Glossary

Customer Sales Dashboard for a Distribution Company

Written by Nils R. | Jan 26, 2021 8:00:00 AM
What is a Customer Sales Dashboard for a Distribution Company ? Customer sales dashboards are considered market analysis tools and are used by sales executives to analyze sales performance metrics. Some of the main functionality in this type of dashboard is that it provides six visualizations for KPI analysis: 1) Sales by sales manager, 2) Gross margin by product, 3) Actual versus budgeted product sales, 4) Monthly revenue trend, 5) Accounts receivable (AR) by customer, and 6) Top 5 customer sales. You find an example of this type of dashboard below. Purpose of Customer Sales Dashboards Distribution businesses use Customer Sales Dashboards to provide self-service analysis that enables easy monitoring of customer sales metrics. When used as part of good business practices in an sales department, a company can improve its marketing and positioning strategies, and it can reduce the chances that sales managers miss the big picture because they only view transaction reports. Customer Sales Dashboard Example Here is an example of a Customer Sales Dashboard for a distribution company. [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="2560"] Example of a Customer Sales Dashboard for a Distribution Company[/caption] You can find hundreds of additional examples here Who Uses This Type of Dashboard ? The typical users of this type of dashboard are: Chief Revenue Officers and sales managers. Other Dashboard s Often Used in Conjunction with Customer Sales Dashboards Progressive sales departments sometimes use several different Customer Sales Dashboards, along with  product sales dashboards, sales transaction reports, accounts receivables (AR) reports, profit & loss reports, inventory dashboards and other management and control tools. Where Does the Data for Analysis Originate From? The Actual (historical transactions) data typically comes from management systems or enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems like: Microsoft Dynamics 365 (D365) Finance, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central (D365 BC), Microsoft Dynamics AX, Microsoft Dynamics NAV, Microsoft Dynamics GP, Microsoft Dynamics SL, Sage Intacct, Sage 100, Sage 300, Sage 500, Sage X3, SAP Business One, SAP ByDesign, Acumatica, Netsuite and others. In analyses where budgets or forecasts are used, the planning data most often originates from in-house Excel spreadsheet models or from professional corporate performance management (CPM/EPM) solutions. What Tools are Typically used for Reporting, Planning and Dashboards? Examples of business software used with the data and ERPs mentioned above are:
  • Native ERP report writers and query tools
  • Spreadsheets (for example Microsoft Excel)
  • Corporate Performance Management (CPM) tools (for example Solver)
  • Dashboards (for example Microsoft Power BI and Tableau)
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