According to a 2009 Cambridge University BI study cited by KPMG in a report on the finance function, “up to 50% of managers place no confidence in the numbers presented to them.” KPMG concludes that this represents a failure of business intelligence systems and processes with the lack of global data sets aligned with business metrics as the underlying cause.
More interesting was the citation of drivers of investment in finance technology. The top answers ranged from improving the quality of financial reporting to regulatory compliance. Nowhere in the data presented was improved decision making which one would think should top the list. Perhaps that is because they looked at BI rather than analytics.
Such significant distrust in the numbers, however, raises more fundamental issues: Are the numbers the most meaningful ones to be presented? Is the problem in the way the numbers are delivered or the inability of managers to understand them (separate but related problems)? Do the powers that be not appreciate that truth be told to them and prefer their numbers well-spun (and managers below them know it)? Unfortunately, the full study is not provided in the KPMG report so we can’t delve into the full data set.
How is the confidence in the numbers in your organization? If it’s high, how did that come about and what do you do to keep it there? If not, what would you propose to do about it?
