Method and system to compare business metrics
A method and system provide information by which an audience made of one or more prospects or customers of payroll and benefits processing may compare its human capital metrics with human capital metrics of other customers. A customer database is maintained for each customer that includes demographic data, employee data and financial data for that customer. Each customer database is updated based on periodically processing payroll and benefits transactions for that customer. A benchmark database is created by aggregating selected fields of data from databases of customers of interest so that the benchmark database represents a sample of customers of interest. An audience database is created for the one or more prospects or customers forming the audience by retrieving the selected fields of data from the customer databases for the one or more customers forming the audience. The audience database is compared to the benchmark database, and results of the comparison are reported to the audience.
1 . A method of providing information by which an audience of one or more prospects or customers of payroll and benefits processing may compare its human capital metrics with human capital metrics of other customers, the method comprising:
maintaining a customer database for each customer that includes demographic data, employee data and financial data for that customer;
updating each customer database based on periodically processing payroll and benefits transactions for that customer;
creating a benchmark database by aggregating selected fields of data from databases of customers of interest so that the benchmark database represents a sample of customers of interest;
creating an audience database for retrieving the selected fields of data from the customer databases for the one or more prospects or customers forming the audience for the audience;
comparing the audience database to the benchmark database; and
reporting results of the comparison to the audience.
2 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the comparing the audience database to the benchmark database further comprises:
deriving metrics from the benchmark database;
deriving metrics of the audience database; and
comparing the metrics of the audience database to the metrics of the benchmark database.
3 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the method is automatically performed for the audience at set intervals throughout the calendar year.
4 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the customer database is updated each time a payroll and benefits transaction is processed for that customer.
5 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the payroll and benefits transactions comprise one or more of the following: employee demographic data, employee compensation data, employee and employer taxation data, employee benefits data, employer benefits data, and ancillary services provided.
6 . The method of claim 1 , wherein each of the customers of interest from which data has been aggregated to form the benchmark database share at least one characteristic in common with the audience.
7 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the step of reporting the results of the comparison to the audience further comprises:
reporting the results in an electronic format.
8 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the step of reporting the results of the comparison to the audience further comprises:
plotting the data in the benchmark database and the data in the audience database to show specific fields over a set period of time.
9 . A system for providing information by which an audience of one or more prospects or customers of payroll and benefits processing may compare its human capital metrics with human capital metrics of other customers, the system comprising:
a processing system for processing payroll and benefits transactions and updating a plurality of customer databases based on the processing, each database including demographic data, employee data and financial data for one customer;
a benchmarking system with a benchmarking processor which creates a benchmark database by aggregating selected fields of data from databases of customers of interest; creates an audience database by retrieving the selected fields of data from the customer databases of the one or more prospects or customers in the audience; and compares the audience database with the benchmarking database; and
a reporting system which reports results of the comparison to the audience.
10 . The system of claim 9 , wherein the benchmarking database represents a sample of the selected data from customers of interest.
11 . The system of claim 10 , wherein the benchmarking system compares the audience database with the benchmarking database by deriving metrics from the benchmarking database, deriving metrics from the audience database and comparing the metrics.
12 . The system of claim 9 , wherein the benchmarking system automatically creates a benchmark database, automatically creates an audience database and compares the benchmark database with the audience database; and the reporting system automatically reports the results of the comparison to the audience at set intervals throughout the year.
13 . The system of claim 9 , wherein the reporting system reports the results in an electronic format.
14 . The system of claim 9 , wherein the payroll and benefits transactions comprise one or more of the following: employee demographic data, employee compensation data, employee and employer taxation data, employee benefits data, employer benefits data, and ancillary services provided.
15 . The system of claim 9 , wherein the results reported plot the data in the benchmark database and the data in the audience database to show specific fields over a set period of time.
16 . A method of providing information by which an audience comprising one or more prospects or customers of payroll and benefits processing may compare its human capital metrics with human capital metrics of other customers, the method comprising:
maintaining a customer database for each customer that includes demographic data, employee data and financial data for that customer;
updating each customer database based on processing payroll and benefits transactions for that customer;
maintaining benchmark databases, each benchmark database created by aggregating selected fields of data from databases of customers of interest so that each benchmark database represents a sample of customers of interest for that benchmark database;
creating an audience database by retrieving the selected fields of data from the customer databases of the one or more prospects or customers comprising the audience;
comparing the audience database to one of the benchmark databases; and
reporting results of the comparison to the audience.
17 . The method of claim 16 , wherein the comparing of the audience database to one of the benchmark databases further comprises:
deriving metrics from the benchmark database;
deriving metrics from the audience database; and
comparing the metrics of the benchmark database to the metrics of the audience database.
18 . The method of claim 16 , wherein the customers of interest for each benchmark database are selected based on demographic data, employee data and financial data.
19 . The method of claim 16 , wherein the benchmark database selected for the comparison is chosen based on the data in that benchmark database and the customers of interest from whom the data comes.
20 . The method of claim 16 , wherein the customer databases and the benchmark databases are updated every time a payroll and benefits transaction is processed.