Controlling and reporting

Controlling & reporting: driving decisions with real-time data

Controlling and reporting is the gathering, distribution and – most importantly – use of information to evaluate the performance of different organizational resources and processes – such as sales, operations, human capital finance – in light of business strategies. The key objective is to provide insights in support of profit management by the business.

 In any modern business, there is a staggering amount of information ready to be transformed into actionable insights. To unlock its value, you need to determine exactly what data in which form needs to be made available to whom in the organization. Next-level controlling and reporting, alongside insights like cost to serve, provide you with clear storylines that illuminate the way forward for your business.
 
Controlling and reporting is part of ‘data consumption’ - the last step in the data and analytics process, following data capturing, management and modeling. It concerns only the bare facts, leaving interpretations and next steps to human agents (vs. algorithms or AI). 

Breaking the silo mentality with cost to serve

An important caveat to this approach is that leaving out all data that is irrelevant to a specific department can create a ‘silo mentality’ in which everyone is solely focused on his or her own targets. The result is a lack of ownership that can greatly damage the company.

Luckily, there is a specific method that objectivates everything and works across departments: cost to serve. Put simply, cost to serve analyzes all the resources a company needs to bring its product or services to the client, from customer service and warehousing to logistics, transport, administration and marketing.

This approach provides every department with a clear view of how different aspects of the business influence each other and, eventually, the bottom line. In this way, cost to serve can help determine concrete actions that will improve processes, lower costs and have a beneficial, end-to-end impact on the entire company.

The right real-time data to the right person

The right data needs to be provided to the right person in the organization. For example, your sales department has no need of the maintenance schedule of your production unit, while production doesn’t need to know which clients pay on time and which don’t. The end goal of controlling and reporting is to keep data as clear, concise and up-to-date as possible to allow responsibles to determine the next steps needed to improve their KPIs.