Reliable information for making the right decisions within the Marketing Plan
One of the pillars of good management is to have reliable information, which will be the basis to assemble the necessary reports according to what we want to analyze, measure or improve.
In the same way that we take care of the quality of the ingredients of a nutritional formula, the information used for management reports must be equally accurate, stable, reliable, transparent and standardized.
Whether we are talking about sales, costs, cash flow, profitability, or marketing metrics, the basis of the information we will use should always be the same: the system for recording operations, or accounting system. Although it will generally be a responsability of the administrative area, it is important to know it and make sure that:
– The system is versatile enough to obtain information both by main concept (e.g. sales) and by business unit, activity, product category (e.g. poultry, product x, etc.).
– Access to the registration system is restricted to administrative staff, to avoid inappropriate manipulation of records, funds, etc.
– The registration of operations is done in a complete and timely manner, not leaving documentation unrecorded (we seek to avoid obtaining reports based on incomplete information).
– Allow for periodic controls on the information recorded. In this way we can verify if we have recorded everything we should have recorded (complete information), and if everything recorded is correctly recorded. The periodicity of these revisions can be monthly, quarterly or half-yearly. Quarterly periods are recommended to begin, and then extended as it is verified that everything is working well.
– The documentation that supports the operations exists and an orderly archive of this documentation is kept, which allows it to be controlled quickly.
Measuring is the first step to make an evaluation that allows us to take actions to improve. To achieve effective measurements, the basis from which we start must be of quality, and at least meet the following attributes: reliable, complete, comparable, and systematic