Still too much manual labor

Customers, consulting firms, and software vendors all report that a single-source reporting process, i.e., data collection, data preparation, and reporting from a single software suite, is often still the exception rather than the rule.

However, it should be noted that the technology is much further along than the processes and organizational structures of the companies. Software tools for fast, flexible and holistic reporting have been available for years.

Providers such as SAS Institute, Qlik, Exasol, Tableau or SAP enable analyses at the push of a button. So much for the technical possibilities. But companies are having a hard time with the implementation and the subsequent change and adaptation process.

Business intelligence and business analytics also always bring about a change in corporate culture and the focus of work.

Companies have particular problems with data collection, as key figures and reports are still generated with a high level of manual effort, corporate structures are becoming more international and complex, but on the other hand Excel is also frequently used as a reporting tool.

A single consistent database, i.e., the single point of truth, can provide a remedy, but is often not available. Similarly, most companies lack an understanding of the uniform and central maintenance of master data.

At this point, the old laws and camps still prevail. The business wants great innovative digital solutions to drive the business. But they still leave data integration, data protection and master data management to IT.

"This is IT issue, we don't care".

is what CIOs and consultants unfortunately hear far too often from the business departments and the board of directors. But a successful and sustainable digitization strategy can only succeed if the business finally works closely with IT on such topics and also thinks about IT issues. After all, they also use IT for their goals.

The goal of modern management reporting should be to take an integrated view of a company's most important departments to ensure a unified view of the company.

Customers invest in traditional areas

This is the basis for Big Data Analytics as well as business models based on the analysis of data. A Lünendonk study has brought some clarity here.

While the reporting managers and department heads surveyed by Lünendonk stated that they are able to analyze actual data and historical data well with the existing software tools, there is high potential for optimization in the analysis of future scenarios.

Only 57 percent of respondents agreed with the statement "Reporting includes future-oriented methods (forecasts, planning scenarios). The quality and informative value of the reports produced are also not satisfactory in all the customer companies surveyed. In one third of the 94 customer companies surveyed, the reports do not have the required quality and level of detail and do not fully cover the reality of the company.

The much-vaunted flexibility in management reporting is also not yet in such good shape. Only about half of the companies surveyed are able to respond flexibly to short-term inquiries and requests for adjustments.

Customers plan automation

Optimization potential therefore lies primarily in the degree of automation and standardization of reporting. For example, 27 percent of the managers surveyed by Lünendonk stated that reports are often created with the help of manual intervention. A further 34 percent of the companies surveyed also require manual intervention in the reporting process.

Only 39 percent report that their reporting processes are highly automated. The plans of the managers surveyed with regard to the target level of automation are interesting.

In two years, management reporting processes are expected to be automated to a high degree in 73 percent of the customer companies analyzed. This means that almost 40 percent of the companies analyzed are currently planning corresponding change and adaptation projects for the reporting processes.

Too much manual labor

These measures are also urgently needed, because reporting departments still spend too much time and too many resources on simple and standardizable activities.

As a result, they do not have enough time for value-added activities such as commenting and deriving and following up on actions. For example, about 65 percent of resources are spent on report preparation. This process includes the sub-processes of consolidation, data procurement, plausibility checking and reconciliation, and report generation.

As a target value, a maximum of 50 percent of the resources should be allocated to these activities, because those responsible for reporting have far too little time to interpret the key figures and to derive suitable measures and strategic and operational recommendations for the company from them.

This state of affairs does not correspond to the basic idea of the concept of business intelligence as decision support for management. Rather, deviations must be interpreted, causes explained and measures outlined.

At the same time, the technological foundations must be laid for the current digital transformation. Companies that do not understand the BI toolkit will not make the next step to Big Data Analytics.