Manual reports are time-intensive, and report fatigue is a common after creating them often multiple times a day. Smartsheet says, that over 40% of workers surveyed spend at least a quarter of their workweek on manual, repetitive tasks, with email, data collection, and data entry occupying the most time. Maybe you’re trying to track organizational progress and growth. Maybe the executive is needing future forecasts to better plan for budget costs. Maybe you’re wanting to identify market trends or irregularities so you can anticipate upcoming issues. Whatever the reason, you’ll need a report for that since the data is always changing, and you need the latest data to make important decisions for your business. However, technology has created a solution, or to be honest, a few different solutions to help minimize your time and effort towards creating these endless, yet necessary, reports.
Tell a Story
Business Intelligence (BI) tools and data visualization, like DOMO software, deliver actionable information by offering real-time, easy-to-grasp insights. Essentially, it should help you tell a story with your data. Interactive reporting functions and customizable dashboards guarantee accuracy and heavily reduce the opportunity for human error. The best executive analytics software provide one data pipeline into your business, as well as the right visualization and narratives you need to make data-driven decisions. There is more room for error when creating manual reports from multiple streams of data across disconnected systems.
We’re not just talking about income statements and balance sheets. Almost every company has custom financial reports that are taking detailed pieces of information from different sources to analyze why revenue or expenses look a certain way. A strong executive analytics tool lets you transform complex reports, that usually take days to produce, into automated dashboards, reports and so much more.
Data Quality = Foundation
Gartner’s research has found that organizations believe poor data quality to be responsible for an average of $15 million per year in losses. Data quality is as important to an organization as the foundation is to a home, and trusting the data is paramount in making data-driven decisions that drive growth and profitability. What happens when we think these well-designed, manual reports produce erroneous data? These reports then become useless or maybe disastrous with adverse legal consequences if major decisions are based on them. Well-designed reports that are already custom built into the software offer less risk and are essential in providing valuable insights. Data quality should be your top priority as it’s crucial for making sound strategic decisions off it.
Freed-Up Resources
Using executive analytic tools not only saves your team a lot of time, but also allows you to leverage that time savings to dive even deeper into the intricacies of your business data. Instead of having a team member act like a computer by creating monotonous reports, this person can use their actual skills and expertise to analyze the data for a positive impact on the bottom line. Not only does this save time, get you more accurate data, and better data insight in one step, but your team member is also much happier & more engaged. More engaged employees stay longer, thereby also saving you the time & cost of hiring. That’s a bit of a win-win-win.
Partnerships Matter
44% of businesses seek alliances for new ideas, insights, and innovation, which is why we suggest working with a partner who specifically specializes in the DOMO software. The expertise and success of the platform really come down to the partner’s expertise and how it’s implemented. Sometimes clients are looking to hire internally to do the DOMO setup and the ongoing work, but often it’s more financially responsible and offers better results to form a solid alliance with experts, like BT Partners, who understand the software and all its capabilities. For example, by leveraging our expertise, we can produce a bill of material report for a client in 10 hours whereas a newer, less experienced person might take a few days to do it.
Another example, our Executive Analytics team recently helped a client who makes machines with thousands of parts. Their bill of material reporting was extremely complicated and would take them about a week to compile. After this client implemented DOMO into their business, their bill of material reporting was simplified immensely and is now in real-time. Could the client have done this themselves? Probably, but our team has worked with other manufacturers and brought a lot of guidance to the table, saving the client a lot of time & money by getting the new BOM created quickly & accurately. This is just one real-world example of what the DOMO software can offer our clients.
If you’re interested in learning more about what BI tools and data visualization can do for your business, drop us a line. Our experts will show you how we can help transform your business and are happy to share our experiences, so you can make an informed decision on if it’s right for you.
