Developing a Modern Reporting Strategy

To make the best use of the available technologies, enterprises should consider developing a reporting strategy that considers the overall reporting needs of the organization, the users, the costs, the data required to generate reports, and many other factors.

A modern reporting strategy addresses the following questions:

Is an organizational strategy required? If executives require reports that, for example, rely on data pulled from multiple organizational functions or systems, and/or if many departments have similar reporting requirements, it may be appropriate and cost effective to create a consolidated enterprise strategy with centralized governance. Such an analysis may describe the breadth of the strategy, which in turn may dictate which type of product or license is required.

Who in the organization will consume the reports? For example, reports targeted at senior executives may have different levels of detail than those for IT operations leaders. Alternatively, reports targeted at analysts may require greater levels of interactivity. The strategy should outline the needs of reporting across the various user constituencies.