Customized Reports

Do you get the reports you need when you need it?

All too often, businesses struggle with report generation. While most businesses have functional systems that generate functional reports, they find themselves incapable of getting these systems to generate specific reports. For instance, one of our clients has been running a business for more than 10 years. For their reports, the company depends on an enterprise software application that was integrated with difficulty some years ago. While this legacy system does work, the negatives far outweigh this functionality. Our client was aware of newer, sophisticated systems in the market and what it could achieve. However, he seemed averse to change, simply because the idea of having to go through an integration one more time seemed far too daunting. It seemed far better to put up with the legacy.

Why legacy systems can‘t get your reports together.

All data that has been fed into the legacy system gets tucked away into a proprietary database. To access the additional pieces of information you require, you need to rope in your IT guy (who is almost always very busy). The software application itself does not provide this much needed information with the click of a button, as you‘d like it to. The result? Your requirements remain in-satiated. If that sounds faintly familiar, you should probably consider outsourcing your report work. TA‘s customized reports are much appreciated by clients for the insight it brings and the value it adds.

Two approaches to get your customized reports

There are two ways by which TA can get you the report you need.

Operations-up or a Bottom-up approach.

As and when the need becomes felt, various reports that provide information for operational decision making are called for. An agile solution may involve collating the data from the propriety database and holding them in flat database files (.dba). From here, these may be migrated to a state of the art database like SQL. From this point, SQL features may be used to quickly assemble various reports on demand.

Business dashboard view or Top-down approach

The top down approach involves asking yourself two pivotal questions:

• What are the key decisions made in the organization?
• Are these decisions supported by accurate data, and if so, how?

Answering these questions would require clarity on what the business goal actually is, followed by a process called BPD or Business Process Diagrams. Once this is in place, the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) as well as the business workflow gets defined. This approach has the advantage that the report generation would be much better aligned to your business goal.

TA's Customized Reports

At Thomas and Alex, we can help you generate customized reports with the approach that best suits your context and business goal. Our ranges of competencies include database management, software engineering, business analysis and finance and accounting, which are necessary to fulfill your customized reporting requirements. Did you know that intelligent reports can propel the future of your business? TA helps you study the past trends in your business and make better decisions for the future. Whatever your requirements, TA‘s customized report generation adds to your business insight.