Having the facts at your fingertips to improve cashflow

PARTNER FEATURE: Successful management of a modern auto retailer is often about understanding and acting on data. But I think we can all recognise the crucial difference between having access to lots of meaningless data and having the facts at your fingertips.

Left to manage themselves, managers are quite often reliant upon the many different systems within your dealership producing pages and pages of spreadsheets without adding anything meaningful to the management process or the bottom line. This is where a good business intelligence platform can prove vital.

Real time data

Within our Mazeinsight platform the working capital dashboard is an important management tool, giving operational executives access to real time data about the business and helping manage key indicators such as new and used stock, work in progress and debtors.

Jeff Hocking, regional director at Perrys, told us: “Mazeinsight’s working capital dashboard has become my first port of call for any information; it’s easy to navigate and gives me greater daily control.

“The export function’s flexibility allows me to instantly create any report, so the majority of my communication now stems from this function.”

One of the significant benefits of Mazeinsight is that it pulls data, in real time, from across the business and across different systems. It then presents all that information in one single view.

Unlike some other business intelligence software, it does much more than just provide a signpost to something that needs attention. The data is being held centrally for instant access allowing users to immediately drill down into the detail and quickly get to the heart of any flagged issues, without having to log into another system or go off in search of more information.

Tailored dashboards

And the highly visual dashboards can be tailored to each users’ specific needs and area of responsibility. This level of user-defined flexibility means operational managers can set their own default KPIs that are relevant to them, allowing them to track, monitor and manage what’s relevant to their specific function.

Successful dealer groups, such as Perrys, are using Mazeinsight on a daily basis. They can see real-time data, at any level, by group, by brand or at an individual site. The working capital dashboard clearly highlights what needs immediate attention – and, just as important, what’s coming down the line for the future and shouldn’t be ignored.

If you think your business would benefit from improved daily control or would like to learn more about Mazeinsight, call 020 7348 7600 to book a free demonstration.

By James Noble, managing director at Mazepoint