How a leading urban development consultancy turned four merged businesses and a pile of spreadsheets into one reporting framework that people actually use.
The challenge
Our client is a leading urban development advisory organisation, created by the merger of four consultancies across New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria. Each business came with its own systems, its own habits and its own way of reporting, across professional services automation (PSA), finance, CRM and HR.
There was no shortage of data. The difficulty was getting insight out of it. Teams relied heavily on spreadsheets and manual processes, which limited their agility, created inconsistencies between reports and slowed decisions at both an operational and a strategic level.
The organisation had made a start. Some teams had built their own Power BI reports, but those were linked to static spreadsheets. The dashboards looked modern, yet they were only as current as the last manual update, and each one still depended on someone preparing the data behind it.
To operate as one business, the organisation needed more than a handful of dashboards. It needed a unified data strategy that would bring clarity, consistency and room to grow.
The solution
We worked alongside leadership and the operational teams to design and deliver a tailored reporting and analytics solution. It started with the people, not the technology, and we spent time with teams across all of the organisation’s locations. We mapped how data was being used, agreed the key performance indicators, and captured what each business unit actually needed, so that everything we built was tied to business goals.
From there we delivered four things.
- One data model. Information from the PSA, finance, CRM and HR systems was brought into a single, reliable and structured environment, so every team draws on the same figures.
- Automated data pipelines. Near real-time data now flows into Power BI, replacing the static spreadsheets behind the existing reports as well as manual exports and reconciliation.
- Dashboards for every function. A suite for Sales, Delivery, People, Finance and Executive leadership, each with secure, role-based access, so people see what is relevant to them and nothing they should not.
- Personal “My Dashboard” views. Staff get their own view of the metrics that matter for their day-to-day work.
The result is a reporting framework that runs in real time and follows the organisation’s long-term strategy, not a set of one-off reports.
The impact
The change was cultural as well as operational. Data stopped being an administrative burden and became something people use to do their jobs.
- Reporting is integrated across sales, people, finance and delivery.
- Real-time insight has replaced static, spreadsheet-driven reporting, including the Power BI reports that used to sit on top of spreadsheets.
- Role-based dashboards have brought more of the team into using data.
- The business can respond more quickly to complex questions.
- The analytics foundation is built to grow with future strategy, and we continue to support and develop it as an ongoing service.
By simplifying the complex and lining data up with decision-making, the organisation can act as one business.
