How it is computed
Count every product sold in the period: service contracts, maintenance plans, protection products, each one as one. Divide by deals delivered. The same number can be built the other way: add up the penetration rate of every product on the menu, and the sum is the index. That second form is the useful one, because it tells you which product is dragging.
Why it matters
It separates penetration from price. Two stores can post the same PVR with one selling two products a deal at a fair price and the other selling one product at a stretched price. The first store's gross will still be there next year.
It is the number that coaches. A finance manager cannot act on "raise PVR." A finance manager can act on "your maintenance plan is attached to one deal in ten, and the store next door is at one in three."
How operators read it
- Decompose it into per-product penetration before you talk to anyone. The index is a sum; the fix lives in one of the addends.
- Hold the denominator steady. Whether cash deals count changes the index for every manager at once, so decide it once for the store.
- Read it against gross held per product. A product that is attached often but at a thin margin is a different conversation from one that is rarely attached but holds its gross.
Questions people ask
What is the difference between product index and PVR?
PVR is dollars per deal. Product index is products per deal. PVR tells you how much the office earned; the index tells you how it earned it, which is the part you can coach.
Why carry the product index to two decimals?
Because the moves that matter are small. A store that lifts its index from one point eight to two point one has added three products to every ten deals, and that is a real month of work for a finance office.
How A.D.A.M. reads it
A.D.A.M. carries the product index to two decimals as the sum of per-product penetration and names the product doing the dragging, by manager and for the store. He reads it beside the numbers it trades against, names what the gap is worth, and leaves the decision where it belongs. What an AI advisor should do, and refuse to do.