If you can’t answer the question “where’s the data?” your company is at the first maturity level. ” with enough conviction. There is no system in place at this level for collecting and storing data in a central repository for ease of operational reporting and decision-making. If decision-support reports are already in place, most likely, they are created through a time-consuming process of getting report data directly from online transactional and departmental systems. Direct sourcing from online systems often affects their performance, having a detrimental influence on the organization.

There may be little communication among teams, and no standard tools to drive reporting are in place. This can result in different reporting procedures used by departments within the organization, leading to the formation of “silos” inside the workplace.

• Data quality suffers as a result of a lack of data standards.
• Because there is no centralized system, the end-user (e.g., Finance, HR, Marketing) will have to pull a large number of reports from multiple sources.
• Lack of collaboration across teams, which can lead to “workplace silos”
• Spreadsheets are simple to use, but they take time and provide very limited insight.
• Because reporting is only done for operational needs, there are limited datasets.
• Excel provides limited visualization capabilities.
• Reliant on Excel or another similar package knowledge