Organic Pet Food for the Financial Perspective,

Organic Pet Food

For the financial perspective, there should be targets for revenue, net income and contribution margin. Revenue is critical, because the company needs to bring in enough cash to conceivably run the business. Net income is profit, which is the objective of every business owner. Revenue target = $100,000 in the first year. Net income target = profit in the first year. Contribution margin is the amount of money that is left over after variable costs (in this case cost of goods sold) for the coverage of fixed costs. This target should be set at 20%, so as to leave some room for profit.

For the customer value perspective, three metrics are customer retention, customer satisfaction and brand recognition. Retention is a measure of how many customers are return customers. The target here can be 50% initially. Obviously return customers are critical for the long-term growth of the business but a new store needs new customers, too. Customer satisfaction should be set at a very high target -- 98%. This can be gauged by surveys. Since the company is offering a premium product, this should be backed with premium levels of service. Lastly, brand recognition is very important -- the people need to know the store exists. This can also be ascertained via survey. The target can be set at 10% recognition in the city after one year, or 20% of pet owners perhaps. The latter might be more important, but both would probably be tested in the same survey. Pet owners are the target market so a higher level of exposure among that group will be beneficial, whereas exposure among people who are not pet owners probably does not help an organic pet food store much.

For the process perspective, the three metrics will be inventory turnover, receivables turnover and sales per marketing dollar. Inventory turnover is an operating ratio. This is important because it has an impact on the cash conversion cycle -- too much unsold inventory is product that has been paid for and not yet generated revenue. Efficiency in inventory turnover is essential, doubly so for perishable products. Inventory turnover target = 30 day average. Accounts receivables turnover is similar, and measures who quickly the store collects from its credit-paying customers. Uncollected revenue means that product left the store and has yet to be paid for. A strong relationship with the credit card companies will bring this metric down, tightening the store's cash conversion cycle. Fifteen days should be a good target. Lastly, sales per marketing dollar is how marketing efficiency is measured. There is little doubt that the store could sell millions if it spent billions on marketing -- what it needs is not raw sales but efficiency in spending. Getting the most bang for the buck is important, especially with very limited marketing dollars. Marketing expense should only account for 5% of total revenues, in order to be considered efficient.