Hot take: automate your analytics not your presentations

‘Improved productivity means less human sweat, not more’ Henry Ford

‘Art is the elimination of the unnecessary’ Pablo Picasso

These are two quotes I see the most when browsing online articles about business trends, digitalization and visualization. The first is applied in reference to data and the second one when the articles focus on stories and public speaking.

I used to think that their application in business was one and the same. I saw the same pattern emerge across different industries and functions. Automate the process, create better databases, improve data processing in the backend, and create «linked» models, outputs and graphical visualizations.

The classic finance application? Buy a better database, automate your excel sheet, and create either power BI dashboard or automated slide decks (linked to the spreadsheet). The theoretical efficiency gain? Reducing the preparation of any recurrent meeting to max 1h.

As I onboard on my new finance role, I start to notice the time that is spent “around” this efficiency gains. Long decks that aren’t used. Laptops and systems that crash under processing power needed by such complex models and links. Ad hoc analysis and visualization prepared as follow up, and so on. To be fair, this isn’t a recent issue. It’s a pattern that in hindsight was there all along. The reduction of prep time made us feel efficient, so we let it slide.

What if we turned the efficiency quest on its head? What if, after the basic data cleaning and processing, we automated the thinking process, and not the output creation?

Automated models that would help us perform different analysis and standard process taught to all data or financial analyst to define what are the data needed for each instance. Zero automated charts (besides maybe one dashboard).

Would we really need more time / output? Or would we coach the new generations on problem solving, understated their stakeholders needs and effective communication?

Can there be a benefit in creating 5 slides from scratch ( gasp!) and on point every month, rather than automating as many as we can?

I think so.