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Data-Driven, Decision-Making Examples for Equipment Dealerships

Making Data-Driven Decisions from a Holistic View

Are you ready to take your dealership’s performance to the next level? In this article, we’ll explore how having a fully integrated Dealer Management System (DMS) can lead to better decisions across all departments within your organization.

Discover real-life examples, by department, to transform the way you operate and gain a competitive edge:

 

Accounting Department

Forecasting and Budgeting Examples:

  • Leverage historical sales and financial data to identify seasonality trends, predict future demand, and estimate cash flow requirements.
  • With advanced forecasting models like moving averages, exponential smoothing, regression analysis, sales projections, expenses, and cash flow based on historical data and key variables.
  • Create and manage budgets effortlessly using a user-friendly interface, allocating funds to different departments or cost centers while tracking performance against the budget.
  • Conduct what-if analysis to assess different scenarios and make informed decisions with multi-dimensional budgeting, and gain granular insights into budget allocations based on departments, products, or locations.

Expense Management Examples:

  • Automate expense reporting, monitor spending patterns, and detect discrepancies or anomalies.
  • Simplify expense tracking with credit card system integration and customizable expense categories.
  • Implement budget controls to stay within predefined spending limits, with real-time visibility and alerts for exceeded thresholds.

Credit and Financing Management Examples:

  • Automate credit checks, loan applications, and repayment tracking to streamline credit and financing processes.
  • Manage outstanding balance and monitor aging receivables to take appropriate actions to manage cash flow effectively.

 

Sales Department

Sales Incentive Management Examples:

  • Calculate and track commissions based on predefined rules, such as sales volume, margins, or specific equipment categories.
  • Offer accurate and timely commission calculations, ensuring transparency and motivating your sales team to conquer their targets.
  • Have real-time visibility into sales targets, revenue, profitability, product categories, or customer segments to craft sales incentive plans that align perfectly with your sales strategies and objectives.
  • Monitor individual or team performance effortlessly, track sales progress, and identify the champions within your sales representatives.
  • Harness the power of historical data analysis to optimize future incentive programs by evaluating the effectiveness of past programs, scrutinizing the correlation between incentives and sales performance, and refining your approach for maximum impact.

Campaign Pricing Examples:

  • Unleash the potential of dynamic campaign pricing powered by Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central.
  • Activate sales prices and sales line discounts tied to specific campaigns.
  • Campaign prices and discounts automatically appear when creating sales documents or service orders.
  • Take charge of campaign pricing periods with start and end dates. Maintain full control over promotional prices, ensuring their applicability during the campaign’s duration.

Sales Return Order Management Examples:

  • Empower customer satisfaction by effortlessly managing sales return orders since you can quickly compensate customers for wrong or damaged items.
  • Receive items against return orders and easily create partial or combined return receipts on one credit memo.
  • Seamlessly link sales return orders with replacement sales orders for smooth transitions.
  • Manage payment processing easily, issuing invoices, and recording payments against sales orders on the spot.
  • Equip your sales representatives with the power to check inventory levels while creating sales orders by having real-time visibility into product availability.

 

Rental Department

Contract Management Examples:

  • Create, track, and manage rental agreements, ensuring adherence to terms, conditions, and legal requirements.
  • Generate standardized contracts, capture electronic signatures, and provide seamless documentation for customers.
  • Streamline administrative tasks, ensure accuracy, and minimize the risk of errors or disputes.

Equipment Utilization and Tracking Examples:

  • Track rental hours, maintenance schedules, and fuel consumption, understanding equipment usage patterns comprehensively.
  • Identify underutilized assets, optimize fleet size, and make data-driven decisions regarding equipment purchases, retirements, or reallocations.
  • Rental coordinators can easily identify equipment nearing the end of a rental period and proactively schedule it for the next customer, reducing downtime.
  • The system can automatically track and notify maintenance teams when equipment requires preventive servicing to reduce the occurrence of unexpected breakdowns.

Advanced Rental Pricing Examples:

  • Manage rental and sale pricing for all customers, individual customers, customer price groups, and marketing campaigns.
  • Use flexible rental billing codes to cater to every billing scenario, from daily, weekly, and monthly cycles to advanced billing segments.
  • Set rental prices and manage rates based on equipment type, rental duration, and customer segments.
  • Leverage rental data analysis to define pricing rules, discounts, and promotions to make you competitive in the marketplace.

 

Service Department

Labor Scheduling and Allocation Examples:

  • Have a centralized view of technicians’ schedules, enabling managers to assign work orders, prioritize tasks, and optimize resource utilization based on skill sets, availability, and workload.
  • With real-time visibility into labor allocation, managers can avoid overbooking or underutilization, ensuring efficient use of personnel.
  • Monitor key performance indicators (KPIs) such as job completion rates, response times, customer satisfaction ratings, and productivity levels for better customer service.

Skill and Certification Management Examples:

  • Managers can easily track and update skill sets, ensuring the right technicians with the necessary expertise are assigned to specific service tasks.
  • The system can generate alerts or notifications when certifications are due for renewal, helping managers stay on top of compliance requirements.
  • Allocate team members based on their skills, availability, or proximity to the customer’s service zone.
  • Performance data enables managers to identify areas for improvement, provide targeted training, and recognize high-performing technicians.

Service Team Collaboration Examples:

  • Technicians can access work orders, service histories, and customer information from a centralized platform, eliminating manual communication or searching for information.
  • The system supports real-time communication, enabling technicians to share updates, request assistance, or seek guidance from peers or supervisors.
  • A DMS serves as a repository for service-related knowledge, including troubleshooting guides, service manuals, and best practices that technicians can access to resolve complex issues, improving efficiency and reducing service time.
  • Technicians can document service activities, including parts used, labor hours, and customer interactions, ensuring accurate record-keeping and facilitating future reference.

 

Parts Department

Inventory Management Examples:

  • Access a comprehensive view of parts inventory, including quantities, locations, and availability, empowering the parts department to make informed decisions based on up-to-date information.
  • Analyze historical data, customer demand patterns, and lead times to automatically generate purchase orders or replenishment suggestions, ensuring optimal inventory levels and reducing stockouts or overstocking.
  • Categorize and segment inventory based on various criteria such as equipment types, part categories, or customer-specific requirements. This enables targeted analysis, pricing strategies, and efficient parts management.
  • Centralize your item master data, including part numbers, descriptions, units of measure, costs, and pricing – ensuring accurate and consistent information throughout your organization.

Pricing and Profitability Examples:

  • Option to implement dynamic pricing strategies based on factors such as cost, demand, competition, or customer segments. The system enables flexible pricing adjustments, discounts, or promotions, maximizing profitability while remaining competitive.
  • The DMS provides cost visibility, allowing the parts department to analyze pricing margins, identify profitable items, and evaluate the impact of pricing changes on overall profitability. This data-driven approach ensures pricing decisions align with desired profit margins.
  • Set customer-specific pricing agreements or contracts, ensuring accurate pricing for loyal or high-volume customers. This personalized approach enhances customer satisfaction and strengthens long-term relationships.

Parts Demand and Forecasting Examples:

  • Leverage historical sales data to identify demand patterns, seasonality trends, and popular parts to proactively stock fast-moving items.
  • Utilize forecasting models such as moving averages, exponential smoothing, or regression analysis to predict parts demand based on historical data.
  • With accurate demand forecasting, the parts department can make data-driven decisions on parts purchasing, pricing strategies, and inventory management.

 

A Holistic View

In today’s fast-paced and competitive heavy equipment dealership industry, having the right tools and systems is crucial for success. Throughout this list of examples, we have explored how a robust DMS can revolutionize operations in accounting, sales, service, parts, and rental departments.

Data-Driven Decisions with RPM

Now is the time to take action and experience the transformative power of RPM by Suite Engine built within Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central. We invite you to book a personalized demo with our team and unlock the full potential of your dealership’s data.

 

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