GDP Dashboard for Malaysia & Singapore

I was curious about how my home country, Malaysia has been doing for the past 50 years in terms of GDP (Gross Domestic Product) growth rate. (GDP is a measure of total worth of goods & services a country produced in a given year at market value. To learn more click here).

And since I had been living and studying in the neighboring country, Singapore during my school days, I wonder if there is a huge difference comparatively.

Below are my findings (based on the Excel Visualization created):

1. Malaysia greatest achievement in terms of highest GDP was in 1973. It was the FIRST time overtook Singapore since 1960 by 0.62%
2. Singapore achieved its peak in 2010, at staggering 14.47% while Malaysia recorded merely only a 7.16% on the same year.
3. During early stage of 1998 recession, Malaysia recorded the lowest ever growth of -7.36% while Singapore managed -2.11% growth.
4. Ever since 70s, Singapore has been leading the race leaving Malaysia behind. You can see that the gaps are getting wider and wider as the years goes by…

GDP is only one of the many indicators to look at the overall well-being of the country development, but it is definitely a good indicator. However, GDP takes its value from current pricing, meaning, it ignore inflation.

Go ahead to download the Excel Dashboard I created for visualizing the GDP growth rate between these 2 countries and take a look at some of the techniques used to create the dynamic graphs and choice of visual elements. Everything there has a purpose and see if you can figure it out.

Welcome suggestions and feedback for this dashboard, so that it can be improve and done better. By the way, the file is unprotected for you to study how it works.

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Download Excel Dashboard for GDP for Malaysia & Singapore
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Note:
- Features such as Sparkline, Averageif will not be supported if you are using Excel 2003 and before.

Have fun !
Francis Chin
p.s by the way, if you are keen to learn about the 1 Day Excellerated Program on Excel Dashboarding, click here to find out details of the Free Preview on 24th Oct 2011.

What if your mother in law demand you to cook a 3 course meal last minutes?

Imagine your mother in law suddenly called you on a Saturday afternoon and inform you that she is coming over for dinner. And she would like you to cook a 3 course dinner.

And imagine you are just newly married and you really wants to impress her that you are really a good man of the house and really knows how to take care of her daughter.

What is going through your head right now?

That’s right. You’ll probably start thinking about what are you going to cook, what are you going to prepare and do you have enough ingredients or is it too rush to do last minutes shopping….etc..etc…and last but not least, how are you going to Impress her !?

Cooking is very much like a building a Business Dashboard

Your boss suddenly wants to see the numbers and asked you to prepare a consolidated report to update on Sales progress this Quarter on a Saturday afternoon. He wants you to present first thing next Monday ! (at least you have more than 24 hours)

Don’t panic. Just like cooking., first thing first identify what your bosses WANT.

Once you know roughly what he wants to see, half the battle is already won.

Without knowing what to cook, you can’t go around gathering ingredients

Without knowing what your bosses want to see, there is no way you can start preparing anything. Therefore, it is our duty to find out before jumping into preparing any forms of reports.

So let’s say he told you that he want to see past 3 months trend, growth compare to same period last year and highlight what’s the reasons for the result you are getting.

So, that’s a good start ! Now, you know what he expects to see, you can start to go about planning your “Menu” for the meal.

So, what are the key elements a Business Dashboard must have?

1. You will need an appetizer.
Similar to the Executive Summary based on his requirement of what your bosses want to see. Just like an appetizer, executive summary set the mood and induce your appetite to go for more.

2. Next follow by your main course.
Your main course in your business report refers to the details break down of what contributes to the summarize numbers in the executive summary. Your main course needs to be align and synchronize with your appetizer in order to maintain the flow.

3. Lastly, it is time for you to serve your dessert.
Dessert in your business report is the findings or insights that form the basis for call for action or conclusion your bosses need to make. Without the dessert, you will not have the chance to share your perspective and looks good infront of them ! This is the time when you can really impress them.

Why are they important?

They are important, because it follows a fundamental structure where most business reports are presented. Based on the initial requirements of what the audience wanted to see, most likely they expect you to serve them the information in this sequence. If they expect this approach, then chances is that you can communicate much more effectively with them.

You won’t serve the dessert first before the appetizer right?

However, following this sequence of serving, you need to ensure there are connectivity when you ends your appetizer and goes into your main course.

How to ensure these elements compliment each other?

If you are talking about some high level Sales numbers in your executive summary, ensure you also use the underlying details to support your numbers.

Otherwise, there will be a missing gap.

Example,

One of my client was reporting on their Sales performance. It was suppose to be all about sales numbers.

After presenting the executive summary, the main dashboard charts has nothing do with Sales numbers that support the executive summary. As $10,000 sales was reported earlier on, the audience expects to learn which products or clients contribute to the sales figure isn’t?

But won’t it be too much information?
Possible, therefore, you need to be very careful, balancing between not giving enough information and giving too much information that will clutter the entire presentation.

As a rule of thumb, we recommend you drill down 3 level deep. Example,

If we want to know which customer bought the most sellable products….

Total sales is $10,000,
> Level 1 detail : 50% from Region A, 20% from Region B, 30% from Region C.

> Level 2 detail : Out of Region A, 90% sales from Product A, 10% sales from Product B.

> Level 3 detail : 60% of the sales from Product A, comes from Customer A, 30% from Customer B and the balance 10% from the rest of the customers.

That’s it. Normally you may not need to prepare your presentation up to which day they buy most and what payment method is most popular…etc..these are too details.

Knowing what to cook, you should have no problem in getting your ingredients

Your wife should be able to tell you what her mother likes to eat. Arm with that information, you will be able to plan out your 3 course menu and start gathering the raw ingredients just enough to prepare a great meal.

Remember, to ensure a complete great dining experience, I recommend you to serve your appetizer first, follow by the main course and then the dessert. [Read more...]

What does GPS has to do with your Dashboard?

Do you have a GPS in your car? Great ! I don’t. At least not yet. But soon I will need to get one. But why do I ever need a GPS if I already know my way around town or familiar with the places I wanted to go?

You are absolutely right! As long as you are familiar with the places you wanted to go, there is really no real need for a GPS. As long as you are familiar….but wait ! Even though I am familiar with the roads, I may not be aware there could be another short cut!

What Does A GPS Have To Do With Managing My Business?

In the business world, GPS is your Dashboard. It can tells you where you are heading, at which stage you are in. Helps you to answer question such as, are we on track? Are we efficient in our A&P? What should we do next?

And most importantly, even if you are very familiar on running your business, but what’s the harm to use the Dashboard to gain a different perspectives that may not be so obvious?

While GPS able to point you to the right direction to your destination, just like an effective Dashboard can suggest next course of action to take, GPS or Dashboard, by itself will not guarantee that you will arrive your goal on time, at least.

Why is it so?

It will not guarantee you results because, knowing where you are heading is good. But many businesses had challenges in meeting organization goals because managers did not focus on doing things that drive their business.

Just like when you are driving with the help of your GPS, you will still needs to step your foot on the gas pedal. Yes, you need to drive your car.

While it may seemed obvious and common sense, the fact is that it is not common practice.

So, what do we need to do?
Managers need to “Drive” the business towards the goals. They need to take action, fast action. By taking ownership, by taking accountability, managers make things happen. The Dashboard served as their GPS – providing insights, offering tips and track their progress.

Dashboard is a tool that works best with the manager who focus on driving the business.

But I don’t have budget to afford a Dashboard!
Well, you do not need to invest into any business intelligent or data mining tools that can cost you a fortune. Because we are not talking about analyzing your entire company business transaction here.

Nowadays, it maybe useful for you to know that you can simply use Microsoft Excel as the tool to create a Dashboard reporting system that suits your needs. You only want to capture essential information for your analysis.

Many organizations has started to realize that they can use Excel to the fullest to build a Dashboard to help their business to achieve their goals.

You can too!

Creating your vary own Dashboard is the start, but your managers will still needs to drive their business as they always do. The only difference, is that now at least, they are equipped with a “GPS” to ensure they are heading in the right direction!

Visit http://www.francischin.com for more info on how to create your first Business Dashboard!

What happened externally of you, is not as crucial as what’s happening within you. The result we are creating right now, is the outcome of what’s happened deep within us.

So, what am I talking about?
I am talking about our Inner World and our Outer World. About the inter-relationship between these 2 worlds that we lived in that affect each other. To changed the outcome of our outer world, we need to work on our inner world. If we are not happy with the results we are creating (outer world), then we must first change our mindset (inner world).

So, what is Inner World?

Our Thoughts
Referring to our THOUGHTS. The way we think, the way we perceived our life, the way we believed in something is gonna shaped us sub consciously to be the person we are today.

But, why is that so? How can thoughts be so powerful that can shaped the person we are?

Our Emotions
Thoughts triggers our emotions that gave birth to our feelings. Just like a switch, positive thoughts produces positive feeling and negative thoughts produces negative feelings.

Do you have an example, you may asked.
Try thinking about point in your life when your loved one passed away…how do you feel now?

Switched.

Try thinking about a point in your life that something Great happened to you…what is it? How do you feel?
The thoughts we planted has the potential to influence the way we felt. After all we are all human beings.

So, if thoughts can influence the way we feel, how can it affect our outer world?

Our Actions
The way we feel will affect the way we behave, the way we took actions. Most people reacts to situation, unless we are fully aware and conscious about it, we do have a choice. Don’t we?

What do I mean by the choice we have?

If we are feeling irritated about someone because of certain thought we have about him, we can either shout at that person or we can choose to response to him differently. When we leave it up to our “automatic” behavior, we react to situation, but if we consciously choose how to react, we response to the situation.

Yes, we do have a choice.

Choice we made determine the results we create
Our conscious choice of action end up with the words we say, the things that we do. This is how our outer world is inter-connected with our inner world.

When I first started to look out for a solution to solve the challenges I was facing (my outer world) when I took over role of a general manager of an online travel business, I seeded a thought (my inner world). I was thinking that I can do it somehow. I can manage it somehow, I was optimistic and positive. This thoughts gave birth to a strong feelings making me believing that I can do it. It kept me searching, looking and asking. Until I came upon a solution. (outcome)

At that time, the solution is using Excel to build a dashboard. I was not fantastically skillful working with Excel, but I thought to myself I can learn this thing, no matter how tough is the learning curve. The feeling was good and that translate into my actions of going through it.

Everyone take take control of your inner world
You can do it too. It may not be building dashboard using excel for you. It may be some challenges you are facing in your life or career. As long as you seed a powerful and positive thoughts, it will triggers a positive feeling about it, your actions will follow automatically…really?

Does procrastination kicked in? Yes, of course, but your highly charged emotions will request him to take a back seat, you don’t have time to entertain negative or non-empowering thoughts.

Good thoughts (inner world) bear good result (outer world).

What happened within us is more important that what’s happening to us. So, what thought would you like to plant today?

What happened in 2009 ?
When I assumed the position of General Manager for our company online travel business, I do not really know what to expect. Yes, I have been in the travel industry for the past 17 years, but doesn’t mean that I know everything, let alone take control on what’s going on. So I thought to myself, am I going to survive, let alone meeting my boss’s expectation? I was looking forward to have a proper handover by Mr. D, whom had resigned, but…

He left without any hand over
Mr. D left the company in a hurry and joined a competitor. He left without handing over the business. It was 2009 March and I was desperate to pick up the pieces and get up to speed in the new role in the managing the online business.

Being an online person myself, I shouldn’t have much trouble getting along. But running an online business is something new to me.

New, because I never manage an online business before with such dynamics and scope. The first 3 months, as I remembered was merely focusing on collecting information from various sources, including people from different departments and make sense out of everything I can get hold of. My team are young too, in terms of experience and knowledge. But they are passionate and committed. However, information are scattered.

Information comes in all forms and shape
All the information I gathered, I realize that there is just too much to digest and let alone plan ahead.

Planning ahead is important. I need to come up with a new system to manage this. One thing I realized is that my teams keep lots of reports using Excel Spreadsheet. Just like a jig saw puzzle, in order to see the “big” picture and answer simple questions, I need to put them all together. That’s a daunting task !

There must be a better way of overcoming this daunting task
So, I started to do research. I heard about dashboard systems before, but back then, I thought dashboard are expensive visualization tool that is only available from high end business intelligence system or million dollar data mining tool. I kept looking, searching and finally…

Building Dashboard using Excel?
Is this possible? I came across this website called chandoo.org and it talks about building dashboard using Excel. Curious and suspicious, I was not a believer. Nonetheless, my curiosity took control of me and I decided to spend time reading the articles and the tutorial it provides.

After spending sometime reading the articles I was glad I did what I did. After realizing what chandoo.org can do with Excel, I was totally amazed and as if I found treasure. “This is it ! This is just what I needed !” I told myself.

So, I spend a weekend to create a Dashboard using Excel
That’s it. I spend a weekend created a dashboard for my online travel business. Learning what is necessary to make it work and just enough to achieve the result I needed. I can’t wait to present it during the next Monday management meeting with my bosses. I was excited, so I thought…

The thought of showing the management the dashboard was so overwhelming that I forgot one key element.

I forgot to ask what my audience wants to see.

What does it mean?
I put together the dashboard based on what I want to see and track, but I have totally forgot to ask what my management wanted to see instead.

I learn a hard lesson that Monday. Creating a dashboard is the easy part, but defining what questions we want find answers and metrics (KPI) that is meaningful for us to make decision and take action is the tough part. I am glad I learn this lesson the hard way.

Hard learn lesson stay with us for life
Since that day onwards, I equipped myself with better understanding of what is important for our business from top management perspective. How to translate information to make commercial sense and co-relate and interpret information to tell stories and gain insight.

Interpretation requires wisdom. Same piece of information presented in different ways can influence decision. This is what so fascinating about it.

It is fascinating for example, a high A&P Expenditure is it good or bad ? It depends on what is the objective of spending and where it was spend and what is the metric to measure it’s ROI. There is no right or wrong. It all depends on how we want to interpret it.

My journey with Building Dashboard using Excel has never been the same again.

If you happened to be in a similar situation like me, I strongly suggest you take a look at creating your own dashboard using Excel, so that you can start making a BIG difference in your professional life !

Imagine when your client ask you to give a FREE preview of your training sessions, or imagine if your customer requested a FREE sample of your product. What do you feel ? And what is your policy about this?

Giving FREE things away may not help your business
I am not saying giving free stuff to your customer is a bad thing., but what I trying to say here is that what were you thinking or what is your intention when you give away free stuff to your customer when they asked for it?

Were you thinking that “I better give. I do not want to offend my customer for future potential business…”

Or

“I can’t find a good excuse or reason not to give him, so that I won’t sound too petty over stuff….”

Whatever you were thinking and eventually end up giving free is not going to help you in anyway

Why is that so ?
Because, you end up creating an unhealthy perception in your customer head ! It goes something like this :

“Next time I will ask again. This supplier is easy”

Things that were received too easily, normally would not be appreciated. To the extreme, your customer will treat you as just one of the normal suppliers.

Is that what you want?

I remember the time my own e-book marketing failed to take off
2 years ago, I wrote a 30 page e-book. It was packed with valuable tips on How to stop wasting money on poor marketing techniques.I was so excited and I wanted to use this e-book to start getting some leads for my consultancy business I was planning to start.

I send out the e-book to some friends and was asking for some comment. I also posted a link on my Facebook saying “get a free e-book” something like that…

Guess what? None of my friends came back with any reviews or comment. Either my content was crappy or they just too busy with their daily lives. As for the Facebook, no takers.

I was devastated. What went wrong?

2 weeks later, I created a website and sign up for newsletter subscription service. I did a landing page with some selling messages and offer a free download of this e-book (worth USD79) if user submit their email address. A simple tactic to collect leads.

And I spread the words in my internet space. Guess what? There are people whom I don’t know opted in !

It is all about perception of value in people’s mind. Why people bother to give their email address and download the e-book when earlier on they can get it for free without doing anything? Something that has perceived value worth the trouble.

I learn an interesting lesson. If I were to do it again, I will ask for more, example, sign up for my waiting list on my next in-take of my Excel Dashboard Mastery to get this e-book.

Therefore, if you have something valuable to give away as FREE, think of asking for something in return from your customer

By doing so, you have a few advantages :
1. Only serious customer bother. (These are your target market)
2. Customer value you more. That’s what you want your customer to think about you, anyway.
3. You maintain the Power of Influence over your customers.

So, next time, when your customer ask something free from you, what’ you gonna do ?