Primary Function
Data & Reporting Operations collects, prepares, analyzes, and visualizes business data to provide insights, measure performance, enable decisions, and demonstrate business results.
This operational arm transforms raw data into actionable intelligence, ensuring leaders can measure what matters, identify trends, predict outcomes, and make data-driven decisions.
Core Processes
Data Collection, Cleaning & Preparation
Systematic processes for gathering data from multiple sources, ensuring quality, and preparing it for analysis.
Key Activities:
- Data source identification and connection
- Data extraction and loading
- Data cleansing and validation
- Data transformation and enrichment
- Data quality monitoring
Business Intelligence & Reporting Systems
Implementation and management of BI platforms, reporting tools, and dashboards that make data accessible.
Key Activities:
- BI platform management
- Report development and maintenance
- Dashboard design and deployment
- Self-service analytics enablement
- Report distribution and scheduling
Performance Analytics & KPI Tracking
Definition, calculation, and tracking of key performance indicators across all revenue operations functions.
Key Activities:
- KPI definition and standardization
- Metric calculation and validation
- Performance tracking and trending
- Variance analysis and alerting
- Benchmarking and comparisons
Predictive Analytics & Forecasting
Advanced analytics, modeling, and machine learning that enable prediction and proactive decision-making.
Key Activities:
- Predictive model development
- Churn prediction and scoring
- Revenue forecasting models
- Lead scoring algorithms
- Trend analysis and projection
Data Governance & Quality Management
Policies, standards, and processes that ensure data accuracy, consistency, security, and compliance.
Key Activities:
- Data governance policy development
- Data quality standards and rules
- Data stewardship and ownership
- Data lineage and documentation
- Data privacy and compliance
Executive Dashboards & Strategic Insights
High-level reporting and analysis that provides executives with strategic visibility and decision support.
Key Activities:
- Executive dashboard development
- Board reporting packages
- Strategic analysis and insights
- Business review presentations
- Ad-hoc executive analytics
What Excellence Looks Like
Data Trust
Single source of truth established. Data trusted across organization. Reports show consistent numbers. Data-driven decisions common.
Report Timeliness
Reports available when needed. Real-time dashboards where appropriate. Monthly/quarterly reporting delivered on schedule.
Self-Service Adoption
Users can answer own questions. Ad-hoc report requests minimal. Analytics democratized not centralized bottleneck.
Predictive Accuracy
Forecasts reliable. Churn predictions accurate. Models trusted and used for planning. Predictions improve decisions.
Data Quality
Data quality issues rare and resolved quickly. Data validation automated. Quality metrics tracked and improving.
Insight Impact
Analytics drive action. Insights lead to changes. Business can prove analytics ROI. Data team valued as strategic partner.
Common Dysfunction Patterns
The Numbers Don't Match
Marketing reports show different numbers than Sales reports. Finance's revenue doesn't match Sales' bookings. Data inconsistency creates distrust.
Impact: Decisions paralyzed by data disputes. Finger-pointing. Loss of confidence in analytics.
The Report Factory
Data team drowns in report requests. Custom reports for every question. No self-service. Data team becomes bottleneck.
Impact: Slow decision-making, data team burnout, users frustrated, questions unanswered.
The Data Graveyard
Reports created but never used. Dashboards nobody looks at. Analysis sits in slides. Insights don't drive action.
Impact: Wasted analytics investment, data team demoralized, business decisions remain opinion-based.
The Quality Crisis
Data quality poor. Missing values. Duplicate records. Incorrect calculations. Trust in data low. "Gut feel" beats "data."
Impact: Bad decisions, inability to measure performance, analytics ROI questioned.
The Definition Wars
Departments define metrics differently. "Active customer" means different things to Sales, Marketing, Success. KPIs disputed.
Impact: Can't compare performance, alignment impossible, meetings consumed by definition debates.
Coordination with Other Arms
Data & Reporting Operations provides intelligence to all operational arms:
→ All Operational Arms
Performance metrics, dashboards, analytics, reporting for all revenue operations functions.
Common failure: Each arm creates own reports. Data definitions inconsistent. Single source of truth doesn't exist.
→ Sales Operations
Sales analytics, pipeline reporting, forecast accuracy, rep performance, win/loss analysis.
Common failure: Forecast numbers disputed. Pipeline metrics inconsistent. Sales doesn't trust CRM data.
→ Marketing Operations
Campaign analytics, attribution reporting, lead metrics, marketing ROI, funnel analysis.
Common failure: Attribution disputed. Marketing and Sales count leads differently. ROI calculations inconsistent.
→ Customer Success Operations
Health score calculation, churn analytics, retention metrics, expansion identification, customer lifetime value.
Common failure: Health scores based on incomplete data. Churn analysis reactive not predictive.
→ Pricing & Finance Operations
Financial reporting, profitability analytics, pricing effectiveness, forecast to actual variance.
Common failure: Financial and operational metrics don't reconcile. Month-end close delayed by data issues.
Assess Your Data & Reporting Operations
Our diagnostic evaluates Data & Reporting Operations effectiveness across:
- Data quality and consistency
- Report timeliness and accuracy
- Self-service analytics adoption
- Predictive analytics effectiveness
- Data governance maturity
- Insight impact on decisions
Get Your Data & Reporting Operations Health Score
Identify where data enables decisions and where inconsistency creates confusion.
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