Management Reporting: A time bound business conversation.

Management reporting is a source of business intelligence that helps business leaders make more accurate, data driven decisions.The reports collect data from various departments of the company tracking key performance indicators (KPIs) and present them in an understandable way. They basically show the worth of your business over a specific time period by disclosing financial and operational information.

Top management reporting is expected to drive decision making and strategy execution through providing transparency and early warning. Today’s top managers are no longer satisfied with pure figures, they are also looking for insights which enable them to drive performance. They expect Finance leaders to play a key role in the delivery of these insights and become a true business partner that is able to provide transparency and early warning, so as to better contribute to decision making and strategy execution. The value of an insight is the management report's relevance and support for the decision making process. A good insight will help to take the right decisions and to take them fast. Therefore management reporting provide insights on how the company is doing, empowering decision-makers to find the right path to increase operating efficiency and make pertinent decisions to remain competitive.

Time Factor

To be relevant, reports need to be delivered at the right time with the appropriate information. The lack of time available for report analysis is a hurdle for Finance leaders to provide real insight to the business. Hence, it is crucial to increase time spent on analysis in order to meet top management expectations. The only way to do so without increasing the cost of reporting is to improve efficiency by reducing the time spent on report creation and quality assurance. This can be tackled through:

1. Content Flexibility

Finance leaders will need to find the right balance between standardized reports, that will be published at well defined moments of time and certified by finance reporting responsible, and non-standardized reports that will provide a detailed insight upon request of top management. Flexibility will also enable the reporting to be more reactive to changing business environments.

2. Effective governance

Besides the issues related to the speed of delivery of the management reports and to their quality, most firms have delivery departments that need to deliver the same set of data several times. Hence, defining an appropriate governance model is crucial in order to optimize the time spent on report creation and to increase the quality of the reports produced. An effective governance model should define clear roles and responsibilities in the production and analysis of the reports and find the right balance between centralized governance, which fosters the unity, harmonization, standardization, speed of delivery and quality of the reporting, and decentralized governance, which is favoring the flexibility described here above.

3. Systems

It is unfortunately apparrent that in this digital era a number of firms still compile most of their reports manually, whereas automating the creation of the reports would benefit both the speed of delivery and the quality of the reported information. Indeed, manual report compilation increases the risk of errors linked to the human factor and fosters the emergence of various interpretations and definition of a given concept. The implementation of a state of the art reporting system starts with the definition of a reporting data model, in which reporting dimensions and views will be clearly defined. Next, an assessment of the new data warehouse and available relevant reporting tools will be required. An appropriate tool will also enable you to leverage on transactional data to offer insightful & BI oriented information.

Conclusion

All paths of careers are defined by the ability to manage time. In the corporate world, I have come to understand that one of the most important skills is the capacity to do the best possible job at the shortest time possible on something with the highest impact. Managing time does not mean spending lesser time on something; it’s simply knowing what to spend time on, to advance that mission objective of your firm. Do not be like the lifeless feather which when tossed into the stream wanders wherever the stream current moves it. Be like the dragonfly which even though enjoying the mild current defines its path.