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Benchmark Survey Participation

Survey participation is available to North American dealers, including those aligned with Allsteel, Haworth, Kimball International, MillerKnoll, Steelcase and Teknion, as well as ICP Forum peer group members.

The submission period is January through early April. The Benchmark Report is typically completed within 30 days following the survey submission end date. We notify participating dealers by email when the report is ready for use.

Important: The success of Solomon Coyle’s Financial Benchmark is dependent on each participant submitting an enterprise-level survey. This ensures successful apples-to-apples comparisons. While dealers that subscribe to SCi3 have the option to submit surveys for subsets of their business, but an enterprise-level submission is still required.

Branch- and Location-level Submissions

As of January 1, 2025, an SCi3 subscription is required for branch- and location-level submissions. If you are interested in subscribing to SCi3, please go here (opens in new tab).

In an effort to simplify and speed survey completion, Solomon Coyle has made the following changes to the survey instrument and corresponding mapping tool:

  • All WD&I, Design, and Project Management Service COGS and Expenses are no longer requested separately. Submitters enter one number for each item. Service COGS continue to be determined by Solomon Coyle, automatically, using an algorithm that considers related service revenue levels.
  • Compensation for Design Managers, Designers, and Design Admins is now merged into one field on the OpEx tab called Total Compensation – Design Staff.
  • Similarly, payroll costs and benefits for Design Managers, Designers, and Design Admins is now merged into one field on the OpEx tab called Total PR Tax & Benefits – Design Staff.
  • Compensation for PM Supervisors/Managers, PMs, and PM Admins is now merged into one field on the OpEx tab called Total Compensation – PM Staff.
  • Similarly, payroll costs and benefits for PM Supervisors/Managers, PMs, and PM Admins is now merged into one field on the OpEx tab called Total PR Tax & Benefits – PM Staff.

Note that if you use the Solomon Coyle Mapping tool, you will need to upgrade it to the newest version, found here.

Survey Tools

Benchmark Survey Workbook

The data-collection tool for the Financial Benchmark Survey is an Excel workbook which dealers use to enter and submit their responses. You will download the survey workbook from this page to a Windows PC and work with it in a full desktop version of Excel. When you’re ready for submission, click the Submit button provided in the workbook. You will be linked to our upload utility. Simply follow the on-screen prompts until you see the notification that your survey has been accepted.

The survey workbook requires Excel 2013 or later, running on a Windows PC. Do not attempt to use the tool in Excel Online.

Download the .XLSM file and save it to a known location on your PC. When you’re ready to work with it, open it in the full desktop version of Excel and get started. download button

Here’s a short video to help you get started…


 

Data Mapper

Dealers interested in speeding up future response time should consider using our data mapping tool, an Excel workbook which allows respondents to associate their G/L accounts with the Solomon Coyle Standard Chart of Accounts and then import their data directly into the survey workbook. Dealers who use our data mapper report dramatic reductions in survey completion time and enjoy being able to minimize their manual data entry.

Learn more about the mapping tool.

If your company used our data mapper from past years, your work in the file is still good but you should let us perform a free update for you. Simply email a copy of the previously used mapper to support@solomoncoyle.com. We can usually turn it around for you within 24 hours.

Submission Disqualifiers

Submissions containing insufficient or incomplete data are excluded from the survey results.

Outlier Management

Data points deemed to be outliers from submissions that are otherwise acceptable may be excluded from aggregate indexes but will  not impact the dealer’s ability to compare themselves to those indexes.

We Keep Your Submission Safe and Private

Completed surveys are uploaded directly to Solomon Coyle over a secure connection for further QA and analysis. The individual survey results and the survey workbook itself are confidential to the responding dealers and Solomon Coyle unless:

1. A dealer principal informs Solomon Coyle, in writing, that a specific third-party can access those results, or
2. A dealer participates in a specific aligned manufacturer program granting that manufacturer access to Solomon Coyle data as stated in the program requirements.

To ensure data privacy in reporting, a minimum number of responses is required in order for information to be displayed. An aggregate column resulting from a user’s drill-down must be comprised of at least four dealers in order for that column to be displayed.