Business reporting and analysis

In time of crisis, companies in sectors with difficulties are consistently going through it successful and strengthened. What is their secret? Good management, taking of opportunities and knowing how to lead in such situations.

In these times, we should be more analytical and firmer than ever in our decisions. In times of change it is healthy to question oneself what we do and how we do it, but always backing it up with analysis and data to be able to make the best decisions and not drifting with the “markets sensations”.

Businesses, which know how to adapt and take advantage from the opportunities available in times of crisis, are going to be the market leaders when the situation returns to normal again. Under these circumstances it is necessary to have the right tools for improving the business decision making.

In such cases these solutions are Management’ best ally, providing an essential support for decision making.

Information overload is not power, but knowledge is. Too often, transformation and analysis of all information and data generated by companies themselves, regardless of their size and activity, turns into a real problem and decision making slows down. This is an unacceptable situation in these uncertain times.

Nowadays, there are different reporting tools and the so called Business Intelligence solutions that allow satisfying a businesses’ growing need for transforming information into knowledge.

The transformation and the analysis of all information and data generated by companies themselves turns into a real problem because this information overload makes decision making slower, less reliable and less effective.

Business Intelligence solutions can be gathered in three groups analyzing existing information system data:

Balanced Scorecard: a solution for Management, it allows measuring strategies based on the achieved objectives, using indicators and their relations. In addition, makes tracking of strategic actions and responsibilities over objective achievement easier and the implantation of corrective actions.

Dashboards per indicator: a solution for decision making based on process indicators. This type of solution gives summarized information, without much detail, and visual features, alerts, graphic indicators, maps, etc. Unlike the first model, this is based on the business processes chain of value, rather than on strategic objectives.

Reporting Systems: Allows navigation through huge amounts of information, making the data crossing easier. These solutions are used for giving the activity’s evolution in detail, focusing mainly on tabular reports.

Reasons for implementing a Reporting/Business Intelligence solution

• Transactional Systems rather than analytical.
• Complex and manual business scopes.
• Need for integrated information coming from multiple sources.
• Use of spreadsheets for consolidating information from multiple sources.
• Loss of time searching for information rather than analyzing it.
• Obsolete information
• Heterogeneous information Systems.
• Different understandings of the same question.
• Lack of integration for monitoring performance indicators of different areas.
• Dependence on third parties (system department, secretaries) for obtaining information.
• Impossibility of knowing the state of business if not in the office.