So, you’ve taken the next step for your business and automated your B2B business processes. What comes next?
To maximize the benefits of this decision, you’ll need to gain visibility into these transactions. This will help you better adapt to the ever-changing market and demand fluctuations, make faster decisions, and overall optimize your business processes.
Source: https://akshaykher.wordpress.com/2015/08/18/how-to-start-a-career-in-analytics-for-free-3/
What should I desire from a metrics analysis?
Having access to all this valuable information can keep you ahead of the competition in the market. This is an information that you can act upon, otherwise known as metrics analysis (‘analytics’).
Assuming you have quick and easy access to them, these analyses can be an essential pathway to increasing your business’s efficiency. However, they are not simply ready for use – you will need to invest in your metrics analysis capabilities – many companies tend to overlook the importance of this part of the process. Studies also show that top performers in the market are more familiar with and willing to integrate the power of analytics into their business.
To know what to expect from metrics analysis, we suggest this little exercise. Imagine a transaction: in scenario A, you will be the supplier, and in scenario B, you will be the buyer. Each scenario comes with its own set of questions, as follows:
Scenario A
- Was the order submitted by your customer as expected?
- Was the order invoice issued?
- Do I have customers who are consistently late in payments? If so, who are they? Who are the on-time payers?
- Which customers contribute to the holiday season sales surplus?
- Do I receive many requests for changes in purchase orders? If so, from which customers do they come?
- Which customers have seen a decrease or increase in order volume in the past year?
Scenario B
- When will my supplier deliver the order?
- Have there been any delivery delays reported?
- Am I receiving delivery notes on time? What is the percentage of such cases?
- What are the most common types of documents exchanged with supplier A, supplier B, etc.?
- What is the number of transactions exchanged with my suppliers?
The answers to these questions can become a real treasure in your hands, allowing you to:
- Be prepared even for the unique scenarios that occur quite rarely but can still impact your relationship with customers and bring unwanted additional costs;
- Direct your business more towards top performers – based on the insights highlighted by metric analysis;
- Collaborate with as many business partners as possible, as you now have the ability to see the performance of all members of your business network;
- Negotiate better with your business partners in the future – you can use the information provided by metric analysis as evidence. For example, you can ask for better prices as a buyer if you know that you frequently place orders with them, or you can request to collaborate on even more levels by highlighting past top performance as a supplier.
In other articles on the blog, we will provide details about the existing types for such metric analyses that you can use to obtain valuable information for your business.
