Most Malaysian businesses do not place a strong emphasis on tracking business metrics. It is either that they have difficulties in acquiring necessary information or find the format of acquiring the needed details too time consuming and hard to understand without the help of software. These metrics are standard of measurement that can determine whether the business performance is improving or deteriorating in its efforts. There are local software that generate analysis reports but only a few of them do it comprehensively. It takes a lot to run a successful business and strategic decisions should be made only after thorough analysis on crucial aspects such as the sales and financial results.
As all industries get more competitive, it is essential to know what can be maintained, improved or need more attention in the business. Being able to gather and analyse quantifiable data enable us to identify the business' strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. This allows business owners to strategise frameworks and make rational decisions without bias. Businesses are always finding new ways to improve the operations process and product quality to gain competitive advantage. With that said, business reports and analysis should be accurate and up-to-date because bad numbers are usually worse than no numbers.
These analysis reports can also be used to assess various areas including total sales revenue, average sale value, staff performance and customer retention. This can help to identify and cut costs that do not add value to the business or customers. Despite a good amount of customer data is never utilised by some businesses, it can show great insights on purchasing patterns or determine customer dissatisfaction on possible aspects. Implementing software on a business' operations process smoothens and simplifies the collection and analysis of tracked metrics which can be very time consuming as well as difficult to interpret. Though, one should not overly focus on the metrics, especially on customer data, without considering external factors that may affect the service quality and business performance.
The benefits of tracking business metrics do not only stop there as this can be used to obtain vast insights on staff performance too. Business owners will be able to monitor staff performance and determine their level of productivity or even use the metrics to set up respective Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for individual staff to ensure that the business is always on the right track. Of course, these metrics need to be communicated effectively in a way that is useful to the staff so that they can seek improvement on weaker areas and enhance their strengths. Relevant metrics can also determine if a business or staff has good time management and if all current projects are in the green.
It is time that Malaysian businesses put more weigh on tracking business metrics with software not only for its helpfulness and convenience but also for the wealth of insights that one can get to fully utilise all resources and achieve the optimum potential of a business. In this era, data is extremely valuable and while it is hard and time consuming to be gathered, this problem can be solved by simply implementing the right software with all-inclusive analytic reports generation into business operations. With accurate and up-to-the-minute metrics, business owners will be able to make informed decisions and strategise for the next step.