Kansas City-based MarksNelson launched its first proprietary product, MN Navigator, bringing data analytics to small and midsize businesses.
MN Navigator gathers data that may be coming from disparate systems within a business, displaying it an easier to understand graphic and enabling better decision making to improve performance.
“We saw the ability to aggregate clients' data and really give some of our small and medium-sized clients access to information that they may not otherwise have because they don’t have the tools or the folks in-house to be able to do that,” MarksNelson partner Brandi DiGiorgio said. “We generally work with companies that have maybe $5 million to $100 million in annual revenue. They usually don’t have the resources in-house to put all the information together as well as analyze it. So those are the best targets for this product. Often, larger companies have those analysts on staff and have data tools available to them. We’re trying to make this same capability available to smaller companies.”
An example of how it could be used: analyzing a business product mix to determine which offerings deliver the best return on investment. Sometimes the analysis uncovers costs a business owner didn’t realize, such as lead time to buy inventory, how much inventory to buy and when, or the cost associated with keeping a client. The business also could assess its sales team to discover whether they’re moving the most or least profitable products.
“We give them a visual,” DiGiorgio said. “A lot of our entrepreneurial business owners have difficulty seeing numbers and understanding what they’re telling them. So really we’re able to give them visual graphics and information in a format that is easier to spot current and historic trends. We look at the data and analyze how we want to use this information to develop strategies going forward.”
MarksNelson offers MN Navigator to clients in four tiers — bronze, silver, gold and platinum — with each offering different depths of data reporting. It enables a client to enter the program at a lower level and then grow it over time as they experience positive results. The gold and platinum levels for MN Navigator have the ability to tap into industry data to compare key performance indicators with peer businesses in the same industry to help discover best practices.
“We make it as easy for clients as possible,” DiGiorgio said. “It’s about working with them to understand what they’re trying to accomplish, gather the information we need from them and then work behind the scenes, and meeting with them on the back end to let them explore those results and hear what we see as professionals.”
