Manage the way you think

Want to have the information at your fingertips that you need to run your business?

Solarsoft CS1 gives you a top-down view of all your business-critical information, and backs it up with easy drill-down into the transaction details.   Pre-configured management dashboards, leading data analysis technology, and web-based reporting let you monitor the “heartbeat of your business” at all times.   That’s because Solarsoft CS1’s database was designed with the end goal in mind – to give you the vital information you need to run your business.

Do you have tools like these to make efficient decisions today?

Comments

[William C. Hastings, I.S.P., ITCP]

Stephen Few, founder of Perceptual Edge (www,perceptualedge.com), is considered one of the leading innovators in Business Analytics today. He is a strong advocate of the simpler is better approach to graphically repesenting business information for decision making.

Here is a link to his Spring newsletter where he presents compelling arguments about why pie charts are one of the worst ways to graphically present business data: http://www.perceptualedge.com/articles/visual_business_intelligence/our_fascination_with_all_things_circular.pdf

As Leonardo da Vinci said, "Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication"

Keep that in mind as you design your Business Intelligence dashboards. Enjoy the newsletter.

[William C. Hastings, I.S.P., ITCP]

"A picture is worth a thousand words".

We've all heard the saying and yet we still insist on producing pages upon pages of data in list form and converting that into Excel to produce more lists.

The reporting tool included in CS1 allows representation of information in graphical form making it easier to visualize your business situation and answer your key performance questions.

Would you like to know how well your business is performing with a glance on the screen at a picture instead of scanning pages of numbers?

[William C. Hastings, I.S.P., ITCP]

What are your key performance indicators and how do you define them?

First, you need to identify your primary corporate goals. These should be few and concise. Then you need to determine which metrics to watch that will support those goals.

Careful planning comes into play here. If your #1 goal is to increase contribution, monitoring contribution is not going to help as much as watching costs affecting contribution. Controlling those costs will drive higher contribution. Monitoring contribution alone shows us the result, not what we are really trying to control.

[William C. Hastings, I.S.P., ITCP]

You can't control what you don't measure, and you cannot improve what you don't control.

The pre-configured management scorecards that come with Solarsoft CS1 can be easily customized to meet your business needs. The supporting tool emulates the Balanced Scorecard approach originated by Dr. Robert Kaplan and Dr. David Norton. An overview of "Balanced Scorecard Basics" can be found on the internet at http://www.balancedscorecard.org/BSCResources/AbouttheBalancedScorecard/tabid/55/Default.aspx.

The goal is to match your key performance indicators with the goals and mission statement of your organization. Any information that is not being used to support the defined goals of the company is NOT a KPI.