Shift from static excel reporting to dynamic information that is there when you need it.
Overcome challenges and limitations of static Excel reporting with self-service analytics, saving you time whilst improving your service delivery.
Client Challenge
Need to overcome reporting issues to monitor performance effectively and move towards data-driven decision making
A British manufacturer of fresh meals supplied to the airline industry had challenges accessing data that supported their decision making in a low margin high volume environment. Static reports were manually compiled, which was time-consuming, costly and led to issues with the consistency of information presented.
The COO explained, “We have the data but find it challenging to access and use it. In some areas, we just are not asking for the information anymore, as we know it will be painful to get.” We are producing huge spreadsheets which literally take minutes to load, then spend hours manually manipulating them before they get published (if Tim is at work!). When two reports are compared, they don’t match which drives the management team up the wall.”
“We need dynamic reports with drill down functionality that enables managers to take action based on the right information at the right time”.
Solution
We started off by gaining an understanding of the client’s current reporting frustrations and information they could access. Common themes came to light, such as, my team does not use the reports, it takes too much time to produce, we must manually manipulate and combine reports and we are too reliant on a few individuals.
Working with key stakeholders, we got an understanding of the client’s key business goals and objectives to get a clear view of their information needs to be successful. Once we understood what information they needed, we set off identifying all the data sources required to align their data with their business objectives.
Like other businesses, we discovered issues with the client’s data quality. To overcome this obstacle, we used Power BI to cleanse and transform the data enabling us to produce quality reports. We then connected the data from various sources and produced ingestion routines extracting relevant data from the source on which reports would be based. This automated the reports and enabled the team to run reports with up-to-date information as and when required, providing immediate feedback to guide decisions.
Working with the business, we built multiple self-service dashboards with drill-down functionality to access granular information driving insights to opportunities to improve and highlight risks before they materialise.
Impact
Developed automated sales, inventory, supply chain and procurement analysis using Power BI. This gave staff the ability to access detailed, easy-to-use, self-service reporting with drill down functionality.
Sales and operational managers gained access to granular data enabling them to manage labour by shift, analyse material yields by product and spot sales and margin trends early helping people take corrective actions when needed.
7 Business partners saved on average 6 days per month which was previously spent producing reports. This gave the Finance team 500 additional man days (Additional 2 FTE’s) per annum which are now used to help general managers identify opportunities for improvements and getting more involved in projects.
“Instead of spending hours producing reports and then debating whether the information is correct, we now have confidence in the information presented and use this to drive daily operational decisions.”
