Collaborative creation of a Sales Report
Collaborative Reporting: Building More, Faster.
Overview:
Our team was tasked with creating a report to help the Sales team visualize and prioritize customer opportunities. However, the requirements were initially diverse and unspecific where the phrase: "we want to be able to see everything" often came up.
Key Challenges:
Metric Uncertainty: The team struggled to agree on the most relevant metrics to identify opportunities to prioritise.
Data Consistency: Inconsistencies in data definitions and availability hindered the analysis.
Overcoming Obstacles:
To address these challenges, we adopted an iterative approach:
Rapid Prototyping: We quickly built a prototype to gather user feedback and refine the chart's purpose.
Aligning with Strategic Goals: We focused on the sales team's key objectives: Growth and Gross Margin.
Data Normalization: We used relative metrics like YoY% and Gross Margin to ensure fair comparisons between customers.
Visual Clarity: We implemented high and low limits to prevent data clustering and improve the chart's readability.
Ways of working:
Involve Users Early and Often: User feedback is crucial in shaping the final product.
Prioritize Clear Communication: Effective communication is essential to avoid misunderstandings and delays.
Iterate and Adapt: Be flexible and willing to adjust your approach as the project evolves.
By overcoming these challenges, we successfully delivered a quadrant chart that provides valuable insights to the sales team. This tool empowers them to identify high-potential customers, allocate resources effectively, and drive business growth.
Figure 1. Illustration of the Quadrant Chart by Product
Key sales stats on the left, a product quadrant chart (growth vs. gross margin) on the right.
(For confidentiality reasons, the report page is a replica using data from Microsoft’s sample database: AdventureWorks)
