Ad hoc and self-service reporting: Why do you need it and how does it benefit your bottom line?

Nowadays, business leaders have so much data on their hands yet very little time to make the most of it.  While static reporting can help them create a unified perspective that offers a snapshot of data at a specific point in time, it doesn’t guarantee speed or real-time, tangible insights. Regular operational reports, financial statements, and compliance reports are all great examples of static reporting done right. However, their impacts are limited because they cannot answer specific business questions that would otherwise enable leaders to make data-backed decisions at speed.

Ad hoc reporting uncovers the hidden “gems” of insights that static reporting fails to find. Say your sales team starts noticing high rates of customer churn. Is there a specific time period, geography, or segment that the department wants to assess? Are there other leading indictors that could provide insight? With ad hoc and self-service reporting, teams are better equipped to understand sudden market changes, specific business queries, or drill into irregularities flagged by static reports with speed and agility — exactly what employees and leaders need to make swift decisions that result in positive outcomes.

How ad hoc compares to static reporting

Traditional reporting typically requires technical experts to facilitate report creation and distribution. For each new use case, a request must be made and prioritized, causing delays and disruptions. Ad hoc and self-service reporting is a step up from static reporting that offers: 

1. On-demand access

Decision-makers can access the exact data they need, when they need it, without waiting for scheduled reports or IT intervention. By drilling down into specific data points and exploring relationships, users can uncover the “why” behind trends and anomalies. Then they can act from a more informed standpoint.

2. Custom reporting

Ad hoc reporting facilitates a deeper understanding of the data by allowing users to combine different data sets, apply various analytical techniques, and explore a different perspective. They can pinpoint patterns, trends, and correlations to uncover hidden insights that might otherwise be missed in a standardized, static report. 

By enabling a wider range of employees to engage with and report on data, the entire organization inevitably moves towards a more data-driven culture. Ad hoc reporting facilitates precisely that.

How ad hoc reporting boosts the bottom line

By putting your users in the driver’s seat and giving them the control to create their own custom dashboards, analytics, and reports, companies see a significant impact on their bottom line including:

Heightened agility and speed in decision-making

A recent HBR analysis of 1200 managers showed that swift decision-makers are deemed 40% more effective than those who ponder for long periods. Deliberation can increase doubt and is remedied with ready access to data.

Beyond that, there's also the issue of constantly shifting market conditions, operational changes, and customer needs. As a matter of fact, 27% of clients are likely to spend money when the business they're interacting with responds faster than anticipated. The need for speed has never been more apparent. In other words, the slightest decision-making delay could leave a business trailing its competition by some distance. 

Ad hoc and self-service reporting expedites the entire process by empowering front-line employees to uncover – and act on –  hidden trends in record time. 

Data democratization

Self-service reporting tools allow even the most novice users to comfortably filter, pivot, and drill into reports with little to no technical assistance. And when everyone can slice through data when and how they need it, organizations are better placed to realize the full value-creating potential of their data.

Doesn’t democratization compromise data security? Not really. With Jaspersoft, administrators can ensure that people only access the data they are allowed to see. The mechanisms that define organizations, users, roles, and repository resources work together to provide complete access control, all the while providing increased flexibility and agility.

Alleviating IT burden

A company's IT team can be one of its most valuable resources. There's only so much the IT department can handle. With downtimes costing businesses up to $540,000 per hour, IT teams have a greater impact performing routine maintenance and updates than building operational reports. 

With ad hoc, pixel-perfect reporting tools in their arsenal, these technical experts can focus more on strategic tasks rather than being constantly occupied with generating routine reports for various departments. This also helps to streamline processes, allowing business teams to get answers faster and more efficiently, improving overall workflow.

Unrivaled flexibility and customization

On average, employees waste 26% of their workday on inefficient tasks. When users spend most of their time seeking out data previously left out of a report, it significantly takes away from their workday. Time is money, and using predefined templates and static reports adds up in cost.

With the ability to select custom data points, layouts, and visualizations on the go, ad hoc reporting lets users access the information they need. On platforms like Jaspersoft, they can even save reports in a repository for later use. 

Where Jaspersoft delivers value 

Today’s enterprise business environment is incredibly fast-paced, so much so that decision-makers can’t depend on periodic snapshots of performance alone to ideate, plan, or execute. What they need, instead, are tools that empower them to ask deeper questions and find answers in real time. 

Jaspersoft’s embedded business intelligence platform is just that tool. Our customizable platform was created to go above and beyond for your business. 

Here's how Jaspersoft does ad hoc and self-service reporting better:

• Flexibility: The Jaspersoft interface is data source agnostic, offers extensive deployment options, and is very configurable. Performing advanced, agile reporting on bulk data has never been easier.

• Citizen usership: With Jaspersoft, anyone and everyone — even non-technical users — can explore, dive into, and present data on their own terms. They can filter, drill  down, group, and pivot accordingly. All without writing a single line of code. Now that’s true self-service. 

• Pixel-perfect reporting: For reporting that must meet strict formatting requirements — and there are many these days — our pixel-perfect reporting capabilities provide control and precision. Rendering elements exactly as intended is about to become a whole lot simpler. 

Contact us to learn more about how we can make ad hoc self-service reporting work for your organization or application. 

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