Maximizing Sales Using Reference Lines in SAP Lumira

[Former Member]

While marketing your products to your general market is like firing arrows in 20 different directions and missing the target (not to mention throwing your marketing time, effort and money away), identifying more targeted markets not only lets you increase your chances of making sales, but also lets you cut down on marketing expenses, save time and effort. In order to identify your target market, you may want answer questions, that lets you analyse your current customer base, such as:

With SAP Lumira 1.29, finding answers to the above questions is easier using reference lines. By benchmarking your sales from each customer and product against their averages using reference lines, provided by SAP Lumira, you will get a holistic picture of your potential customer base, and what products are preferred by each of your customers.

  The reference line used in this case is the ‘Dynamic Reference Line’ provided by SAP Lumira, that shows the average sales by customers. It lets you identify your customers who have been most likely driving your sales.

It is a ‘dynamic’ reference line because of its ability to account for filters that may apply, to change the average value dynamically.

The ‘dynamic’ reference line, represented by the dotted horizontal line at 27,524.50 shows that the average sales by customers is $27,524.50. It lets you know the amount by which sales deviate from the average sales for every customer. Conditional formatting has been applied to differentiate the customers whose sales are above average.

It is a ‘dynamic’ reference line because of its ability to account for filters that may apply, to change the average value dynamically.

To answer the second question, that is, to understand what products are in demand for a particular customer, a custom hierarchy operates from the customer level to the products level. On drilling down into the sales of a particular customer, in this case “Glen Caldwell”, the reference line changes dynamically to $4250.93 – average sales of the products purchased by Glen Caldwell.

The products that make sales more than the average sales of the products for Glen Caldwell can be identified. You will be able to understand more about the customer’s requirements and what specific products they are likely to buy.

This kind of analysis lets you identify similarities and differences between different customers. Knowing who buys your products and what products appeal to each of them will not only help you define your target market, but also help you attract new business by determining other customers who might be interested in your product, and marketing other similar products to more closely match their requirements.

The dynamic reference line can also be applied to dual axes charts, both line and column charts, providing the option of having two reference lines, one for each axis. The average values are displayed on the side of each of the axes as shown in the screenshot below:

The other type of reference line is the Fixed Value Reference line which is ideal for setting targets, thresholds, critical value, performance limits and a fixed calculated value (say, previous year average). The fixed Value Reference line differs from the Dynamic Value Reference line in the following aspects:

1. Number – Multiple fixed reference lines can be added along with the dynamic reference line, however, only one dynamic reference line can be added.
2. Value – Fixed Value Reference Lines are user defined values while dynamic reference line is a single average value
3. Date/Time Axis – A fixed reference line at a specific date/time can be set for “Line Chart for Date/Time Series” whereas a dynamic reference line can be applied only for measure axes.
4. Filter – Fixed reference line remains fixed at the set position irrespective of the filters that may apply while dynamic reference line changes with respect to the filters that may apply.

The reference lines can be formatted to have user defined colors and styles (dashed/solid line with specified thickness). They can be customized to either have the reference value (average/user defined values) or a label as defined by the user.

Currently, SAP Lumira provides one aggregation for the dynamic reference line, namely, average. As a result, only one dynamic reference line can be added to the visualization. It would be great if SAP Lumira could introduce the option of having more than one dynamic reference lines by providing other statistical calculations such as median, mode, min and max for comparing actual data with one of the measures. Under different conditions, the user could apply one or more of the appropriate calculations as the dynamic reference lines.

Reference lines for scatter plot and bubble chart work the same way as that for a column, bar and line chart. It would be great if the 45 degree reference line (X = Y) and multiple degrees reference lines for scatter plots and bubble charts are introduced to analyse how two variables match with each other.