Reporting that took weeks, now on demand

The problem

• Every cycle started with a manual data collection that took one to three weeks, because the numbers had to be requested from business partners and handed back.
• Reporting leaned on a third-party data dependency the team did not control.
• Data came from more than ten sources: reference variables, reporting cubes, external data feeds and internal data repositories.

What was done

1. Mapped where the time actually went. The bottleneck was the handoff, not the analysis.
2. Connected directly to the systems of record, so the data could be pulled on demand.
3. Built one automated pipeline from the ten-plus sources into a central database, with validation, audit logging and error handling at every stage.
4. Replaced the third-party dependency with automated reporting the team owns.
5. Ran user acceptance testing against the business's own rules for accuracy.

The result

• The one-to-three-week manual collection cycle: eliminated.
• Reporting cycle time: 60% shorter.
• User acceptance testing: 100% pass rate.

What it shows

The slowest part of a process is often a handoff nobody owns. Find it, put a number on it, and the fix is frequently a connection, not a new system.