Sales managers, field sales managers, in particular, might often feel clueless. That’s because they aren’t physically present in a given field, which makes it a tad challenging to monitor the team’s operations. To that end, the most efficient way of gaining visibility online is by measuring the performance of both the team and the product through KPIs.
Nonetheless, it is quintessential to pick the KPIs (key performance indicators) that are relevant to your industry and business goals. Such a KPI is the sales order filled per FTE. Essentially, this metric focuses on calculating a firm’s efficacy at filing out sales orders. So, why should you utilize it? In simple terms, this metric facilitates valuable reporting knowledge, whilst allowing your team to come up with actionable strategies when it comes to optimizing sales.
That being said, let’s have a closer look at what this key performance indicator entails.
An In-Depth Analysis
Moving on, what does full-time equivalent imply? In simplest terms, the full-time equivalent represents the total amount of paid hours during a specific timeframe (full-time, part-time, or contracted) by the number of working hours from Monday till Friday. Essentially, the ratio units are FTE units or equivalent employees that work full-time.
In plain English, one FTE is equivalent to an employee that works full-time. Let’s think of a simple example. Considering that you have a firm, and you have three employees working for you.
One of them works 50 hours per week, the other works 40 hours per week whereas the third one works 10 hours per week, which would mean a total of 100 hours. If we were to assume that every employee works roughly 40 hours per week, the full-time equivalent calculation would be dividing 100 by 40. The result would be 2.5 FTE.
What Else Should You Note?
Furthermore, we could argue that the sales order filled per FTE is a unit of measure that assesses the productivity level of your employees. Now, in the case in which your company’s FTE is 1.0, then, that person, or that group of people represents the equivalent of a full-time worker.
Now if we were to talk about a group that works with a full-time billing manager, being assisted by a clerk, the FTE would be of 1.25. (1 full-time + (40 hours/10 hours)) = 1.25 net revenue per FTE. As you can see, this is basically a metric that measures productivity, determining the efficacy of a firm’s approach.
If you choose to compare it with other companies that operate in your industry, you can assess the approximate efficacy level of your activity. It’s as simple as this, the higher the sales order filled per FTE, the more efficient the operation. Thereupon, this would make your business sustainable and profitable.
Of course, at the same time, it pays off to analyze specific trends of other companies in your field. Concurrently, as a general guideline, if the sales order filled per FTE remains stable over a specific timeframe, then that would mean that your business model works accordingly.