Data Driven Digital Intelligence: Insights From Experian’s GFS

The previous articles outlined how a single, or at least standardized, ERP system, centralized management of enterprise data, and critical master data are fundamental to creating the “bricks and mortar” on which to build consistent and meaningful reports and business insights.

During her presentation at Oracle OpenWorld in 2004 Carly Fiorina, then CEO of Hewlett Packard, summarised the next stage of the journey when she said:

"The goal is to turn data into information and information into insight".

However, that may be easier said than done as, while a unified ERP and harmonized data structures are essential, they do not guarantee success on their own. They do help to ensure that the vast quantity of standardized data in the Enterprise Data Lake provides a single and consistent source for input to the reporting and analysis tools and processes. However, additional consideration is needed to ensure that the output - the reports and insights - is consistent, complete, accurate, and meaningful to the business.   

Data visualization and reporting tools typically include a data transformation stage where individual report developers can utilize data in numerous different ways. Custom aggregations, alternative reporting hierarchies, complex filtering, different data labeling, and varying KPI definitions are just some of the factors that can result in inconsistent reporting which often creates more discussion and focus on the numbers themselves rather than on the insights they are intended to provide. A centralized Business Intelligence (BI) function – a global center of expertise in reporting and reporting tools - plays a key role in mitigating that risk and in ensuring the consistency and usability of reporting.

Centralizing the Business Intelligence (BI) Function in Global Finance Services

To be effective, the BI team needs a balance of technical skills and business acumen, understanding not only the data structures and reporting tools but also the business requirements and drivers. Technical prowess in data analysis, database management, and data visualization tools is crucial to maintaining data integrity and producing accurate, consistent reports. Additionally, the ability to translate business needs into actionable insights is vital, requiring a deep understanding of business processes and strategy. Crafting a compelling vision for change and influencing stakeholders to adopt new methods are essential for aligning the entire organization with the BI strategy. Furthermore, supporting change management and adoption processes ensures that the implemented BI solutions are embraced and utilized effectively.

To that end, Experian established a global BI team within Global Finance Services, creating a “reporting as a service” capability for Global Finance Services, Global and Regional Finance, executive and corporate management, and other areas of the business. The team comprises a mix of experienced finance professionals and technical developers and is responsible for defining and managing global reporting standards and for developing, maintaining, and supporting a wide and ever-growing library of global standard reports.

Achieving the correct mix of analysts and developers is vital! Sufficient analysts ensure that the business requirements are fully and properly understood, and supported by sufficient developers to develop and deliver the reports to satisfy those requirements. However, successful delivery of the reporting strategy will likely generate higher business demand than the BI team has the capacity and resources to deliver, so effective prioritization of the business demands balanced with the costs and benefits of the BI team will also be an important consideration.  

Implementing Standard Reporting and Data Tools

The market offers a significant number of different BI tools for data visualization and reporting, each providing slightly different and often overlapping capabilities. Adopting multiple different BI tools not only creates a major challenge to providing standard and consistent global enterprise reporting but also generates significant overhead in licensing, cost, security, integration, training, support, and maintenance. It also effectively “dilutes” the real value of having the BI team as experts in a single or small number of BI tools and requires the users to be proficient in using multiple different solutions.

Consequently, after evaluation of a number of the available BI tools, Experian Finance adopted just two standard reporting tools. These complement each other to provide the capabilities needed for two types of reporting. 

1. Standard / Structured: CXO Software connected to the Oracle Essbase and Hyperion Planning applications provides standard P&L, trading summaries, cash flow, and other periodic / month-end reporting.  These reports are predominantly structured data tables and can be enriched by narrative commentary to explain the story in the data.
2. Interactive / Analytic: Tableau connected to the Enterprise Data Lake and other data sources, as needed, provide more visual and interactive reports and dashboards, allowing users to analyze and explore the data to quickly identify causal factors, dependencies, trends, etc, and to generate insights.

Consequently, the Experian GFS BI team and users need only be expert / proficient in two tools - CXO and Tableau. However, despite having only two standard tools, the strategy soon became a “victim of its own success” as the sheer number of global standard reports made it increasingly difficult for users to know which report to run and where to locate it. To address that challenge Experian implemented Curator, from Interworks, bringing together the CXO and Tableau reports into a single Management Information Portal – a “one stop shop” for users to more easily locate the right reports, access links to documentation and other systems and, if needed, open a support ticket or query for the Global BI team to investigate.

Working Towards a Federated Model as the BI Landscape Evolves

As the demand for new reports increases, the capacity of the Global BI Team can become a constraint. Once the centralized team and global reporting standards create the necessary degree of BI maturity, a more federated ‘hub and spoke’ model becomes possible. This allows individual departments or teams (spokes) some autonomy in creating their reports within the framework established and monitored by the central BI team (hub) to ensure adherence to best practices and standards. The BI Team also manages and monitors user access, Tableau licensing, and associated costs.

Key Considerations

1. BI Developer skills: A BI developer must have a solid in-depth understanding of the business requirements, the data, data structures, and expertise in the use of the BI tools and data visualization best practices.
2. Report design: Poorly designed reports often provide incomplete or unreliable results, forcing users to seek answers elsewhere – undermining the credibility and value of the report, wasting developer resources, and creating a graveyard of redundant reports. Important considerations include:
3. Understand how the target user(s) will consume the report and design appropriately.  For example, a report for daily online consumption will likely be designed differently from a static monthly report on the same data
4. Select the appropriate chart type(s) to represent the information in a meaningful way. Authors such as Stephen Few and Nick Desbarats provide valuable guidance on this topic.
5. Use color appropriately – less is more.  Only use color when doing so clearly aids user understanding, and stick to softer tones.
6. Anticipate the need, and create the ability, for the user(s) to explore the data and answer multiple levels of questions on it.
7. User experience. Reports need to be:
8. Quick to generate/refresh – lengthy wait times deter adoption and usage.
9. Easy to navigate using the various filters and drill-down options
10. Easy to interpret / understand
11. Interactive - providing analysis and actionable insights  

Sustaining Success

Several factors facilitate and enable the continued success of the Global BI model.

• Best Practice Documentation: Clear guidelines on how to create and manage reports and data.
• Data definitions: An agreed set of global data definitions and design standards to ensure reports are intuitive for all, regardless of who has developed the report.
• Training: Regular training sessions to ensure that all team members and users are appropriately equipped with the necessary skills in developing and using the reports.
• Peer Reviews: Regular peer reviews of content to maintain quality, standards, and design consistency.
• Active User Communities: Encouraging collaboration and knowledge sharing among users.
• Community of Practice Forums: Regular forums to share best practices, new tools, and techniques, and showcase new reports. These are also key to successful ongoing communication and change management.
• Catalogue Reviews: Regular reviews of existing reports to ensure they remain relevant and accurate. A build-up of stale content and redundant reports makes it difficult for users to find what they need.

Conclusion

Creating data-driven digital intelligence and insights is an ongoing process that builds on the strong foundations of a unified ERP and standardized data/data management. By implementing a centralized global BI team and promoting best practices in data visualization, organizations can transform raw data into actionable insights. Adopting a federated model, with a global framework of data and design standards and robust support mechanisms, ensures that reporting remains consistent and accurate while allowing for agility and innovation.

The next and final article in this series will focus on "House Rules and Continuing the Journey to Data Excellence," exploring topics such as Data Governance, Data Lineage, Data Health Dashboards, Security, and the potential opportunities presented by GenAI and AI technologies.