Pulse · branch pulse-next · review of 19 Oct
A review of the core metrics and drill-downs for the CEO, CFO, CMO, Chief Sales Officer and COO in the branched dashboard, judged as each of those executives would use it. It ends with the corrected trees as a node diagram that shows who owns what and where the roles meet. All numbers are the synthetic figures Pulse shows on data to 11 Oct.
The home page answers "are we on track?" well, but the trees underneath do not answer "why, where and who" the way an executive asks it. Three different kinds of relationship are drawn as one ("adds up to", "explains", and "is a symptom of"), a few branches are wrong in accounting terms, and each role's four cards do not match that role's job. The fix is not more charts. It is one disciplined path from metric to driver to lever to place to action, with shared metrics owned explicitly.
Every executive carries the same mental path, at their own altitude. T1 is their home card. Each step down must reconcile with the step above in the same unit, and the last step is always a person and a date.
Status, gap to plan in its unit, trend. Four per role.
The parts that add up to T1, shown as one bridge. Biggest bar pre-selected.
What can be pulled to move that component, each with an owner.
The slice that carries the gap, ranked by $ impact: brand, market, channel, customer, site or SKU.
One sentence of cause, with what it is worth for the year.
Who acts, by when, and the state of it.
Lenses, not components Market share, category growth, brand health, competitor price and sell-in against sell-out explain a gap. They sit beside the tree as context and never inside a sum.
Between meetings, often on a phone
Weekly business review, monthly close
Board pack, retailer escalation
Under Organic sales growth the block is titled "What adds up to organic sales growth". Volume 2.9% and price/mix 1.6% do add up to 4.6%. Market share and brand equity sit in the same row as if they were part of the sum. The CFO's cash cycle puts order documentation accuracy next to inventory, receivable and payable days.
Fix: every panel gets two zones. "How it adds up" holds only components that reconcile, drawn as one bridge in the T1's unit. "What explains it" holds lenses such as share, category growth, brand health and competitor price.
The COO's gross margin lists distribution expenses, which sit below gross margin (the CEO tree rightly puts them under operating margin). The CEO's gross margin lists injury rate and recalls as drivers. The CFO's gross margin has no price, mix or trade, the levers that explain most of the −90 bps and the whole revenue growth story, even though the gross-to-net walk sits in the same panel.
Fix: gross margin = price realization and trade (gross-to-net) + mix + cost per case, and cost per case = materials and hedging + conversion (OEE) + inbound freight − productivity savings. Safety and quality become their own branch.
The CEO gets perfect order rate, an operations measure, but no market share card and no earnings card. The CFO has lost earnings per share against guidance. The CMO has no market share card and judges growth on shipments again. The CSO's main levers (sales against the incentive target, trade spend, key accounts, channel stock) are two or three clicks down, while days sales outstanding is a home card. The COO gets gross margin, which mostly moves on price and trade he does not control, instead of cost per case and inventory.
Fix: the proposed cards per role below, chosen from each role's responsibilities, with shared metrics marked as shared rather than copied.
Organic sales growth shows tiles in points (volume, price/mix) above a waterfall in dollars with a different split (volume, mix, price, trade). Gross margin shows tiles (input cost, savings, recalls), a gross-to-net walk, a gross-to-net table, a plan-to-actual bridge and a cost-per-case bridge: five views of one number and none of them match the tiles. Operating margin's tiles (gross margin, A&P, distribution, overheads) sit above a contribution margin bridge that leaves overheads out.
Fix: one bridge per T1 whose bars are the T2 nodes, in the T1's unit. Clicking a bar opens that T2. Supporting views move down to the node they belong to.
The place a gap lives shows up as a country list in the side panel, as contributor bars, or as a table, depending on the panel. Picking a country in the side panel filters the main panel behind it.
Fix: every T3 ends in the same ranked "where" table: brand, market and channel for commercial levers; key account for sales; plant, warehouse or SKU-location for supply. Columns are $ gap, gap in the T1's unit and owner. Each row opens its issue.
A summary row such as "Sunrise Oats in all markets, rising input costs" does not say which metric path it belongs to. Its "See analysis" link opens a panel that depends on the role: for the CSO, a cost issue opens sales growth.
Fix: every issue carries its path, for example "Adjusted operating margin › Gross margin › Cost per case › Input cost › Sunrise Oats, all markets", and clicking it opens that exact node with the action attached.
Tiles open a side panel; charts drill in place with breadcrumbs; "Open the full analysis" swaps the main panel while the side panel stays open. The executive loses track of where they are.
Fix: one path model. The panel shows T1 › T2 › T3 › T4 as one breadcrumb and swaps in place. The side panel is kept for definitions only.
Brand equity reads "in line with last year" while Bolt Brew consideration in the UK fell 4.2 points, a significant move. Category growth shows "on track, ▲" when the category outgrowing us means we lose share. Input cost inflation is judged against a 0% budget.
Fix: a T1's status takes its worst material child ("1 of 24 brand-markets off track"). Category growth becomes "share gap". Budgets include the inflation already planned.
The CMO's growth panel ends with weekly sales needed for the rest of the year, a CEO and sales question. The CSO's share panel carries brand health, a marketing view.
Fix: the node stays the same; the role decides which supporting blocks show.
Off-track core metrics appear as summary rows and again as cards a few hundred pixels below.
Fix: summary rows are for causes found below T1 (issues with a path and an owner). Cards carry T1 status.
Each role: the job in one line, today's home cards with a verdict, the proposed four, and how the three standard moments went. "Shared" means another role owns the number and this role sees it, never a copy with a different definition.
| Panel | Chart | Verdict | Move it to |
|---|---|---|---|
| Organic sales growth | Growth, last year to actual (waterfall, $) | Re-unit Right chart, wrong unit and split. It disagrees with the tiles above it. | T2 bridge in points: volume, price realization, mix, trade |
| What is adding to growth and taking away (bars by brand and country) | Keep This is a good T4 "where" view. | "Where" table under each T2 | |
| Weekly sales needed for the rest of the year | Keep Useful forward view. | CEO and CSO only | |
| Gross margin | Gross-to-net walk and table | Keep The best revenue-growth view in the product. | Price realization and trade (T2), CFO and CSO |
| Gross margin, plan to actual (bridge) | Make primary Its bars should be the T2 nodes. | Gross margin T2 bridge | |
| Cost per case, plan to actual | Move A COO lever, not a CFO headline. | Cost per case node (COO home card) | |
| Operating margin | Company profit and loss (table) | Keep For the CFO. | CFO, under earnings |
| Contribution margin bridge | Replace Leaves out overheads, so it cannot explain operating margin. | Operating margin bridge: gross margin, A&P, distribution, overheads | |
| Free cash flow | Cash plan to actual (waterfall) | Keep Reconciles in dollars. | Primary bridge for cash |
| Where cash is tied up (table) | Keep A good T4. | Under working capital | |
| Perfect order | Lost sales, by account, why orders failed, fill rate by country | Keep Coherent and actionable. | Failure reasons as T3, accounts as T4 |
| Market share | Our growth against the market; share by brand and country | Keep Category context done right. | CMO and CEO home; CSO sees the account cut |
| Share of voice; brand health | Move Marketing lenses in a sales panel. | CMO, brand equity node | |
| Brand equity | Biggest moves in consideration | Fix status Shows the right rows, but the card says "in line". | Status from the worst significant mover |
| A&P | Phasing, return by brand and media, live campaigns, where to move money | Keep "Where to move money" is the standout. | CMO, with the CFO shared |
| Days sales outstanding | By country, slowest payers | Demote Sound content at the wrong altitude. | T3 under working capital, shared CSO and CFO |
| Injury rate | Safety, then complaints, holds and suppliers | Split Safety and quality are mixed with supplier risk. | Safety and quality branch; suppliers under case fill |
Proposed shows one company tree. Each executive's home cards sit at a different level of it, which is the point: the CEO lives near the top, the functions lower down, and the shared nodes are where they meet. Current shows each role's tree as built in pulse-next, with the problems marked. Click any node for its owners, rule and issues.
| # | Change | Why first |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Correct the trees: separate components from lenses, fix gross margin and cash, add safety and quality as its own branch. | Every later screen inherits these. Wrong sums lose the CFO at once. |
| 2 | Swap the home cards to the proposed four per role, with shared metrics marked. | This is what each executive sees first. |
| 3 | One bridge per T1 whose bars are the T2s; one ranked "where" table under each T3. | Makes the drill reconcile and gives every gap a place. |
| 4 | Give every issue its path and open it at that node; drop core-metric repeats from the summary. | Connects the summary, the tree and the actions into one thread. |
| 5 | One drill model with a single breadcrumb; side panel for definitions only. | Removes the "where am I" moments. |