, what key numbers do you think are critical and should be looked at on a regular basis.