4 Signs Your Reporting is Outdated (and Why That’s Not OK)

Your organization’s success hinges on its ability to collect, organize and make sense of data. Without sophisticated reporting tools in place, you don’t stand a chance. This fact goes beyond facility maintenance management and impacts every level of your organization, which means business leaders need to take a serious moment to consider whether their reporting technology is up to snuff. 

Here are 4 signs that indicate your reporting system is outdated.

1. Many of your reports make some sense independently but little or no sense collectively.

Each department influences another, and the combined effect is more valuable than the effect of each department alone. Siloed information doesn’t accurately illustrate the full story of what’s going on within your operation and prevents departments from working collaboratively.

2. You use spreadsheets to organize data.

There are quite a few problems with trying to maintain spreadsheets—primarily, that it’s a manual task. Professionals are too busy to update Excel files the moment new information is available, which means data is frequently outdated. This puts your organization at a significant disadvantage compared to those that are making quick, decisive business moves based on real-time data. You also risk human error during data entry that could lead to poor business decisions and inaccurate forecasting.

3. The future is largely based on assumptions.

If reports are disparate, data isn’t up to date and information is potentially erroneous, it’s impossible to identify trends, find opportunities for cost savings and plan for the future of your company.

Another common roadblock that prevents forward thinking is not implementing the right reporting system for long enough. Organizations cannot plan for the future if they don’t have accurate historical data to leverage.

4. Predictive modeling is an impossibility.

Predictive modeling is a process that uses specific, mission-critical data and statistics to determine future outcomes. Organizations that do this effectively meet employee, asset and facility demands before needs arise. Inventory is always on point, space utilization is optimized at all times and rarely (if ever) do these organizations experience a technical issue that results in down time. From a competitive standpoint, this is a monumental advantage.

The technological revolution is in full swing. And as software becomes more advanced, big data will get even bigger. Organizations that fail to automate the collection and organization of data and cannot make micro and macro sense of this data in real time will not be able to compete with organizations that do. If any of these signs sound familiar, it’s time you give your reporting system an upgrade.

An Integrated Workforce Management System (IWMS) can solve data reporting woes. Download The Ultimate IWMS Buyer’s Guide to learn just how much an IWMS can help your business.