During the past 20 years, dashboard reporting has gone from a novelty only the IT department cared about to one of the make-or-break features of an ERP system. The world sped up and businesses scrambled to accelerate their decision making to keep pace with rapid changes. Executives took notice of the power of dashboard reporting, making it one of the crucial features of their enterprise resource planning systems. Their attraction to dashboard reporting comes from its ability to solve three key problems faced by their organization.
Three crucial characteristics of ERP dashboard reporting
1. Real-time information
Prior to dashboard reporting, business decision makers frequently had to work with (and ultimately base decisions from) data that was days or even weeks out of date. This lack of real-time information led to frustrations and the inability to make timely and effective decisions.
Many of the executives that I’ve worked with cited making at least one poor decision as a result of outdated information. To illustrate this point to ERP buyers, one analogy sums it up: Using outdated reports to make business decisions is like having a gas gauge that shows how much gas you had three days ago.
2. More efficient use of resources
Business operations became more complicated at the same time economic forces were demanding that organizations become leaner and more efficient.
Even though the majority of business operations are done digitally in some form, companies find themselves running a multitude of disconnected applications with no interconnected reporting. This creates a need for manual reports, which results in an unproductive and costly workflow.
Ensure a properly implemented ERP system and customized reporting dashboard that allows your company to more efficiently use your workforce.
3. Flexibility for end users
With dashboard reporting, decision makers have the ability to view and manipulate the data themselves. Each level of an organization has different needs. Your dashboard reporting needs to allow end users to customize their experience, displaying only the information relevant to a particular end user.
For example, most executives are interested in high-level, summary data showing the company’s performance as a whole whereas operations managers may require more detailed information. Flexibility is key, and customized dashboard reporting means no end user has to compromise.
Kreg Decker is the president and CEO of One Vision Solutions, a national enterprise resource planning (ERP) consulting firm. For more than 25 years, Kreg has worked closely with businesses to find technology-driven solutions for their problems.