• What is a Management Cockpit? top

A Management Cockpit is a tool used by executives to monitor and communicate their firms’ strategic objectives. It is used to gain oversight of a company’s key performance indicators by presenting them in one central location. In the past, to show each division’s performance, companies had to create their Management Cockpit using either printed Excel graphs, or hand-drawn charts. Today, Management Cockpits have become more sophisticated; however they still retain their original purpose.

• What is a VIA Management Cockpit? top

The VIA Management Cockpit is a computer application which through a single-screen, interactive display monitors, manages, and communicates the goals and strategic direction of the company. To create the customized Management Cockpit, we use a SAP program called Xcelsius.

• Why do I need a VIA Management Cockpit? top

The VIA Management Cockpit uses a single display; distinguishing us from our competitors, who use multiple, overlapping systems.

The VIA Management Cockpit forces companies to focus – it is a multilayered application built on a business intelligence infrastructure. It communicates strategic objectives and enables executives to monitor, manage, and communicate the activities and processes needed to achieve their goals. The VIA Management Cockpit delivers performance information in a user-friendly way by merging the data, applications, and rules that drive what users see on their screens.

• What are benefits of using the VIA Management Cockpit? top

The Management Cockpit allows its users to manage at a glance. The information that is displayed by the cockpit filters out data from multiple reports and displays the statistics needed to make decisions. Also, each cockpit is fully customizable; including what data is displayed to which user. For example, the same cockpit can be used to communicate financial data to one user, while displaying historical customer feedback to another, whereas the third user has access to both.

The VIA Management Cockpit helps managers take control of their companies in the following way:

Monitor:Reporting is fully transparent. Through regular updates, each manager/employee keeps the general manager up-to-date with the hard facts. As alerts are set up to indicate potential problem areas, positive as well as negative figures are clearly shown once in the Management Cockpit.

Manage:This is two-fold. The VIA Management Cockpit manages the data that it gets fed through filtering real data from multiple reports and applying alert systems in the cockpit. Not only the core data is feed into the cockpit, but also the numbers on which these figures depend.

The second part of Manage is that the managers can control their companies with much more certainty. Consider the following example:

With a click of the mouse a manager can see that despite a higher budget, Sales Team B sold 50% less than Sales Team A over the same period of time. With a further click, it is evident that while most of the team members of Team B are selling above quota, two have not sold anything despite dealing with key customers. Is this data new? No, but it probably was disguised in a lengthy sales report.

Communicate: Stakeholders, General Managers, Directors, etc, all need to know what is going on. Having a periodic meeting where the Department Head endlessly explains his weekly statistics can be counter-productive; he should instead show what was done. The VIA Management Cockpit communicates the same data in a fraction of the time.

• How long does it take for one Management Cockpit to be created? top

Depending on the customer requirements and complexity of the system requested, the development time of a Management Cockpit varies but generally can be created in 15 to 20 person-days. Once completed, VIA Consultants ask their clients to conduct a 30-day “Test-Drive” period, in which any further changes or additions may be added or altered.

• How do I access the Management Cockpit? top

The Management Cockpit file is usually placed on a company server, which is then easily accessed by any company employee through Internet Explorer / Mozilla Firefox / Safari.

• What kind of access options come with the Management Cockpit? top

We provide a variety of access options, including 1st level security access (username and password required) and restricted viewing options (certain users have access to certain information). The restricted viewing options would be applicable when the client wanted someone from finance to only see the financial figures, whereas a sales member would see the top 10 sales members, and their current figures.

• Can the cockpit do "what-if" analyses? top

Yes, the Management Cockpit is capable of doing "what-if" analyses, however this becomes a more complex project, requiring a foundation of historical data, as well as a thorough understanding of what kind of statistics are going to be projected.

• In what format is the Management Cockpit displayed? top

The Management Cockpit can be exported into Microsoft Word, Outlook, Power Point, HTML, or a Flash document.

• Can I have my Management Cockpit online? top

Yes, you can upload your Management Cockpit online by using the Flash, HTML, or PDF formats.

• Do I need to change the way that I collect data to update the Management Cockpit? top

No. We use your existing Excel files in order to update the Management Cockpit. Current data is fed into the Management Cockpit from the various sources (finance, marketing, customer service, etc).

• What data can you measure? What are the sources? top

The Management Cockpit can be as simple, or as complex as need be. It can track fundraising events, monthly sales, website traffic, financial data, or all of them together. Generally, anything that has a number or duration can be displayed with a Management Cockpit. To do this most effectively, the best case scenario would be if we were able to use our clients’ current excel files to generate a master file, on which the final Management Cockpit would function.

• Is there an instruction manual for the system? top

As the Management Cockpit is custom-built, we understand that questions about operation may arise. Because of this, we provide an instruction manual, explaining step-by-step the capabilities of your cockpit and how to get the information you want out of it. For the update program, we also provide a "Bugs, Fixes, and Tips for Xcelsius" list. It is filled with known potential issues with the program, and the proven solutions. Lastly, we create a standard update process. This is a process that the responsible person uses to update each key performance indicator in the Management Cockpit.

VIA Consultants guarantee that our clients are ready to use their Management Cockpits by training a company employee in all of the above items.

• What are the real tangible things I get with a VIA Management Cockpit? top

Along with the instruction manual, “Bugs, Fixes, and Tips for Xcelsius” list, update map, and minimal “Test-Drive” guarantee period, we breakdown the benefits of each Management Cockpit further into three major categories: Monitor, Manage, and Communicate: