Golden Rule No. 1

Take in account the reporting and analysis needs of all business users (Executives) with the CXO and managers. Data garnered should be appropriate for all the business users with correct and precise insights whenever needed.

Golden Rule No. 2

Educate business users to rely on single source of truthful data. Forbid use of spreadsheets in meetings and presentations. Wide spread use of spreadsheets across the enterprise can create multiple versions of truthful data.

Golden Rule No. 3

Establish data quality competency centre. Establish the system with the data which has an audit trail with referential integrity and data integrity in place. Garbage In Garbage Out.

Golden Rule No. 4

Unlock your enterprise from the transaction based application for reporting needs. Your existing SCM, ERP, CRM etc. are best for recording your transactions but not for generation of intelligent insight reports. Specialized reporting and analysis applications can expose your business users to all together new meaningful way of viewing data and analyzing data.

Golden Rule No. 5

Get the analysis of your data done in house. Do not outsource the reporting and analysis to a third party. It should be a part of daily use and not just a quarterly or yearly report submitted by a third party. Develop and implement the reporting and analysis system in house and roll out for all the business users of your enterprise.