Business intelligence tools offer countless ways to slice and dice data. Enamored by yet another way to collect data, many organizations today have built the proverbial “hidden factories” of generating what are merely “Passive Reports”. Emailed to countless individuals, posted on antiquated bulletin boards, and taking valuable time to build and distribute, these passive reports are simply not “Driving the business forward.” Whether it is too much data, too complex data, or most often, the lack of acute business acumen to process the data, most companies today are drowning in useless reports.
At CSI, we believe that business data must take the form of an “Active Positioning Device.” The most successful organizations today view data as a process, not a report. These organizations recognize that points are not given for colorful bulletin boards and fancy email attachments, but rather a simple and concise system that allows every team within the organization to utilize their performance data to “drive their business forward.” These organizations create a weekly cadence where the organizational scorecards truly educate, facilitate, and motivate every employee toward demonstrative conversations and actions. This view of data as an “Active Positioning Device” allows organizations to recalibrate and eventually eliminate many non-value added reporting functions, thus streamlining and simplifying the data that truly allows the business to understand “winning and losing.”
Reflection Questions – Passive Report or Active Positioning Device…?
- Do you receive email attachments of data that you don’t bother to open because you already know it is irrelevant?
- Do you pass by bulletin boards of dashboards and scorecards without a second glance because you don’t believe what is posted really moves the business forward?
- Do you have your own set of business indicators that you track for yourself because the other reports are convoluted or simply of no value?
If you answered “Yes” to any of the above questions, please feel free to reach out to the team of Competitive Solutions to learn more about how to move from passive reports to Active Positioning Devices.
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