10 Things You Need to Build A Next Generation Business Management Solution

Traditional business management solutions assist with the collection, validation and analysis of dealer financial statements to assess the financial health of individual dealerships as well as identify financially related trends within an OEM’s dealer network. Typically, static standard monthly reports are generated, analyzed at corporate/field level and then distributed to the dealer network. These reports have to travel through a corporate bottleneck in order to pass information to dealers. Insight is not only lost in translation, but becomes dated and lacks true value.

Due to the current economic climate, competition is fiercer than ever, and it is more important than ever for dealers to have the right tools and information in order to compete in the marketplace and improve profitability. Now is the time to challenge the philosophy of traditional business management reporting, so OEMs can arm their dealers and field staff with the financial reporting, analysis and forecasting tools required to make critical business decisions. Building a next generation business management solution makes this possible.

FROM REPORTING TO INTELLIGENCE

As you enter a new year, with new strategic plans and goals in place, you need a performance management solution that integrates financial data with operational performance. In order for the OEM to gain market share while ensuring dealer profitability, measuring dealer financial performance and identifying opportunities for improvement is key. With a next generation business management solution, OEMs have an opportunity to provide their dealers and field staff with the intelligence they need to succeed.

Top 10 Building Blocks of a Next Generation Business Management Solution:

1. Real-time Analysis
   Traditional business management solutions provide batch reports and static information; typically 30-60 days after a dealer submitted their financial statement to the OEM. This causes data to be dated and therefore, less relevant in such a fast paced market. Real-time analysis means results evolve as individual dealers enter their data. A next generation business management solution will allow users to submit data with the ability to produce multiple standard report templates (in PDF and Excel) based on current data, without having to wait for all dealers to submit their data. This eliminates lag, makes data more relevant and actionable, and speeds up available analysis by about 30 days.
   
   
2. Dynamic Criteria
   In the past, business management followed a one size fits all approach to reporting, which helped some, but not all. A next generation solution will allow users to select a criterion that provides the most relevant benchmark to their business. Traditional business management reports use benchmarks based on average performance (such as region, zone and district average). But who wants to be average? A next generation solution lets users customize composite groups so a high performing dealer can compare itself against other top performing dealers.
   
   
3. Interactive Dashboards
   Traditional solutions are lacking a concise, intuitive data display that should bring performance data to life. Next generation solutions should use an interactive dashboard to take dynamic criteria and display it in a way so users can quickly understand and identify key issues. The dashboard is intended to put a lot of information at the user’s fingertips, it should be interactive in the sense that a user can choose exactly what KPIs they would like to see and how they would like it displayed.
   
4. Quantifying Opportunity
   Next generation solutions that allow a user to select the relevant benchmarks for their business will also need to feature a tool that calculates what’s in it for them. In order to do this, each key performance indicator (KPI) should be compared to at least three composite averages while the dashboard calculates annualized profit opportunity relative to the selected comparative group average. In a next generation system, users are afforded the opportunity to understand how a change to their business will impact their business.
   
   
5. Role-based Security
   An entirely new concept for a next generation solution, role-based security allows a single solution to display different types of information to many different types of users based on their role or authority to access it, helping to protect the confidentiality of financial data. Role-based security allows for synergies across the organization by involving personnel from corporate, field and dealership staffs.
   
   
6. Integrated Budget Tool
   Next generation solutions will add to traditional budget tools by allowing for the addition of dynamic planning and forecasting capabilities, with the ability to automatically add actual results. This will allow dealers to set their budgets and targets while tracking performance against KPIs over time.
   
   
7. Custom Report Generation
   As business needs change; users need flexibility to create custom reports. A built-in tool should empower users to create ad hoc queries using any data submitted by dealers, enabling them to generate their own specific reports at any time.
   
   
8. Global Capabilities
   Traditional business management has not provided global support. Your next generation solution should support multi-lingual and multi-currency customization as your business grows into new regions.
   
   
9. Deep Analysis
   Next generation solutions offer the ability, at the dashboard level, to see trends and possible problems with KPIs. If you want to determine precisely what’s behind those trends and KPIs, you should have the ability to drill down to see more detail. With drill down capabilities, users can conduct a deeper analysis on a particular financial account to determine exactly where the improvements need to be made, what they should be, and their effect on profitability.
   
   
10. Proven Support
    A business management solution is only as good as the partner that supports it. You need a partner with extensive experience in the auto industry that provides your organization with true business management expertise, and technical support 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

MUTUAL SUCCESS MEANS LASTING SUCCESS

A next generation business management solution is the foundation of success not only for the dealer, but can and should drive towards the mutual success of the OEM. There are dealers that achieve both top sales performance and high profitability. When an OEM identifies the characteristics of these dealerships through their KPIs, it can establish benchmarks for other dealerships to achieve top performance. Now a dealer and an OEM can work together to improve the dealership performance so both dealer and OEM win. This is a sustainable model for both OEM and dealers, because mutual success means lasting success.

To learn more about how you can upgrade your business management capabilities, contact URBAN SCIENCE