Business Reporting Concepts

• A self-service reporting environment can save millions for corporate customers.
• First consider the background, then the business challenge, followed by discussing the solution and results, and finally answer and discuss the case questions.

Business Reporting Definitions and Concepts

• Report = Information leading to Decision
• A report is any communication artifact prepared to convey specific information.
• Reports ensure proper departmental functioning
• Reports provide information
• Reports provide the results of an analysis
• Reports persuade others to act
• Reports create an organizational memory

What is a Business Report?

• It's a written document with information regarding business matters.
• Purpose: to improve managerial decisions
• Source: data from inside and outside the organization via ETL.
• Format: text, tables, graphs/charts.
• Distribution: In print, email, portal/intranet.
• Data acquisition leads to information generation, then to decision-making, and finally to process management.

Key to Any Successful Report

• Clarity
• Brevity
• Completeness
• Correctness
• Informal reports are a single letter or memo.
• Formal reports range from 10-100 pages with cover, summary, and text.
• Short reports are periodic, informative, and investigative.

Types of Business Reports

• Metric Management Reports help manage business performance through metrics such as SLAs for externals and KPIs for internals.
• Metric Management Reports can be used as part of Six Sigma and/or TQM.
• Dashboard-Type Reports provide a graphical presentation of several performance indicators on a single page using dials/gauges.
• Balanced Scorecard-Type Reports include financial, customer, business process, and learning & growth indicators.

Components of Business Reporting Systems

• Common characteristics include OLTP, or online transaction processing, such as ERP, POS, SCM, RFID, Sensors, and Web.
• Data supply (volume, variety, velocity).
• ETL
• Data storage
• Business logic
• Publication medium
• Assurance

Data and Information Visualization

• It's the use of visual representations to explore, make sense of, and communicate data
• Information = aggregation, summarization, and contextualization of data
• It's related to information graphics, scientific visualization, and statistical graphics.
• Charts, graphs, and illustrations are often used

A Brief History of Data Visualization

• Data visualization can date back to the second century AD
• William Playfair created the first pie chart in 1801.
• Playfair is credited as the inventor of the modern chart, creating the first line and pie charts.
• Charles Joseph Minard created arguably the most popular multi-dimensional chart showing the decimation of Napoleon's Army During the 1812 Russian Campaign
• By 1900s, there was a more formal attitude toward visualization with a focus on color, value scales, and labeling
• In 1983, Jacques Bertin published the book Semiologie Graphique
• By the 2000s, the internet emerged as a medium for information visualization, raising visual literacy.
• Visualization began to incorporate interaction, animation, 3D graphics-rendering, virtual worlds, and real-time data feed.

Different Types of Charts and Graphs

• Basic Charts include Line, Bar, Pie, Scatter Plot, and Bubble Chart
• Specialized Charts and Graphs include Histogram, Gantt Chart, PERT Chart, Geographic Map, Bullet Graph, Heat Map / Tree Map, and Highlight Table

The Emergence of Data Visualization And Visual Analytics

• Many data visualization companies are in the 4th quadrant.
• Increased focus by big players like MicroStrategy improving Visual Insight, SAP launching Visual Intelligence, and SAS launching Visual Analytics
• Microsoft bolstered PowerPivot with Power View, IBM launched Cognos Insight, and Oracle acquired Endeca

Visual Analytics

• This is a recently coined term of information visualization + predictive analytics.
• Information visualization is descriptive and backward-focused on "what happened" and "what is happening."
• Predictive analytics is predictive and future-focused on "what will happen" and "why will it happen."
• Big data and in memory, as well as massively parallel processing are required

Performance Dashboards

• Performance dashboards are commonly used in BPM software suites and BI platforms.
• Dashboards visually display important consolidated information on a single screen, easy to digest, and drill down.
• To designing a dashboard, prioritize displaying all required information on a single screen, clearly and without distraction, in a manner that can be assimilated quickly
• Dashboards contain three layers of information for Monitoring, Analysis, and Management

What to look for in a dashboard

• Use of visual components to highlight data and exceptions that require action.
• Transparency to the user and extremely ease of use
• Combine data from a variety of systems into a single, summarized, unified view.
• Enable drill-down or drill-through to underlying data sources or reports.
• Present a dynamic, real-world view with timely data.
• Require little coding to implement/deploy/maintain.

Best Practices in Dashboard Design

• Benchmark KPIs with Industry Standards
• Wrap the Metrics with Contextual Metadata
• Validate the Design by a Usability Specialist
• Prioritize and Rank Alerts and Exceptions
• Enrich Dashboard with Business-User Comments
• Present Information in Three Different Levels
• Pick the Right Visual Constructs
• Provide for Guided Analytics

Business Performance Management (BPM)

• A real-time system that alerts managers to potential opportunities, impending problems and threats, and then empowers them to react through models and collaboration.
• Also called corporate performance management (CPM by Gartner Group), enterprise performance management (EPM by Oracle), and strategic enterprise management (SEM by SAP).
• BPM refers to the business processes, methodologies, metrics, and technologies used by enterprises to measure, monitor, and manage business performance.
• BPM encompasses a set of integrated, closed-loop management and analytic processes, tools for businesses to define strategic goals and measure/manage performance, and methods/tools for monitoring key performance indicators (KPIs).

A Closed-Loop Process to Optimize Business Performance

• Process Steps:
  • 1. Strategize
  • 2. Plan
  • 3. Monitor/analyze
  • 4. Act/adjust
• Each step in the process has its own steps

Strategize: Where Do We Want to Go?

• Strategic planning
• Common tasks include:
  • 1. Conduct a current situation analysis
  • 2. Determine the planning horizon
  • 3. Conduct an environment scan
  • 4. Identify critical success factors
  • 5. Complete a gap analysis
  • 6. Create a strategic vision
  • 7. Develop a business strategy
  • 8. Identify strategic objectives and goals

Plan: How Do We Get There?

• Operational planning
• Operational plan translates an organization's strategic objectives and goals into a set of well-defined tactics and initiatives, resources requirements, and expected results for some future time period
• Operational planning can be tactic-centric or budget-centric

Monitor/Analyze: How Are We Doing?

• A performance monitoring framework should address two key issues: what to monitor, such as critical success factors and strategic goals and targets, and how to monitor.

Act and Adjust: What Do We Need to Do Differently?

• Success depends on new projects like creating new products, entering new markets, acquiring new customers (or businesses), or streamlining some process.
• Commonly, new projects and ventures often fail
• Statistics show that 60% of Hollywood movies and 70% of large IT projects fail.

Performance Measurement

• Is a system that assists managers in tracking the implementations of business strategy by comparing actual results against strategic goals and objectives
• Comprises systematic comparative methods that indicate progress against goals

KPIs and Operational Metrics

• A KPI represents a strategic objective and metrics that measure performance against a goal
• Distinguishing features of KPIs include strategy, targets, ranges, encodings, time frames, and benchmarks.

Performance Measurement

• Outcome KPIs such as lagging indicators include revenues
• Driver KPIs such as leading indicators include sales leads
• Operational areas covered by driver KPIs include customer performance, service performance, sales operations, and sales plan/forecast

Performance Measurement System

• Balanced Scorecard (BSC) is a performance measurement and management methodology that helps translate an organization's financial, customer, internal process, and learning and growth objectives and targets into a set of actionable initiatives

Six Sigma as a Performance Measurement System

• Six Sigma aims to reduce the number of defects in a business process to as close to zero defects per million opportunities (DPMO) as possible.
• The DMAIC performance model is a closed-loop business improvement model encompassing the steps of defining, measuring, analyzing, improving, and controlling a process
• Considers Lean Six Sigma and Lean manufacturing / lean production