Many organisations produce reports every month — and yet the Board still decides on gut feeling. The problem is rarely a lack of data: it is how data is selected, processed and presented. Here are five principles we apply in our reporting and Business Intelligence projects.
1. Start with decisions, not data
Before designing any report, identify the decisions the Board takes every month: where to invest, which costs to contain, which products or regions to follow. Every indicator should answer one of those questions.
2. Few indicators, clearly defined
A dashboard with 60 indicators guides no one. Select the essential ones and document them in an indicator dictionary: formula, source, frequency and owner. It is the simplest way to ensure everyone reads the same number in the same way.
3. A single source of truth
Management reporting figures must reconcile with the accounts. When each department has its own spreadsheet, meetings end up debating which number is right instead of what to do about it.
4. Fixed frequency and deadlines
Late information loses value. Set a calendar — for example, reporting available by the fifth working day — and automate data collection and processing wherever possible, with tools such as Power BI and SQL connected to the ERP.
5. From numbers to action
Every material variance should have an explanation, an owner and an action. Good reporting ends with decisions, not with charts.
At DRDS we call this journey Data → Intelligence → Decision → Performance → Value. If you want to review your organisation's reporting, talk to us.