Optimising Management Information Throughout Lockdown

Running a business at the moment can feel like uncharted territory. Where can we work? Can we see clients? When will things go back to normal, and what will normal even look like?

Feeling out of control when running a business is far from comfortable, however, it isn’t unique to the current pandemic situation. Plenty of owners feel like their business is getting on top of them, always more things to do and never enough time to get them done. 

In my experience, one of the things that helps calm you and feel more in control is having the right information about your business and how it’s performing. As the saying goes, if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it. Figuring out ways to get the right numbers so you can make changes is a critical piece of the business success jigsaw. 

Using Management Information To Manage  

Enterprise-scale businesses – the larger end of the spectrum – are rightly wedded to management information (MI) because they need it to deal with the scale of their organisations. Smaller businesses, however, can also benefit from having the right MI. 

Figuring out what to measure can be tricky, so let me give you an example from one of my own businesses, RAM Tracking. We provide vehicle tracking for a wide range of customers using cloud-based technology. 

Although I’m not involved in the day-to-day running of the business, as Chairman I remain responsible for its performance. The main information I need to see that the business is running properly is:

• Financial performance - not just revenue, overheads and profitability, but now more than ever cashflow is key. I also look at; margins by product, cost of sale by client or sector, trend analysis on revenue and overheads.
• Sales Performance – Real-time sales performance including work in progress and pipeline.
• Productivity - for example, how long people spend on the phone with clients, how many calls they make, whether they are sticking to the agreed formats of calls, their success rate in securing new customers or the satisfaction of existing ones, as well as NPS scores.
• Marketing metrics - for example, how many leads do we get, where do they come from, which lead sources are most likely to convert, and how long does it take.
• Operational measures - when are our phone lines busiest, installation timescales and performance, internal automation performance improvements

If you run a small business, many of these details may feel elusive, like you couldn’t possibly get hold of them for your own business. With the right systems, however, it’s perfectly possible to gather key MI which will help you make decisions and, ultimately, improve your business. 

How MI Helped Us Prepare For Lockdown

At RAM Tracking we used the information on call volumes and peak times to send our teams home in phases during an afternoon about five days before the UK lockdown began. Due to our careful monitoring of call forecasts, staff were able to get home and continue working remotely without it affecting the flow of business. 

This was particularly impressive as this took place across two continents, in our UK and Canada offices.

Our phone system digitally monitors all calls so it was easy to reprogram it to make sure calls were routed to the right person no matter where they were working from. Having them digitally monitored also gives insights into a wide range of call attributes, such as the balance of conversation, whether certain keywords are used, and length of calls. This allows us to successfully support our team without laborious random call listening. It has the added benefit of easily highlighting which of our salespeople are most successful and see what makes them more successful. This information can then be passed on to assist other members of staff to further increase sales and customer satisfaction. 

Using MI To Prepare For Getting Out Of Lockdown

As the UK moves towards the easing of lockdown restrictions, what MI do you need for your business to feel back in control? What systems could you put in that would give you the information you need? 

How can technology help you better manage your teams from a distance?

If you have teams out on the road, RAM Tracking will give you real-time information about where your vehicles are, and our intelligent app, RAM Assist, can help you with some measures of productivity.

We all make the best decisions when we are calm, but to find that sense of control you need to have the right information at your fingertips. Now is the time to figure out what that is for your business, and get on with implementing the systems and processes you are going to need.

If you’d like to know more information then please get in touch with someone at the following contact points. 

T: 0330 100 3622

E: [email protected]

W: www.ramtracking.com