OPERATIONS DASHBOARD

• US 20110061013A1
• Filed: 09/08/2009
• Published: 03/10/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 09/08/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Target Brands Inc. (Target Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Target Brands Inc. (Target Corporation)
• Inventors: Roeder, Rebecca, Bilicki, Erik
• Granted Patent: US 9,280,777 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/771
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06393 Score-carding, benchmarking or key performance indicator [KPI] analysis
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising

Abstract

An operations dashboard may be used to present recommended solutions to various challenges faced by a retail store that is part of an enterprise. In some implementations, a metrics engine may be used to track and diagnose challenges related to various performance metrics, such as inventory, pricing, customer satisfaction, and the like at one or more of the enterprise'"'"'s retail store locations. The operations dashboard may, in certain embodiments, display one or more of the retail stores along with their corresponding diagnosed business challenges. A knowledge engine may be used to identify one or more solutions to the diagnosed business challenges, and the solutions may also be displayed on the dashboard. In some implementations, each of these solutions may have a corresponding recommendation score relating to the expected efficacy of the solution to solve the challenge.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method for presenting a recommended solution to a business challenge within a business enterprise via an operations dashboard configured to display one or more business performance metrics related to one or more operational units of the retail business enterprise, the method comprising:

identifying, with a computer, a set of one or more operational units of a retail business, each operational unit in the set having at least one business challenge relating to one or more business performance metrics, as diagnosed by a metrics engine that maintains business performance metrics associated with the operational units;

displaying the set of operational units having at least one business challenge on an operations dashboard;

receiving user input to the operations dashboard selecting one of the displayed operational units;

in response to the user input selecting one of the operational units, querying the metrics engine to obtain the one or more business challenges of the selected operational unit;

displaying the one or more business challenges of the selected operational unit on the operations dashboard;

receiving user input to the operations dashboard selecting one of the displayed business challenges of the selected operational unit;

in response to the user input selecting one of the business challenges of the selected operational unit, querying a knowledge engine to obtain one or more solutions to the selected business challenge of the selected operational unit; and

displaying the one or more solutions on the operations dashboard.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more solutions to the selected business challenge of the selected operational unit each have a corresponding recommendation score that relates to the expected efficacy of the solution.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the recommendation score is calculated based on the projected likelihood of the solution to solve the business challenge.

4. The method of claim 2, wherein the recommendation score is calculated based on the projected cost to implement the solution.

5. The method of claim 2, wherein the recommendation score is calculated based on the likelihood of the solution to solve the business challenge and the projected cost to implement the solution.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the recommendation score is calculated as a weighted average of the likelihood of the solution to solve the business challenge and the projected cost to implement the solution.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein a business challenge for a operational unit is diagnosed by the metrics engine if a value of a business performance metric of the operational unit is outside a determined range of values.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the range of values is determined based on the values of the business performance metric of one or more other operational units of the business enterprise.

9. A computer program product tangibly embodied in a computer-readable storage device, the computer program product including instructions that, when executed, perform steps for presenting a recommended solution to a business challenge at a retail store via an operations dashboard configured to display one or more retail performance metrics related to one or more stores of a retail business enterprise, comprising:

identifying, with a computer, a set of one or more stores of a retail business, each store in the set having at least one business challenge relating to one or more retail performance metrics, as diagnosed by a metrics engine that maintains retail performance metrics associated with the stores;

displaying the set of stores having at least one business challenge on an operations dashboard;

receiving user input to the operations dashboard selecting one of the displayed stores;

in response to the user input selecting one of the stores, querying the metrics engine to obtain the one or more business challenges of the selected store;

displaying the one or more business challenges of the selected store on the operations dashboard;

receiving user input to the operations dashboard selecting one of the displayed business challenges of the selected store;

in response to the user input selecting one of the business challenges of the selected store, querying a knowledge engine to obtain one or more solutions to the selected business challenge of the selected store; and

displaying the one or more solutions on the operations dashboard.

10. The computer program product of claim 9, wherein the one or more solutions to the selected business challenge of the selected store each have a corresponding recommendation score that relates to the expected efficacy of the solution.

11. The computer program product of claim 10, wherein the recommendation score is calculated based on the projected likelihood of the solution to solve the business challenge.

12. The computer program product of claim 10, wherein the recommendation score is calculated based on the projected cost to implement the solution.

13. The computer program product of claim 10, wherein the recommendation score is calculated based on the likelihood of the solution to solve the business challenge and the projected cost to implement the solution.

14. The computer program product of claim 13, wherein the recommendation score is calculated as a weighted average of the likelihood of the solution to solve the business challenge and the projected cost to implement the solution.

15. The computer program product of claim 9, wherein a business challenge for a store is diagnosed by the metrics engine if a value of a retail performance metric of the store is outside a determined range of values.

16. The computer program product of claim 15, wherein the range of values is determined based on the values of the retail performance metric of one or more other stores of the business enterprise.

17. An operations system configured to present a recommended solution to a business challenge at a retail store, comprising:

a metrics engine configured to maintain retail performance metrics related to one or more stores of a retail business enterprise, and further configured to diagnose a business challenge in a store if a value of a retail performance metric of the store is outside a range of values, the range of values being determined based on the respective values of the retail performance metric of one or more other stores of the retail business enterprise;

a knowledge engine configured to maintain information related to historical business challenges of the retail business enterprise and information related to how the historical business challenges were solved, and further configured to identify one or more solutions to the business challenges diagnosed by the metrics engine; and

an operations dashboard configured to display one or more retail performance metrics related to the stores of the retail business enterprise, and further configured to display the business challenges diagnosed by the metrics engine and the corresponding solutions to the business challenges identified by the knowledge engine.

18. The operations system of claim 17, wherein the knowledge engine is further configured to calculate a recommendation score that relates to the expected efficacy of each identified solution.

19. The operations system of claim 18, wherein the recommendation score is calculated based on the projected likelihood of the solution to solve the business challenge.

20. The operations system of claim 18, wherein the recommendation score is calculated based on the projected cost to implement the solution.