case study
From chaos to clarity: optimizing reporting with a strategic rationalization exercise
Sven Van Hoorebeeck
In today's data-driven world, many companies still struggle to harness their full potential. A leading maritime storage company was no exception. Despite implementing a new data warehouse to centralise information, the real challenge emerged in managing a flood of reports across the organisation, many of which were created without proper governance or control. This led to multiple reports on the same metrics, often with conflicting information, due to the lack of standardisation and uncontrolled data access.
Challenge
The company's reporting landscape was highly fragmented, with over 150 distinct report topics identified for operational purposes, excluding various iterations of each topic. Additionally, there was no visibility into who accessed these reports or a clear understanding of the underlying data they contained. This lack of oversight significantly compromised the effectiveness of operational reporting, introducing potential risks to both client relationships and financial accuracy. Moreover, a significant amount of manual effort was required by a central team to create and distribute reports across the organisation, responding to requests from various departments.
This transformation resulted in a 64% reduction in the number of reports to maintain, significantly enhancing the clarity and accuracy of shared information.
Approach
The overall goal was to reduce this manual workload while consolidating, standardising, and clarifying the organisation’s reporting needs.
Our approach began by focusing on which reports were still required and in what format, based on their purpose and end users. This would ensure consistency and accessibility before diving deeper into the content. Our approach was structured around the following key actions:
Transition internal reporting to Power BI, reducing the reliance on Excel files and minimising the manual effort involved in report generation and distribution.
Consolidate reports by merging those that served the same purpose, even if intended for different end users, ensuring the underlying data remained consistent.
Standardise external reporting by automating the generation of static child reports tailored to specific end users, all derived from a centralised master report. This approach centralises maintenance and ensures consistency.
Next, we conducted a content deep dive into each report, to determine what information should be displayed based on its purpose and target audience.
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Impact
This transformation resulted in a 64% reduction in the number of reports to maintain, significantly enhancing the clarity and accuracy of shared information. While the development of new reports is still ongoing, the central team responsible for creating and distributing reports on demand is already benefiting from valuable time savings. They are now able to focus more on their core tasks, such as strengthening customer relationships and providing higher-value support.
Summary
A maritime storage company faced a fragmented reporting landscape with over 150 report topics, conflicting data, and heavy manual effort.
BrightWolves led a rationalization initiative to consolidate, standardize, and automate reporting, transitioning to Power BI and streamlining internal and external outputs.
This approach brought consistency, reduced manual workload, and aligned reports with their intended purpose and audience.
With a 64% reduction in reports, the team now spends less time managing data and more time delivering value to the business.