The Hidden Costs of ‘Workaround Reporting’: 6 Signs Your Business Analytics Need a Makeover

It’s New Year’s Resolution time – and chances are you’ve got some items you’d like to fix in the coming year: wobbly stairs, a messy basement, or a bad habit or two. Unfortunately, we often find reasons for not fixing things – referred to as the “avoidance principle”.

This “avoidance principle” applies equally to our professional life as it does our personal one. We see business issues that should be fixed, but we find workarounds instead of fixing them. This is too often the case with business analytics and reporting. Just like wobbly stairs that can result in a tragic fall, not fixing problems with reporting can result in significant harm to your business.

For example . . .

Problem #1:  Business reports take forever to run.
Workaround:  Run them at night.
Harm:  Inability to make decisions in real-time; & making decisions based on outdated information.

Problem #2:  The people who need the reports can’t customize them on their own.
Workaround:  Give reports to the programmers to customize.
Harm: While the customization requests take weeks or months to complete, management is flying blind.

Problem #3:  Inability to easily manipulate/optimize data.
Workaround:  Create Excel tables. (Lots and lots of them!)
Harm:  Excel Hell. More tables than reports. Both a maintenance nightmare, and a high risk for error.

Problem #4:   Only managers get access to reports; only managers can make critical decisions.
Workaround:  Have managers review their reports and then decide what to pass on to their staff.
Harm:  Managers get ‘analysis paralysis’; un-informed staffers can’t contribute to decision-making.

Problem #5:  It takes too long to get meaningful – and consistent – metrics out of reporting efforts.
Workaround:  Get staff to spend more time reviewing, comparing & consolidating their metrics.
Harm: “More time” doesn’t exist; executives are forced to guess which data to act on.

Problem #6:  We use a reporting technology that’s old, doesn’t support AI, and isn’t very flexible.
Workaround:  Run what reports we have, download them, then manually edit them as needed.
Harm: A time-sink and an increased likelihood of being left behind by more tech savvy competitors

Unfortunately, the appeal of the avoidance principle lasts only so long . . . and what seems like viable workarounds at the time inevitably result in doing more harm than good. So – before the New Year rolls around, review the preceding six problems and decide whether it may be time to improve your reporting technology in 2025.

And if you opt to do so, keep these thoughts in mind:

1. Speed Matters. Every business report and dashboard should run in under 10 seconds.
2. Make it Easy. Reports and dashboards should be user-centric and easy to customize, with minimal training or technical expertise required.
3. Show Your Data, in Your Way. It should be simple and straightforward to dynamically access and manipulate live business data.
4. Give Insight to Everyone. The solution should support diverse user needs. From sales and inventory to high-level executive dashboards, you want business analytics that offer improved decision-making at all organizational levels.
5. Tell just One Version of the Truth. Metrics should be centrally-defined to clearly identify KPIs, anomalies, and outliers, enabling staff to focus on higher-value tasks.
6. Old technology can’t compete in a New Year. You may not think you need the ‘latest & greatest’ to win deals, but if your competition is using superior tech, can you afford not to?

When it comes to making the best possible decisions for your business, some resolutions are definitely worth keeping.

If you’re ready to make a move to improve your business analytics and reporting process, contact us today. We would be happy to meet with you to discuss your specific needs and show you how DataSelf can drastically streamline your decision making and profitability.