Taking Enterprise Reporting to the Next Level with Integrated Automation

Introduction

A number of major corporations have recently created an Enterprise Reporting Services operation as part of their Shared Services organization ^[1].  This group provides reporting and analysis services to a variety of key areas of the company, such as Marketing, Finance, and Procurement.  This research abstract looks at the experiences of a major multi-national corporation in enhancing its capabilities in this area with the use of Integrated Automation technology. ^[2]

Company Experience

During a recent Peeriosity Peercast^TM a global Consumer Products Group company with over $15 billion in annual revenue shared their experiences in improving and enhancing their Enterprise Reporting Services ^[3] through a focus on integrated automation, including a look at the tools they use and their level of satisfaction with them to this point.   

Having begun their journey in the Enterprise Reporting Services area in the past couple of years, they recently named it their Analytic Center of Excellence ^[4], also known as ACE, within the company. ACE serves as a single point of contact to partner with the business, represents all ACE capabilities, leads communities of practice, and understands the business needs, the necessary data, and related priority levels.  The Analytic Center of Excellence provides a focused group of experts that design and deliver reporting and visualization, data science, and automation solutions, as well as experts with an enterprise focus on creating frameworks, best practices, tool training, data stewardship, vendor selection, and business KPIs related to Enterprise Reporting.

The following are the objectives for integrated automation at the Analytic Center of Excellence:

• Deliver more capabilities faster
• Incorporate more detail, complexity, and features
• Delineated processes – better resource planning
• Decreased scope creep
• Up-skill talent
• Less reliance on cross-functional teams
• Broaden data sources
• Increased frequency of analysis
• Avoid human error
• Prep the environment (tech and culture) for RPA, ML, AI

Some of the results realized from their business intelligence digital transformation and automation include transitioning from needing five work days to prepare 27 e-mailed reports and 285 pages of tables to have a mobile dashboard and visual story-building that is available globally on demand.  Developing new dashboards has gone from taking one week to just over seven hours, which is a dramatic improvement for the Center of Excellence.

A few of the next steps for the company in this area include expanding the reach of the Analytic Center of Excellence to support new areas of the company, drive improved governance, develop rapid prototyping, and better leverage the technology available to them.

The complete recording of the Peercast and additional details from the Peercast presentation, including the use of digital assistants, RPA, AI, and automated workflows, are available for members on the Peeriosity website.

iPolling^TM Results Review

The results from a recent poll of Peeriosity members utilizing the iPolling^TM technology provide an interesting perspective regarding the consolidation of Enterprise Reporting into a Center of Excellence.  Looking at the results from the first question, 50% of the companies have carried out this consolidation, with 31% that have more than three functional areas being supported, 13% with 2-3 functional areas, and 6% with just one.

The second poll question then addressed what the companies consider to be the primary challenge in consolidating Reporting Services to service multiple functional areas.  Not surprisingly, political issues are the biggest challenge for 44% of companies, with functional managers wanting to maintain ownership of the process.  This was followed by systems issues (31%), primarily related to inconsistencies across functional and geographic areas, and a lack of executive support at 6% of the companies.

Closing Summary

The opportunity to both consolidate Enterprise Reporting Services into Shared Services using a Center of Excellence model and then to automate it using the latest technologies is one that is compelling to many companies across the globe.  Our feature company’s experience is an excellent example of how powerful this strategy can be when executed properly and with the best resources, both human and technical.

What is the status at your company regarding Enterprise Reporting Services?  Is your current approach effective or is it time to take another look at this critical aspect of your company?

Who are your peers and how are you collaborating with them?

“Peercasts^TM” are private, professionally facilitated webcasts that feature leading member company experiences on specific topics as a catalyst for broader discussion.  Access is available exclusively to Peeriosity member company employees, with consultants or vendors prohibited from attending or accessing discussion content.  Members can see who is registered to attend in advance, with discussion recordings, supporting polls, and presentation materials online and available whenever convenient for the member.  Using Peeriosity’s integrated email system, Peer Mail^TM, attendees can easily communicate at any time with other attending peers by selecting them from the list of registered attendees. 

“iPolling^TM” is available exclusively to Peeriosity member company employees, with consultants or vendors prohibited from participating or accessing content. Members have full visibility of all respondents and their comments. Using Peeriosity’s integrated email system, Peer Mail^TM, members can easily communicate at any time with others who participated in iPolling^TM.