Improving Management Information

A recent article in Business Finance magazine, Where Reporting and Consolidation Need to Improve, reports on some interesting survey results.  They surveyed 200 Finance, IT and Line-of-Business employees to find out what they were missing in financial and other management information.

As part of the survey, they noted that 47% of survery respondents said they did not have enough information on their own performance.  Half thinks their company provides too little information on leading indicators and 80% want more information on their competitors.

I'm a little surprised at these statistics, but only because the survey portrays, in my view, an optimistic state of financial reporting.  My experience is that many companies have very little in the way of leading indicators, relying instead on mostly historical financial information to manage their businesses.  Additionally, very few companies I've delt with make any serious attempt to incorporate financial and statistical data from outside their organization.

Part of the problem is the over-reliance on the use of ERP systems for Business Intelligence.  These systems are very good at capturing, aggregating and reporting information throughout an organization, but they have typically lagged behind Point Solutions for their Business Intelligence capabilities.  As a result, historical financil information is provided to employees in abundance while leading, operational and external data is sorely lacking.  As the price of Business Intelligence technologies continues to fall, more companies should take another look at implementing them to ensure their employees have the information they need to make informed and timely decisions.