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Utilize The Undeniable Power Of Professional COO Dashboards & Reports

COO dashboards and reports by datapine.

Chief operating officers (COOs) have the demanding task of ensuring every operational activity within a company is executed with maximum efficiency and pinpoint precision.

To help you achieve optimum operational efficiency in an increasingly demanding environment, here we will present COO dashboards and reports, these are critical tools for helping chief operating officers across the world to effectively manage their time, company, logistical processes, and results. To succeed in such an environment, an executive dashboard or report can make a striking difference. 

Increasing the strategic, as well as the operating value of managing business operations, are critical elements of COOs' positions who, oftentimes, need to wear many hats in order to successfully fulfill the role of "second in command" right after the CEO.

Moreover, companies are becoming more data-driven and complex and require stable performance in order to succeed in our cutthroat digital age. That's why using a modern dashboard tool is vital for monitoring and analyzing multiple touchpoints and presenting data in real-time, visually, and with strong interactivity levels so any strategic activity can't be left unnoticed.

That said, in this post, we will answer what is a COO dashboard and report, will give some industry examples, and a few valuable tips on how to create your own.

In the end, you will be able to improve your reporting processes and automate many tasks that you were probably doing manually. Similar to C-level financial officers that use a CFO dashboard to monitor financial information, COOs need a solution for core touchpoints that make an organization tick. But let's start from the beginning and explain basic definitions.

Let’s get started.

What Is A COO Dashboard?

COO dashboard example with a scorecard format tracking important metrics related to overall performance

A COO (chief operating officer) dashboard is a visual management tool used by COOs to connect multiple data sources, track, evaluate, and help to optimize operations within a company by using interactive metrics and advanced analytical capabilities.

These visual representations of data deliver information in real time and create a time-saving environment where COOs can focus on other critical tasks rather than investing countless hours into exporting and manipulating static spreadsheets. Just like modern CTOs use a professional CTO dashboard to visualize and interact with presented information in real time, COOs need a similar tool to improve their productivity and increase performance. Such a real-time dashboard ensures productivity increment and centralized data collection that enables executives to overcome numerous practical challenges within their line of work. When you complete data management processes with an (automated) COO report and intelligent alarms, any anomaly will not go unnoticed.

What Is A COO Report?

A COO report is designed to provide insights into critical operational KPIs and share them through dashboards, public URLs, automated emails, or embedded options by using modern dashboard software in order to evaluate relevant operational performance.

A COO report template is easily created with a few clicks and can be reused for recurring reporting processes. Completely automated and generated with professional solutions such as self-service data analytics tools.

What Are COO KPIs?

COO KPIs are metrics used by chief operating officers to assess the performance of various business areas. With the help of a KPI tool, COOs can track, measure, and benchmark the company’s activities to ensure productivity and operational efficiency.

By working with top KPIs for COOs, you can uncover a wealth of operation-based trends and insights with a simple glance while setting accurate benchmarks for consistent performance measurements.

You can use interactive key performance indicators for a wide range of operating processes which, in turn, will give you a panoramic view of how your organization works as well as how you can make improvements.

Benefits of COO Dashboards & Reports

A well-rounded COO dashboard offers a wealth of business-boosting benefits. Here we look at the biggest perks of working with a COO report or dashboard from a head operating officer’s perspective.

  • Save time and make better decisions

The highly-logical and visual nature of COO performance metrics (those that bring data dashboards to life) means that you can compare trends or patterns and drill down into essential pockets of information with ease. Rather than sifting through long-winded spreadsheets or a fragmented list of data sources, you can simply log in and access everything you need almost instantly.

As an operating officer, you have to make vital decisions under pressure frequently. By working with the right dashboard, you will be able to make informed choices based on every logical aspect of the business at speed.

  • Uncover hidden patterns and trends

Another key benefit that COO tools offer senior decision-makers is the fact that they will help you uncover data-driven patterns and trends that you would otherwise miss. As someone who reports directly to the CEO and typically acts as a thought leader or sounding board, having the ability to drive down inefficiencies that ultimately cost money and drive innovation is vital.

Armed with a strategy dashboard, valuable trends or patterns will become more obvious. Digging deeper into the visuals will show you, with clarity, exactly how you can improve core logistical areas of the businesses while nipping any issues in the bud before they get out of hand.

  • Predict future events 

If you’re looking to develop fresh strategies that result in organizational growth, utilizing a powerful COO report template will provide you with a well-rounded mix of accessible historical, real-time, and predictive insights. This cohesive mix of metrics will empower you to make accurate projections that will either help you prevent time-sapping organizational issues or give you an edge over the competition.

If you, for instance, notice that your customer service processes are underperforming and are likely to continue struggling as a peak inquiry period emerges, you can take action before the event occurs. Looking at the data will allow you to understand whether you need to provide better training, streamline your complaints handling procedure, or hire more people, for example.

  • Collaboration and communication

As a senior operating officer, you are one of your company’s leaders. As such, it’s vital that you communicate your aims and goals in a clear, persuasive manner.

Using your data dashboard to tell a visual story on key logistical aspects of the business, you will ensure that everyone understands what is happening and why. In doing so, you will boost productivity and engagement while providing your staff with 24/7 access to the informational tools (across a multitude of devices) they need to communicate as well as perform better. When that happens, the organization will thrive.

How To Create COO Dashboards & Reports?

How to create COO dashboards and reports:

To create and organize a comprehensive chief operations officer dashboard, there are a few points to consider, like your audience,  incorporate particular operational metrics and other important elements that we list here:

1. Utilize professional dashboard software and tools

With so many complexities within the management of operations, professional and modern COO reporting tools, and software are a must-have. Whether it's tracking warehouse operations or optimizing the transportation process of a logistics company, for example, software that enables users to create an interactive logistics dashboard is critical for ongoing operations success.

With the help of intelligent (AI) alarms and features, automated monitoring is simplified, ensuring users receive an immediate notification when an anomaly occurs. This is critical in any operational environment since, without it, manual work would cause more confusion than resolutions as well as increase the time to improve problem-solving processes, which can cause additional bottlenecks.

2. Choose the most valuable metrics for your industry

Having a complete overview of the most important metrics is critical in companies that need strong operations but also for those that want to improve current mechanisms. Depending on the type of company, metrics can, of course, vary. The point is to think about each metric in detail and the story you want to convey. For example, the perfect order rate KPI in warehouse operations will make sense to monitor to be able to establish better supply chain efficiency. Browse our list of KPI examples for all industries and find the one that best matches your operations!

3. Establish rapport with your audience

Knowing who you are addressing is already a lot of work done. If you're reporting directly to the CEO or board of directors, you need to have clean, straightforward, and interactive data. That way, you can answer immediate questions and dig deeper into various potential scenarios. At C-level meetings, usually, high-level metrics are presented and discussed, so try and focus your chief operating officer report on the audience you're presenting to and focus on the topic of the meeting. It wouldn't make sense to burden the audience with details about daily operational tasks and delegation within the internal team, but the results of your efforts and analysis of longer periods, in this case, during a C-level meeting, might make sense.

To learn more about various executive-level reports, we recommend you read our article on CEO dashboards.

4. Create a compelling narrative

In addition to establishing a rapport with your audience, creating a compelling narrative with your COO KPIs and visualizations will give your insights additional context while making your observations far more persuasive.

Whether you’re drilling down into operational trends, showcasing performance metrics to investors, or presenting important ideas to the C-suite, arranging your COO report and its associated visuals in a way that tells a story enhances your data-driven success.

As humans, stories hold our attention and allow us to engage with a range of ideas or concepts. Craft the right narrative with your COO dashboards, and you will enjoy a consistently healthy return on investment (ROI).

To help you on your data storytelling journey, here are two resources for your reading pleasure:

5. Value substance over style

To ensure your COO dashboard offers consistent value and drives efficiency across every key operational area of the business, evaluating usability (or the user experience) is vital.

For data-driven stories that are universally accessible and offer swift access to business-boosting insights, you need to follow the best design practices. When it comes to getting your COO-based reports right, the number one rule is to value substance over style.

Every COO KPI should work in harmony while serving up actionable real-time data at a glance, free from clutter or confusion. One of the best ways of making your report actionable and clutter-free is by performing a quick squint test.

If you squint at certain areas of your dashboard, the most relevant insights and metrics should stand out. It’s also important that your report’s layout allows you to view the bigger picture while drilling down deep into specific pockets of data, even under pressure.

6. Collaborate with relevant stakeholders

With your COO metrics and framework up and running, you can refine your reporting efforts by collaborating with key stakeholders.

As a COO, you have an enormous amount of pressure resting on your shoulders. By working alongside other senior decision-makers, as well as the right members of your team, you will gain an objective overview of your reporting efforts.

Giving relevant stakeholders the opportunity to test your reports and interact with your COO KPI examples will give you the practical feedback you need to make design or data-based tweaks that will empower every user to optimize their performance. The collaborative refinement stage is often overlooked when creating these kinds of dashboards, but doing so will make your various organizational operations as efficient as possible.

7. Automate as much as possible

We have already mentioned the importance of automation, but we need to emphasize it once again since automation cuts enormous amounts of hours otherwise invested in static spreadsheets and presentations. Automating through a specific schedule by using the power of business reporting software will help any senior decision-maker in managing their time more effectively. Scheduling certain reports and sending them to specified recipients without the need to manually create each part of it on a weekly, monthly, or yearly basis enables head officers to incorporate modern automation processes and bring their companies into the future. And stay there.

8. Drill down into the dashboard tools and features

Leveraging automation will boost productivity while optimizing your COO analytics efforts for consistent growth. Expanding on this concept further, knowing your dashboard’s in-built smart features inside out will offer a wealth of business-boosting benefits.

The best modern reporting software offers smart features, including powerful data filters as well as automated alerts based on specific parameters (if an operational irregularity occurs or you hit a specific benchmark, for example). In addition to these pivotal features, learning to leverage visual dashboard widgets to improve design function, data exportation features, and tabs to arrange your insights methodically, you will get the most from your analytical efforts.

9. Offer the right support & training

Once you’ve developed your reporting templates and taken the time to understand every key feature and function of your dashboard software, you should share your newfound knowledge with your team.

To create a data-driven culture and reap universal rewards from your COO analytics strategy, providing the right level of training and support is essential. By offering the various users within the business the right level of access to your reporting tools while hosting regular workshops, the entire organization will thrive.

This is a pivotal part of the development process, as it will help everyone in the business squeeze maximum value from your operational data. In turn, you will drive maximum efficiency across every key operational function, boosting your bottom line in the process.

10. Don’t forget mobile mode

Last but certainly not least, when working with KPIs for COO, it’s vital that you can perform valuable analysis wherever you are in the world—and from multiple devices.

When you’re creating your COO report template, you should always ensure you optimize your designs and layouts for the mobile experience. By following the best design practices and enabling your software’s mobile mode, you will give yourself, plus everyone else in the business, 24/7 access to powerful data-driven insights. As a result, you will optimize all of your core operations while catalyzing your organization’s commercial growth.

Now that you have a clear idea of the steps you should follow in order to create professional COO dashboards and reports let's look at some industry examples to help you visualize the power of these interactive tools in action!

Top COO Dashboard & KPIs For Powerful Reports

As we already mentioned, COOs have to cover several tasks in different areas of a business. For this reason, having specific dashboards armed with professional operations indicators is fundamental to ensuring all areas are being managed correctly. To put this into perspective, here we will present you with seven dashboard examples and their most relevant COO metrics for three core areas of a chief operating officer’s job: logistics, finances, and employees. 

1. COO KPI dashboard

As a COO, having access to top-level logistical metrics will empower you to make consistently valuable decisions that will ultimately drive down unnecessary costs while ensuring every pivotal operation within the business consistently meets or exceeds its performance goals.

COO KPI scorecard tracking performance metrics related to distribution, order management, inventory, and finances

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This visually balanced COO report example segments essential data related to four main operational business pillars into digestible visualizations. Using this dynamic dashboard, you can keep a firm grip on the business’s distribution logistics, inventory management processes, operational costs, and order management strategy from one central location.

Each dynamic KPI featured in this dashboard is equipped with real-time data that will empower you to make short-term performance comparisons while checking whether you’re on course to hit your targets with ease. With trend-based plot lines to analyze at your disposal, you can also drill down into pivotal performance patterns over a 10-day period with a simple glance.

This cohesive collection of metrics will give you an objective overview of your most essential operations while making short-term strategic choices that will enhance your cost management, supply chain, inventory handling, and ordering strategy in a way that boosts productivity and improves interdepartmental communication.

Every operational KPI featured within this dashboard will feed into your company’s fiscal success. Gaining the tools to improve your on-time delivery rates while sharpening every key aspect of your supply chain will boost your brand awareness while driving profitability. Having digestible access to insights, including operating ratio, gross profit margin, and costs of returns or shipping, will give you the tools you need to keep your operational expenditure under control, even under pressure. Essentially, this actionable reporting tool serves up all of the information you need to navigate your daily and weekly activities with confidence as an in-demand COO.

Primary KPIs:

  • Order cycle time
COO KPI example tracking the order cycle time in hours by day of the week

As a KPI for COO analytics that offers a wealth of operational insight, order cycle time will give you the tools to quantify your shipping times with ease. With the ability to track your average order cycle times on a daily basis while mapping out clear-cut performance trends, you can take targeted measures to tackle any snags that might be driving operational inefficiency. Working with this essential COO metric frequently will result in sharper processes, improved delivery rates, and a better brand reputation due to increased customer satisfaction levels.

  • Trailer utilization rate
The trailer utilization rate is a COO KPI example that tracks the percentage of track space that is being utilized

Monitoring your truckload capacity is an essential duty as a COO, and your trailer utilization rates are one of the best ways of ensuring maximum operational capacity at all times. Presented in dynamic line chart format, the trailer utilization rate KPI will allow you to make razor-sharp trend-based comparisons between the current and previous year. As such, you can quickly identify the trends or patterns that are hindering your operational capacity and take the right course of action to make vital improvements.

  • Dwell time
Average dwell time by week day

Also referred to as ‘detention time,’ this essential operational metric is designed to track the length of time delivery or fulfillment drivers spend stationary, waiting for orders to be picked, packed, and loaded for shipping. Tracking this metric on a weekly basis will empower you to respond to any unexpected dwell time issues with complete confidence while pinpointing any factors that may slow progress at particular times during the week.

  • Inventory carrying costs
Inventory carrying costs as a COO KPI example being tracked by logistics area and two different warehouses

This operational metric serves up trend-based as well as numeric information that will give you an accurate overview of the costs linked to storing any slow-moving or unsold inventory. Monitoring this metric is important as it will empower you to refine your strategy in a way that keeps your best-selling goods moving freely without sapping your inventory management budget. Breaking down these costs visually will give you the tools to redistribute your resources evenly while eliminating unnecessary costs that will hinder your operational progress.

  • Operating ratio
COO KPI template tracking the operating ratio by quarter and divided by logistics area

Last but certainly not least, this high-level KPI will break down your operating ratios for key quarterly comparisons while showcasing the overall distribution of your operating expenses over the year. Keeping a keen eye on your operating expenses will help you understand exactly how profitable your operations are on a consistent basis. Here you have everything at your disposal to keep your operating expenses low while giving you the intelligence required to make investments that result in real organizational growth.

2. Logistics transportation dashboard

Transportation management is crucial for succeeding in operations that are focused on delivering goods and products, especially in our cutthroat economy where customers want deliveries - yesterday. Here, an interactive dashboard will enable chief operating officers to manage transportation data effectively.

A COO dashboard example showing metrics important for operational management in the logistics sector such as deliveries by destination, loading time and weight, fleet statistics, and delivery status, among others.

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In the example above, we have KPIs in logistics that are crucial in sustainable transportation management and will help C-level management to know how well the deliveries and overall transportation work.

That said, metrics such as fleet efficiency will immediately show the people and transportation capacity levels while the average loading time and weight will enable you to evaluate the loading time per one ton, for example. Monitoring these points over a timeframe will help you set a realistic time process and identify patterns within your transportation organization. For example, you could aim to load more and transport more but keep in mind that this could cause accidents. Therefore, keeping realistic goals is very important for operating and managing your processes.

Finally, delivery status and deliveries by destination will show you how well your deliveries work, if they're on time, and what might cause delays. There are scenarios where roads could be blocked or other external factors that can cause lags, especially in long-distance travel. Monitoring these processes regularly can ease bottlenecks in the future.

Primary metrics: 

  • Delivery Time 
A COO KPI example in logistics tracking the average delivery time in days

Delivery time is an important operation metric to track in the transportation area of logistics as it allows you to understand if your deliveries are being handled correctly. This metric takes the average delivery time of all orders, and it is calculated from the moment the order is ready to be shipped to the time it is actually delivered. Operating officers can benefit from this KPI as it enables them to create narrow shipping strategies that will result in better service for clients. 

  • Transportation Costs 
Financial COO KPI tracking transportation costs divided by areas

This next KPI aims to monitor all the costs related to transportation in a logistics warehouse. The goal for a chief operating officer here would be to keep costs at a minimum while maintaining a high-quality service. For this purpose, this metric divides the expenses into different categories. This way, you can understand if a specific stage is costing more than it should and find ways to optimize it. 

3. Financial COO dashboard 

The finances of a business are also an important area on which COOs need to focus. Here the operating officer works hand in hand with the CEO and CFO to ensure that the company’s financial health is at its best. For this purpose, the dashboard below is the perfect tool as it gives a clear picture of all the relevant indicators needed to ensure stable and proactive operations management in aspects such as liquidity, invoicing, and budgeting.  

Financial COO dashboard armed with fundamental KPIs to monitor the financial health of a business

**click to enlarge**

Going a bit more in detail into this financial dashboard, we first get an overview of the current working capital, which is basically displaying the total amount of dollars you get after subtracting your current assets from your current liabilities. Next, we get the cash conversion cycle (CCC) for the last 3 years. This graph aims to monitor how efficient the company has been in converting its investments, inventory, and other resources into cash. In this case, the CCC has been constantly decreasing since 2016, which means that this company is managing its finances in an efficient way. 

Right below the CCC, the dashboard offers a detailed overview of the vendor payment error rate for the last 12 months based on a benchmark rate of 1,3%. This KPI can tell the operating officer how efficiently the accounts payable department handles payments. Common errors in this area can be duplicate payments, wrong addresses, or even incorrect amounts. If there is a month in which the error rate is really high, it is necessary to look deeper to find the reasons and solve the issues.

As you can see, this COO dashboard covers fundamental areas that, if managed correctly, will ensure that all financial operations are running smoothly. Now let's see some of these KPIs in more detail.

Primary metrics: 

  • Working Capital 
The Working capital is a COO KPI depicting details of current assets and current liabilities

Working capital is one of the top chief operating officer metrics in the financial area. This KPI measures the number of dollars remaining after you subtract your current assets (which can be cash, accounts receivable, prepaid expenses, etc.) from your current liabilities (which can be your accounts payable, credit card debt, taxes, or any other debt due to pay in the next 12 months). The results of the working capital will allow a senior operative to assess the short-term financial health of the company as well as its operational efficiency.

  • Current Ratio
COO metrics examples: Current ratio

The current ratio is an operations KPI directly related to the working capital as it concentrates mainly on the financial liquidity of a business. In short words, the current ratio measures your ability to pay your obligations in a timely manner, and it is calculated by dividing your current assets and your current liabilities. Your goal here should always be to keep the ratio higher than 1. If it’s lower, it would mean that you are not able to pay your obligations in due time. This KPI is useful for COOs as it allows them to make sure that the organization is always enjoying a healthy ratio. 

  • Cash Conversion Cycle 
A financial COO KPI depicting the cash conversion cycle in a specific time frame

The next COO KPI template is key for effective financial analytics. As mentioned above, the cash conversion cycle aims to evaluate how long it takes for a business to convert all its resources into cash. And it’s calculated with the following formula: CCC = DIO (days of inventory outstanding) + DSO (days sales outstanding) – DPO (days payable outstanding). The goal here is to keep the company’s cash conversion cycle constantly decreasing, as this will mean that the operations and management process are efficient.

4. Employee performance dashboard

Although finances and logistics are two core areas for an operating officer to attend, what will actually drive organizational success is its workforce. For this reason, operation officers need to make sure that employees are performing at their best and that the company is providing them with the tools to grow and improve. For this purpose, the employee performance dashboard is key. Let’s see why! 

COO report tracking metrics related to employee performance

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Armed with fundamental HR metrics, this dashboard will ensure that employees are satisfied with their work and consequently perform at their best. The top portion of this dashboard informs us of absenteeism metrics, the average yearly absenteeism in days, the average rate with a target of less than 3,8%, and finally, the evolution of both metrics over the last five years. This is an important metric for a senior decision-maker to track since it will show how engaged and motivated employees are with their work. A low absenteeism rate can mean that the organization is able to provide a healthy work environment for its workforce. 

Moving on to the bottom part, the COO dashboard offers a detailed view of the overall labor effectiveness (OLE), which is directly related to the employee’s productivity. In order to track the OLE, each business needs to set its own evaluation criteria based on what they expect from its employees. Here we see that this metric is tracked for a five-year period as well as divided by department. Tracking this metric is useful as it will tell operating officers which of their employees or departments are underperforming and provide training opportunities or other solutions to improve performance. 

Primary metrics: 

  • Overall Labor Effectiveness 
COO KPI template displaying the overall labor effectiveness (OLE)

The OLE, also known as employee productivity, is a COO KPI that provides a bigger picture of your workforce performance. Although a straightforward way to calculate this metric would be to divide the total sales by the number of employees, this might not be the smartest choice. As we mentioned before, not all employee’s jobs directly involve sales. For this reason, you should make sure you define appropriate outputs to measure the performance of each department according to its core responsibilities.  In the example above, we see that the OLE is tracked for a 5-year period alongside a gauge chart that displays a target of 71%. In order to extract deeper insights from the overall labor effectiveness, operating officers can compare it to other metrics that can affect productivity and find deeper conclusions. These could be the availability, the amount of time where employees are actually working, and the amount of product delivered or sold, among others.

  • Training Costs 
COO metric graph tracking training costs for workforce divided by years

As we mentioned before, keeping employees productive as well as satisfied is one of the important responsibilities of a COO. Providing training opportunities for potential talents or employees that are underperforming is a great way to ensure productivity and a healthy return on investment from each employee. Additionally, workers will feel like they can grow in the company and will increase their satisfaction levels. To do just that, this COO KPI aims to track the costs of training the workforce, comparing the net costs vs. returns. By looking at this metric can easily verify if training investments are worth it.

  • Turnover Rate (bonus KPI) 
COO metric: turnover rate to measure retention

Although it is not directly included in our dashboard, this is an important COO KPI to track for effective workforce analytics. The employee turnover rate aims to monitor the percentage of employees that leave the business in a given period. By tracking this metric, operating officers can understand if the company’s retention efforts are successful and if employees are satisfied. If you see a high turnover rate, you should look deeper into the root causes and find any potentially problematic areas that might be causing your employees to leave the organization.

5. Supply chain COO dashboard

The supply chain is becoming a more and more data-driven area of logistics where companies and COOs need to think about optimizing the chain and goods management processes. One of our examples is created with the most critical supply chain KPIs in mind in order to help you achieve your goals.

A visual representation of a supply chain management dashboard

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The dashboard starts with the inventory-to-sales ratio and evaluates the overstock. It's an important indicator to monitor since it will show you how well you deal with unexpected events. In essence, it measures the available stock or assets for sales in comparison to the actual quantity sold.

The turnover on the right part of the dashboard is shown in a 5-year timeframe to see the development over a longer period. It measures the number of times the stock or assets was sold (in this case, during a year), and it is advisable to compare these numbers with the industry average and try to achieve a higher rate.

Additional metrics will tell you details about inventory management, costs of storing, and out-of-stock items. All these touchpoints will help modern COOs in optimizing operations and delivering additional business value to the organization.

Primary metrics:

  • Inventory Accuracy 
A COO report template showing the supply chain management metrics (inventory to sales, turnover, costs, etc.)

Accuracy is one of the KPIs that, if not managed correctly, can permanently harm your business as it will directly affect your customer satisfaction levels. This metric aims to monitor how accurate is your database inventory is with your actual physical goods, assets, or items. If these two don’t match, it can lead to unexpected backorders, unsatisfied customers, and higher overall costs. Although it is quite hard to keep a 100% accuracy, a healthy ratio for this metric would be to keep it over 92% as much as possible. By looking into inventory accuracy more in detail, COOs can also recognize potential issues related to receiving, shipping, or accounting.

  • Inventory Turnover 
Inventory turnover is a supply chain KPI that focuses on logistics

This metric aims to measure the time your entire inventory has been sold in a given period of time. It is difficult to define a general benchmark for your turnover as it will depend on the industry of the business. For this reason, you should take your average industry rate and use it as a target to exceed. COOs can benefit from monitoring the turnover as it can tell them how efficient production planning is as well as marketing and sales management. The final goal here should always be to keep this rate as high as possible.

  • Inventory to Sales Ratio  
This inventory KPI takes a financial point of view on your inventory, by evaluating the financial stability of your business and evaluating how much your overstocks are worth

Now we move to inventory to sales ratio. This performance indicator measures the ratio between the available inventory for sale and the amount that is actually sold. Just like with the turnover, the average ratio for your inventory-to-sales will depend on the industry of your business since it’s easier to sell jeans than cars.  

For this reason, COOs should analyze it by thinking of the market and setting realistic targets based on that. This KPI can also be compared with the inventory turnover or the carrying cost of inventory to get a bigger picture of the financial stability of the business and plan accordingly.

6. Warehouse KPI dashboard

Warehousing costs and logistics have a significant impact on the business. Without a razor-sharp and fully efficient storage and shipping process from end to end, your business will suffer financially as well as reputationally. That’s where our warehousing key performance indicator dashboard comes in.

An COO report focused on the warehouse performance in the logistics industry

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Equipped with a balanced mix of metrics designed to offer top-level insights, this powerful COO KPI template serves up critical information such as on-time shipments, total shipment by country, cost breakdowns, and perfect order rates in a way that is clear, concise, and accessible.

Here you can do everything you need to optimize every stage of the warehousing process to drive down costs and maximize the success of your shipments. Let’s meet the KPIs for the COO linked to our warehousing dashboard.

Primary metrics:

  • On-Time Shipping
On time shipping allows you to optimize your shipping and delivery processes

This top-level metric will give you ongoing insight into the efficiency of your shipment process. Expressed as a percentage, this vital piece of information will tell you the ratio of orders that were shipped in advance of the proposed delivery date over the total number of shipments. By setting a clear-cut shipping benchmark, you can track your overall ‘on-time’ performance, and if it’s lagging, you can pinpoint exactly where the issue lies to provide the right solution.

  • Order Accuracy
COO KPI example tracking the perfect order rate

Also known as the perfect order rate, this engaging visual will show you the fluency and reliability of your existing supply chain. Once you’ve set your benchmark, you can use the line graph and percentage chart to see how many orders are reaching their destination without any delays, issues, or incidents.

Again, if you notice any issues, you can get to the heart of them straight away and develop a strategic solution that will optimize your supply chain for ongoing success.

  • Warehousing costs
This COO metric encompasses all the costs involved in the management of your warehouse, from human labor to transports

Warehousing costs can prove challenging to balance, especially with so many ongoing expenses to consider. But this interactive chart gives you a digestible breakdown of every core cost associated with running a cohesive warehouse.

By looking at this, even at a quick glance, it’s plain to see where your warehouse budget is going. If you notice that a sizable chunk of your expenses is being plowed into an area that doesn’t seem proportional (or, in other words, you’re spending way too much money on it), you can find out the reason why and make swaps, adjustments or strategic updates.

  • Number of Shipments
The shipments by country is a COO KPI example that provides details about logistics

This handy KPI for chief operating officers provides a full breakdown of shipments according to country. By analyzing these important trends, you can see which routes require improvement while gaining an understanding of where you may need to allocate more resources during peak periods such as summer sales, Valentine’s Day, or the festive period. As a result, you will make your shipping processes more reliable, consistent, and successful across the board.

7. Procurement cost dashboard

Lead operating officers play a vital role in overseeing and continually improving every aspect of the procurement process. To help senior logistical decision-makers with their procurement strategy management processes, we’ve developed a dedicated visual procurement dashboard.

The procurement costs COO report tracks KPIs involved in the entire purchasing cycle. This is valuable in order to make cost-related decisions.

**click to enlarge**

This extensive yet cohesive dashboard acts as a procurement nerve center, helping chief operating officers to delve into costs and return on investments at scale and speed. To optimize your procurement, acting swiftly and with intent is critical. Here you can cherry-pick pivotal pieces of information in real time and ultimately optimize every key element of your procurement strategy.

Primary metrics:

  • Cost of Purchase Order
COO metrics example: cost of a purchase order

This particular of our procurement metrics will help you get to grips with the costs associated with your business’s various purchases. Here you can track and measure your costs and order numbers over specific timeframes with the aim of improving your procure-to-pay cycle. Here you can focus on the costs of raising and processing a purchase order based on the length of time it takes, the people involved in the process, and potential inefficiencies or error rates. Armed with this information, you will be able to drive down unnecessary costs while boosting your overall purchasing efficiency.

  • Procurement Cost Reduction
COO metric displaying purchasing cost reduction

Streamlining the expenses linked to tangible services and goods is a key task for any modern chief operating officer. This most valuable of COO metrics will help you break down ongoing expenses by category and give you a clear direction of how to drive down particular costs. 

Your cost-reducing solutions might come in the form of switching suppliers or reducing your expenditure in certain areas entirely. The point is that this most impressive of COO KPI examples will help you make the right decisions at the right times.

  • Procurement ROI
COO metric example of the procurement ROI divided by supplier category

Your procurement ROI counts. Calculated by using the formula (gain from the investment – the cost of investment) / cost of investment, this vital metric will show you exactly where your returns lie based on your specific benchmark.

Your procurement ROI should constantly remain healthy to ensure sustainable business growth, and by setting a solid benchmark, you will be able to take a balanced approach to squeeze every last drop of value from your procurement efforts.

Key Takeaways

Chief operating officers need the right information at the right time - no exceptions, no compromises. Working with the right dashboards and metrics, those in charge of overseeing operations will gain a level of vision that will propel the business far ahead of the pack.

We have shown the importance of modern software and tools through our dashboard and KPI examples that any COO can use to create their own logistical success.

With datapine, this can take a matter of moments. Thanks to our modern solutions, you can build your own dashboards and reports that will take your operating tasks to the next level. The best part is - we offer a 14-day trial, completely free. Get started today and enjoy the professional as well as organizational growth you deserve.