When a business decides it should “do more with data”, the first project is often too big: a new system, a full data platform, a dashboard for everything. It’s easy to spend months on that before anyone saves an hour.
A better place to start is usually much smaller: the report someone rebuilds by hand every week or month.
Why the recurring report is a good first step
- It already exists. People know what it should contain and what a correct version looks like.
- The time it takes is visible. You can see exactly what you get back once it updates itself.
- The risk is low. If the automated version is wrong, you’ll notice quickly, because you know the numbers.
Five questions to ask about your report
1. Which decision does it support?
If nobody can name a decision the report informs, it may not need automating. It may not need to exist at all. Start with the reports that change what people do.
2. Where does each number come from?
List every source: the spreadsheet, the sales system, the ad account, the accounting software. This list is the real scope of the project.
3. What do you do by hand?
Copying, pasting, cleaning up names, fixing dates, adding columns. Each manual step is a candidate for automation, and each one is also a place where errors creep in today.
4. Who checks it?
An automated report still needs an owner: someone who notices when a number looks wrong and knows where to look.
5. What would you stop doing if it updated itself?
This is the real measure of success. If the answer is “nothing”, the report probably isn’t the right place to start.
Start small, then build
Get one report working reliably and you’ll have more than saved time. You’ll have connected data sources, agreed definitions and a team that trusts the numbers. The next report is then much easier.