{"id":117372,"date":"2017-12-05T15:42:00","date_gmt":"2017-12-05T20:42:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.dacgroup.com\/2018-year-excel-powerpoint-reporting-goes-bed\/"},"modified":"2024-12-20T09:24:39","modified_gmt":"2024-12-20T14:24:39","slug":"2018-year-excel-powerpoint-reporting-goes-bed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dacgroup.com\/en-ca\/insights\/blog\/analytics\/2018-year-excel-powerpoint-reporting-goes-bed\/","title":{"rendered":"2018: The Year Excel (and PowerPoint) Reporting Goes to Bed"},"content":{"rendered":"

In\u00a0marketing agencies, there are two kinds of numbers people:\u00a0those who make reports, and those who ask for them. Regardless of which group\u00a0you belong to, 2018 will be a year where you\u00a0should\u00a0<\/em>start\u00a0feeling the impact of cloud-based\u00a0business intelligence (BI) tools\u00a0like\u00a0Tableau,\u00a0Power\u00a0BI, Qlik\u00a0Sense\u00a0and\u00a0the now-free Google Data\u00a0Studio.<\/p>\n

I\u00a0say\u00a0“should” because\u00a0your organization\u00a0may not\u00a0yet\u00a0be willing\u00a0to take\u00a0the BI plunge next year. I get it\u00a0\u2014\u00a0coming from a financial services background,\u00a0I was\u00a0trained to become\u00a0an Excel\u00a0jockey, and it’s served me\u00a0rather\u00a0well\u00a0over the years.\u00a0And for those\u00a0of us\u00a0who prepare\u00a0or deliver\u00a0client\u00a0presentations,\u00a0PowerPoint is as much a boardroom fixture as a giant\u00a0table is. So why\u00a0change if we don’t have to?<\/p>\n

Despite\u00a0Microsoft\u00a0Office’s many decades of reporting rule, the\u00a0tables have turned (no pun intended).\u00a0Here are\u00a0several\u00a0hard-to-ignore reasons\u00a0why your organization should strongly consider migrating\u00a0to interactive cloud-based BI reporting in 2018.<\/p>\n

1. Bigger\u00a0Data<\/strong><\/h3>\n

While the term “Big Data” is #trending, for the most part we digital marketers don’t deal with true Big Data sets. With each passing year however, we do handle “Bigger Data.” We frequently wrangle and summarize millions of rows of ad performance, web analytics and CRM data generated from increasingly granular campaigns and very broad product offerings. MS Excel taps out at just over 1M records, Outlook caps our email attachments at 25MB and processing large files locally can be outright painful. The manual steps required to pivot, copy-paste values, summarize and format data into manageable file sizes invites costly human error to the party, threatening to jeopardize precious trust and credibility.<\/p>\n

Whether you’re building or reading these reports, no matter how smooth you think\u00a0your reporting assembly line is,\u00a0if you have anything resembling a large data set,\u00a0cloud-based BI tools\u00a0come out on top\u00a0every time.<\/p>\n

2. Long-Run Operational Efficiency<\/strong><\/h3>\n

It’s true: training your staff to build or consume reports on a BI platform like Tableau requires some spending, certainly on the deployment and build side. Before dismissing an organizational reporting upgrade, it’s important to recognize that the operational gains derived from this investment can come in many forms:<\/p>\n

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  • Maintenance:<\/strong> Updating\u00a0reports\u00a0can\u00a0(and should)\u00a0be\u00a0fully\u00a0automated. With every passing month, you’ll realize additional\u00a0savings on\u00a0labor when moving to a BI platform.<\/li>\n
  • Error:\u00a0<\/strong>The inevitable mistakes in\u00a0manual builds consume\u00a0a lot of wasted energy\u00a0in both\u00a0correspondence\u00a0and data reconciliation.\u00a0Let’s not forget the risk of losing clients over lost credibility.<\/li>\n
  • Self-discovery\u00a0and\u00a0interactive functionality:<\/strong> This is inherent in BI reporting and decentralizes\u00a0and redistributes some of the\u00a0build cost associated with reports to end users.<\/li>\n
  • Speed:<\/strong>\u00a0BI tools drastically shrink report delivery\u00a0times\u00a0so you can move faster,\u00a0reducing\u00a0the\u00a0opportunity\u00a0cost\u00a0of inaction, all while giving\u00a0your firm a\u00a0competitive edge.<\/li>\n
  • Scaling:\u00a0<\/strong>Let’s face it: customized\u00a0reporting\u00a0isn’t always a necessity.\u00a0Many\u00a0clients\u00a0have\u00a0similar data sources\u00a0with\u00a0similar conversion points.\u00a0BI tools\u00a0are built for\u00a0templating\u00a0\u2014 once data models are built and API\u00a0connections\u00a0are made, scaling is cheap and easy\u00a0from one client to the next. Try to think broadly and\u00a0longer term\u00a0when doing your own\u00a0BI reporting solution\u00a0cost-benefit analysis. It will likely pay off in the long run.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
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