What metrics would you use to evaluate Spendesk's expense management dashboard?

Introduction

Evaluating Spendesk's expense management dashboard requires a comprehensive approach to product success metrics. To address this challenge effectively, I'll follow a structured framework that covers core metrics, supporting indicators, and risk factors while considering all key stakeholders. This approach will help us gain a holistic view of the dashboard's performance and impact.

Step 1

Product Context

Spendesk's expense management dashboard is a core feature of their spend management platform, designed to give finance teams and employees real-time visibility and control over company spending. The dashboard serves multiple stakeholders:

1. Finance teams: Seeking efficient expense tracking and reporting
2. Employees: Looking for easy expense submission and reimbursement
3. Managers: Requiring approval workflows and budget oversight
4. Company leadership: Needing overall spend visibility and control

The user flow typically involves:

1. Expense creation: Employees log expenses or make purchases
2. Approval process: Managers review and approve expenses
3. Reconciliation: Finance teams categorize and reconcile expenses
4. Reporting: Generation of financial reports and analytics

This dashboard fits into Spendesk's broader strategy of streamlining financial operations for businesses, particularly SMEs and mid-market companies. Compared to competitors like Expensify or SAP Concur, Spendesk aims to offer a more user-friendly, integrated solution that combines expense management with other financial controls.

In terms of product lifecycle, the expense management dashboard is likely in the growth or maturity stage, given Spendesk's established presence in the market. However, continuous innovation is crucial in this competitive fintech space.