Challenge
A consumer brand's team began each day by exporting figures from the store and the advertising platforms into a spreadsheet.
The weekly and monthly versions took longer. The numbers also shifted depending on who had built the report, because each person applied the definitions slightly differently.
Approach
We wrote the reports as scheduled programs that apply the same rules every time.
- Agree the definitions: what counts as a sale, a return, a new customer.
- Collect the figures from the store and the marketing platforms automatically.
- Build the daily report first and check it against the manual version.
- Add the weekly and first-of-month reports.
- Deliver each one to the people who need it.
Result
The team starts the day with the report already in hand.
- Definitions that no longer shift between reports.
- Hours returned to the team each week.
- A history that is consistent from month to month.
Our advice
Agree the definitions before automating anything. Most reporting disputes are about what a number means.
Related service: Web analytics.