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INFORMATION MANAGEMENT
AS A TOOL FOR GROWTH
"You can achieve amazing progress if you set a clear goal
and find a measure that will drive progress toward that goal" Bill Gates
Developing financial and non-financial models to help plan and control your company's growth is essential to your company's success.
Non-financial models focus on the process of achieving the desired results and the interrelationships that are created between the key elements that are crucial to your company's success.
You must develop and monitor these key relationships and financial ratios to help you track the condition of your company. The non-financial models capture important relationships within the business. Such models focus on the process of achieving the desired results. These models will help you understand, measure and manage all the related activities.
You also need to be aware of your company's financial position. This can be accomplished by monitoring key financial ratios that help assess your company's financial performance. Your company's financial performance can be judged in relation to its past performance, budgetary expectations and industry data. These ratios can help you determine your company's current trends and assist you in deciding what, if any, additional actions are required.
Effective use of non-financial models and financial ratios requires timely, reliable and relevant information. The use of exception reports can reduce the time spent on trivial variances and routine matters. This, in turn, will increase your focus and effectiveness.
Information Needs Analysis
The keys to developing relevant, useful, reliable and timely information for decision making, control and performance evaluation include:
- Identifying the key responsibilities and decisions of the user;
- Determining suitable performance measures;
- Walking through the decision process {at each step, identifying the specific information needed and the decision models to be used}; and,
- Concluding the analysis by determining any additional information required.
 Effective Report Features
- Reports should be directly related to the decision making process and methodology of the user. (Relevance)
- Reports should omit all unnecessary and irrelevant data. (Conciseness)
- Reports should allow for meaningful analysis and comparison. (Adequate Discrimination)
- Reports should be directly related to the responsibilities of the user. (Appropriate Scope)
- Reports should be clear and presented in an easily understandable format. (Understandability)
- Reports should be issued in a timely manner. (Timeliness)
- Reports should have a high degree of reliability / accuracy. (Reliability)
- Reports should contain information that is consistent with the information presented in other related reports.(Consistency with Other Reports)
- Reports can be detailed, summary or exception based.
- Reports may be generated on a specific schedule and for a specific time frame or reports can be produced on-demand.
- Reports can be operationally focused, produced for planning purposes or be generated for managerial oversight and control.
To request a copy of our presentation:
DASHBOARDS* - A VISUAL PRESENTATION / REPORTING TOOL OPTION
What information and reports do I need to effectively manage the business in a timely manner?
* Including an Overview of Information Properties & Management and examples of KPIs
Please send us an e-mail with the name of the presentation in the subject line.
We can assist in developing an information system to track the key operational and financial activities within your business. We can help you develop a budgeting program to monitor operations and to help evaluate performance.
©Beacon Management 1996 - 2015
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