The AV MBA | Put Your Keys on the Dash!!!
Data Analytics
I seriously considered pursuing culinary as a profession in my early twenties. Instead, I ended up going to school for business and working in AV. You see the connection, right? Anyways, one of the terms that you’ll hear used with frequency in a professional kitchen is “mise en place.” This is roughly translated to, “everything in place.” In practice, it means that all the ingredients and tools needed for that day’s service are prepared and organized in advance. The last thing the cooks need to be doing in the middle of firing orders is running around looking for ingredients and prepping them.
I’m an avid user of a certain fitness app that tracks my daily steps, exercise, meals, calories, weight, etc. It allows me to set goals, track my progress and evaluate my results. Even more, it uses my data to adjust my targets to optimize my health and fitness. It’s intelligent!!! This is all done through my phone on an app and I can access it anywhere, anytime, in an easily digestible format. It has helped me immensely in improving my fitness level and it keeps me motivated and focused on my goals because using it has become a habit.
Data Dashboards
Business Intelligence (BI) tools are like the Swiss Army knives of the data world; they come with all sorts of gadgets and gizmos to slice, dice, and serve up data in digestible chunks. Imagine you’re a chef, but instead of a kitchen, you have a dashboard full of KPIs (Key Performance Indicators). These tools are your sous-chefs, helping you keep an eye on the business roast, making sure it’s cooking at the right temperature, and not burning to a crisp.
Now, tracking KPIs is like having a fitness tracker for your business. It tells you how many ‘steps’ your company has taken, how ‘fit’ your sales team is, and whether your marketing ‘diet’ is working. And just like a fitness tracker, you want a BI tool that doesn’t quit on you mid-jog. That’s where the top contenders come in, flexing their features like bodybuilders at a data gym.
There are many options to consider, like Datapad, Geckoboard, Grow and—of course—Salesforce. Each has their own particular area of focus and strength. Some are more visual, while others are more focused on raw data analysis. It all depends on your unique needs.
I personally use Microsoft Power BI to track most of my KPI’s. As a category manager for DVLED, I can see things like sales or volume by customer, product, vendor or date range, and mix and match any or all of them to get real-time feedback on how the business is doing across the category. It is constantly running in the background, and I can access it in a matter of seconds at any time for quick, actionable insights. Ten years ago, I would’ve had to run multiple reports and import them into a spreadsheet to access this type of business data. It was time consuming and extremely limited in scope and function. Today, I have all this information easily viewable on a super-cool looking dashboard interface. It has been a complete game changer and time saver.
So, whether you’re a data analyst or a business owner who still thinks Excel is cutting-edge, there’s a BI tool out there that can help you track your KPIs and benchmark your progress. It’s like having a crystal ball, but instead of vague predictions, you get clear, actionable insights. And who knows, with the right BI tool, you might just find the secret ingredient to your business success recipe. Bon Appétit, data chefs!
Want more business development advice? Check out Tom’s earlier blog, “The AV MBA: S.W.O.T. It Out“.
Tom Keefe | CTS, DMC-D-4K, DSCE
Category Manager – dvLED
Supported Manufacturers: Direct View LED
Building Strong Relationships
Enhancing Customer Service
Let’s explore the differences between distributor and manufacturer services and how they can complement each other to unlock value.
Like distributor services, manufacturer services focus on creating a long-lasting relationship with customers by delivering support for all products within their brand. In my conversation with 
Of course, they have to keep up with product changes and technological advancements to offer good recommendations to you or me. Yes, they can research the details, although your best sales professionals are ahead of the curve. They want to be the ones to introduce the technology to you to be a true consultant in offering you the solutions. That’s their value, and they know it!
Product
The first thing I did was to put together a SWOT analysis.
When considering Price, I knew that we could not fetch the same price for this line that we would for a premium brand. I also knew that if we priced the product to be the lowest on the market, there would be no profit for the dealer and our product would be compared with cheap, inferior products that were not intended for professional use. Looking back at the newly defined product offer being a sales tool vs. a physical product, I looked at pricing in a similar way. Instead of a strategic price level—low, middle, high, etc.—it seemed to make more sense to again relate the price to the customer vs. the market. We would set a MAP (minimum advertised price) that was designed to deliver a significantly higher-than-average profit margin to our dealer. So, of course, the product had a price, but the focus was on dealer profit vs. end user cost.
Slowly but surely, we began to see sales grow, and now twenty years later, the product line is still active, dealers are still making outstanding profits and end users have still never heard of it!!! Just how it was intended.
