How to report insights instead of raw data
Presenting raw data is a common mistake I see junior FP&A Analysts make. Here is how to share insights instead.
If this has happened to you before, don’t worry, it happens to the best of us at times: You spend several hours creating a slide deck about the latest updates on your company’s business performance. You triple-check all your numbers, and you make sure everything looks clean and professional.
Then the day to present to senior management finally arrives. You walk them through your slides confidently, and - no response. A slight nod. No questions, no discussion. And you don’t hear anything back the following days either.
You think, “Why did I spend all this time when it seems like nobody cares about what I presented?”
To inspire action, you need to present insights.
What differentiates real insights from raw data is that they point towards what that action should be.
To make it clear, let’s take a look at an example:
a) “Sales are unfavorable versus Plan by $ 120,000. The decline is worse than expected due to lower than planned organic sales, partially offset by better promo driven growth.”
b) “Sales are unfavorable versus Plan because Customer A ordered 30 units less than projected.”
Example a) is raw data and not very useful. We know that lower organic sales resulted in lower revenues. But that could have many reasons.
It could be because existing customers across the board ordered less, we have fewer new customers, or we lost some of our existing customers - just to name a few possible reasons.
And because there are many possible causes, it’s not clear which action the leadership team should take.
Example b), however, shares an insight. We determined the root cause for the drop in sales. A possible action comes to mind immediately: Contact the customer to decide whether we should expect order amounts to come down permanently or if this is just a temporary change in the timing of their orders.
So, when you review your deck, always consider if each slide clearly suggests a possible action to take.
If none come to mind, you need to keep looking for the insight.
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