Proper business intelligence reporting is the key to running an efficient, productive and profitable organization. Unfortunately, so many myths are circulating about BI that many business owners simply don’t know what’s right and what’s wrong when it comes to their reporting. To help, we’re addressing the industry’s most common myths, debunking them, and showing you how effective business intelligence reporting can be.

7 Business Intelligence Reporting Myths to Avoid

Here are the seven most common business intelligence reporting myths we’ve heard over the years:

1. It’s too much work. This couldn’t be more inaccurate. In fact, without proper business intelligence reporting, you’re actually making more work for yourself in the long run. If you don’t have the necessary data to make informed decisions, you’re left crossing your fingers on any new strategy or move you make. Ultimately, if your changes don’t work out, you’re stuck going back to the drawing board and starting all over again. This is not a smart or efficient way of doing business. Fortunately, if you have a good BI reporting system in place, it provides a method to the madness. You can use those reports to make data-driven decisions that work for your company and guide your business toward success.
2. It’s a waste of time. Business intelligence reporting is never a waste of time. Even if it proves your previous decisions wrong or shows you problem areas instead of growth or profits, it’s still giving you the necessary facts to move forward. Plus, if you implement a reporting system that’s seamless—like a customized dashboard solution—then it can actually save you time. You won’t have to deal with manual data collection or reporting, and analyzing those reports will be easier and more efficient.
3. Excel is a perfectly good solution for reporting. Excel can certainly work for small amounts of data, but if you’re a large company, have many different departments or simply have a lot of people working on your data, then Excel is not a good solution. For one, Excel doesn’t deal well with large amounts of data. It’s sluggish, and it’s difficult to control versions and permissions. Excel doesn’t offer you a way to really visualize or analyze your data in a meaningful way either, and you can’t produce a thorough, customized report. In most cases, for correct BI reporting, you need dashboard software in place.
4. It’s not necessary. It definitely is. BI reports give you data to see where your company’s going wrong and what you’re doing right. Through this, you can make changes and adjustments in strategy and guide your business to further success. Without adequate business intelligence reporting, there’s no way to tell whether you’re making the right decision or whether you should continue pouring resources into one department over another. Once you have a solid report, it can either validate or nullify your previous decisions and point you in the right direction.
5. It won’t solve your current problems. You probably have what seems like more pressing business concerns, but in reality, getting your business intelligence reporting on track should take precedence. Proper reporting helps you alleviate bottlenecks, fix problem areas and improve overall efficiency in your company. Ultimately, it will lead to more success and more profitability down the road—and isn’t that what you’re aiming for?
6. Manual reporting is better than a dashboard reporting system. It’s easy to misconstrue manual reporting as more “customized” reporting. In truth, manual reports are at the whim of whoever creates them. If your IT manager creates all BI reports, then they’ll likely include only high-level numbers and data—not the drilled-down information each department needs. This is simply because those departments aren’t their area of expertise. With a dashboard system, however, individual users have the power of reporting in their own hands. They don’t have to rely on someone else to curate and organize all the data, and they can easily filter and view information on their screen any time it’s needed.
7. It’s too complicated. If your business intelligence reports are complicated, then you’re doing them wrong. Proper business intelligence reporting should simplify and clarify information, not make it more confusing. You should be able to easily see what the data means—any trends or bottlenecks that are occurring, any spikes in revenue and other performance-related changes. Truly great reporting will even include graphs and charts so you can digest data with just one quick glance.

Contact Us For More Information

Are you doing business intelligence reporting correctly at your organization? Are you doing it at all? If not, perhaps it’s time to rethink your strategy. Contact Xeo today at to learn how our custom dashboard software can help you produce the BI reports you need to make smart, business-savvy decisions.

If you’d like to try a dashboard before making any commitments, you can also download our free Dashboard by Xeo, which will allow you to track your company’s performance and measure it against key performance indicators. You can also share this information with other interested parties. You have nothing to lose and a lot to gain.