What a Microsoft Power BI Dashboard can do for Your Distribution Business

The ability to fine-tune strategic decision-making based on precise and real-time performance metrics, inventory figures, sales trends, labour distribution, and more, gives companies a razor’s edge in the competitive marketplace. Effective decision-making in any arena starts from being well-informed, about your own operations as well as the marketplace your business is navigating. By pulling accurate data from all across your organisation into one single cohesive dashboard, you can ensure that you always stay informed with the most up-to-date information possible, to empower you and your business to make critical decisions. 

Power BI allows business to aggregate and visualize data pulled from multiple sources across your operation, granting real-time access to key performance metrics in one convenient application. With interactive dashboards, you can monitor KPIs at a glance, enabling your team to quickly identify trends and address issues before they escalate. This level of insight arms you with the tools to identify key areas for improvement, and also systems and processes that are working in your favour. Whether you’re looking to optimize your supply chain, better manage labour distribution, or increase overall operational efficiency, Power BI provides the tools you need to transform data into actionable insights. 

What is Microsoft Power BI?

But to begin with, what is Microsoft Power BI, and why is it so invaluable for distributors? 

Fundamentally, Power BI collates data streams specified by you from across your organisation, from Excel spreadsheets to Cloud services to IoT hardware devices. Its versatility gives you complete oversight in the data you call on and how it’s measured and analysed. Users can generate fully-interactive dynamic reports based on the wealth of data provided, with an intuitive interface specifically designed for ease of use and engaging data storytelling. 

Through cloud integration Power BI also allows seamless sharing between teams and personnel within and without your organisation. Its Natural Language Query interface also allows questions about the dataset to be put to it in plain, simple language, meaning anybody in the organisation can pull valuable data insights from Power BI reports to assist them in their work. 

Power BI’s full-fledged integration with other Office 365 programs and customisation options means that data insights can be shared across platforms, embedded into websites or other applications, and make your data available to users of any technical expertise or level of access. 

The Key Performance Indicators Power BI Can Track In Your Distribution Business

But how does all this relate to a distribution business? 

We’ve talked about how Power BI can collate data from across your operation, to afford you ever greater insights and support when making important decisions for your business. Among the key data points your Power BI setup could monitor, there are: 

Order Accuracy Rate – Percentage of orders correctly selected, packaged and shipped without errors. 

On-Time Delivery Rate – Percentage of orders that arrive on schedule. 

Order Cycle Time – The time from placement of an order to fulfillment of an order, indicating overall order process efficiency. 

Inventory Turnover – Tracks how efficiently inventory is depleted and replaced. 

Stockout Rate – Percentage of items that are out of stock when a customer places an order for them. 

Fill Rate – Measures the ability to fulfil incoming orders through existing stock, without placing any additional  

Warehouse Utilisation – The extent to which warehouse space is being used effectively and efficiently. 

Return Rate – Percentage of orders that are returned by customers. 

Transportation Cost per Order – The average cost of transportation of goods per order. 

Damage Rate – The percentage of goods that are damage at any step along your order process. 

Register Now for a Free Webinar on What Power BI can do for Your Distribution Business

Join us at 11am GMT +1 on Wednesday, August 7th for an in-depth discussion of what Microsoft Power BI’s dashboards can do to revolutionise how your distribution business leverages key data insights to hone its competitive edge. 

You can sign up to the webinar at this link, completely free, and take your first step towards unlocking whole new vistas of data insights and strategic decision-making for your business.