How big of a headache do you get from putting together management reports?
If you’re using spreadsheets and PowerPoint presentations, then the answer is probably a big one. Chasing progress updates from different departments takes time and energy, and it also hinders the ability to make timely and thoughtful business decisions.
That’s why you’re here, looking for the best management reporting software.
At Cascade, we know these frustrations well. The majority of customers find our platform when they get fed up with:
- Outdated and cluttered spreadsheets.
- Constant reminders for progress updates.
- Unclear impact of initiatives on core business metrics and goals.
- Inability to answer questions from the management teams straight away.
- No standardized way to report, which leads to inconsistency and misunderstandings.
We also know it’s challenging to find a management reporting tool that covers all of the above.
In this article, we’ll go over everything you need to know, pinpointing the features you should not overlook. Plus, we’ll show you how to use Cascade, our strategy execution platform, to simplify your management reporting and give you visibility into your organization's performance.
How Do You Choose The Right Management Reporting Tool?
Choosing the right management reporting tool for your company is a significant decision, as it can impact your workflows, teams’ efficiency, and decision-making process. Consider the following key features:
Easy data integration and automation
Scattered data across different tools and manual updates not only invite errors but also compromise accuracy. These inaccuracies can muddle insights for strategy officers and leadership teams, hindering decision-making and potentially stunting business growth.
Opt for management reporting software that eliminates these inconsistencies with robust data integration and automation. Make sure it integrates well with your current tools to prevent implementation hiccups. This ensures not just smooth data syncs but also real-time insights and an accurate strategy reporting process.
Customizable reports for different stakeholder needs
Customizing reports to meet diverse stakeholder needs is crucial to avoid missing key insights and bombarding stakeholders with unnecessary details.
Look for features like intuitive drag-and-drop interfaces, bespoke data visualizations with custom charts, and detailed drill-down options to guarantee data integrity and transparent decision-making for all stakeholders.
Collaboration features
Collaboration is non-negotiable in management reporting tools, as real-time data sharing and teamwork pave the way for swiftly navigating and mitigating strategic risks.
Without these capabilities, organizations end up working in silos, which blindsides them to unforeseen challenges and leads to missed opportunities. Prioritize features that enable standardized progress updates (templates) and in-app collaboration. This ensures immediate feedback and smooth strategy adjustments.
Clear alignment with strategic goals
Businesses without centralized reporting usually rely on spreadsheets, business intelligence, or project management tools to track their progress. But there’s no way for them to link KPIs with strategic projects and initiatives in one unified place, making the true impact of actions on strategic goals less transparent.
Instead, reporting quickly becomes a patchwork of different, often outdated, spreadsheets or PowerPoint presentations.
Cascade users don’t have this problem. Our strategy execution platform provides clear visibility into strategic dependencies and simplifies reporting by bringing all progress updates into one place.
User-friendly interface
A complex interface can extend onboarding and limit the exploration of features, leading organizations to divert too much time and resources into training, thereby delaying ROI.
When selecting the right tools, use free trials to get a hands-on feel for the platform. Additionally, review feedback from current customers in platforms like G2 to gain valuable insights into its ease of use.
Reliable customer support and training
Ineffective customer support drastically increases the learning curve and slows down software adoption, leaving organizations stranded with unresolved issues and significantly delaying the effective integration and use of new software.
Focus on selecting solutions that offer extensive self-service resources and immediate live support. This strategic choice not only accelerates the mastery of the software among employees but also sharply boosts your ROI, by ensuring your stakeholders can exploit the full range of the software's capabilities efficiently.
Use Cascade As Your Management Reporting Software
Cascade is more than just a management reporting software; it's a strategy execution platform covering all stages of strategic management, from planning to execution to tracking. By integrating data collection, analysis, and strategic management features into a single platform, Cascade empowers organizations to streamline their strategic efforts.
Organizations in competitive sectors often grapple with alignment, focus, visibility, speed, and accountability challenges. Cascade is designed to tackle these exact issues, providing targeted solutions that cut through the complexities of aggressive marketplaces.
In the face of volatile market dynamics, Cascade enables you to adapt to sudden market shifts, make critical business decisions, and accelerate strategy execution.
Besides providing you with interactive reports, Cascade facilitates organizational alignment and efficient resource allocation. It ensures proactive risk management and unifies your team towards common goals, transforming strategy into a collective endeavor.
How To Generate Management Reports With Cascade
Cascade redefines how you assess progress on key strategic initiatives and core business metrics, offering a real-time performance lens. It acts as a central hub for data consolidation, enabling the creation of compelling reports with:
- Headlines and notes for adding context to quantitive information.
- Customizable tables for focus areas like “team performance”, “operational efficiency”, or “new market development”.
- Dynamic charts and graphs visualizations.
- Images to add any additional information that might be relevant to the narrative of your report.
Reporting in Cascade isn't just a function; it's an experience that unlocks strategic advantages, providing organizations with the strategic insights they need to drive business growth.
💡Explore our step-by-step guide on generating reports or discover best practices for reporting in Cascade.
In the next section, we dive deeper into how other features in Cascade enable you to generate custom reports. We demonstrate how to centralize business data to establish a solid foundation for generating effective reports and how to share these reports with stakeholders to enhance collaboration. 👇
Metrics Library: Consolidate business data in one place
Cascade's Metrics Library allows users to integrate and consolidate metrics in one place, providing visibility into overall business health.
With over 1,000 integrations, you can easily integrate data sets from Microsoft Excel or other data sources into a single pane. This enables you to create graphs and interactive reports from financial data and business intelligence to monitor business performance.
Planner: Link strategic initiatives with metrics and progress
Cascade’s Planner simplifies strategy execution, turning high-level initiatives into clear, actionable outcomes. It helps you identify clear focus areas, set objectives, define projects, lay out action plans, assign measures (KPIs), and appoint owners at every strategy stage.
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With Cascade, you can track KPIs manually, automatically via integrations, or by connecting them to metrics in your Metrics Library. You can integrate the software with your CRM, financial reporting software, ERP, SAP, and other SaaS tools. As a result, you can automate progress updates for real-time visibility and control over your strategy’s performance.
Share and collaborate with stakeholders
Cascade facilitates sharing reports and collaborating with stakeholders, suppliers, and contractors.
By enabling direct collaboration on reports and interactive dashboards, Cascade ensures that all parties can address concerns instantly, keeping everyone informed and aligned for effective decision-making.
And don’t worry. You remain in complete control of who can view or edit your reports by making reports public or private. You can also manage access control on a user level.
3 Reasons Why Customers Love Cascade 💜
Ease of use
Cascade aims to be intuitive for anyone to set up, use, and understand right away while still providing enough value that the most advanced users need. Whether it’s for automation or reporting, each feature is easy to use and equally easy to learn.
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Focus and faster strategy execution
Cascade eliminates silos and brings everyone into the fold to accelerate strategy execution. It helps you centralize strategic insights and mitigate risks faster to improve your odds of success.
A 5-star customer support
Cascade recognizes that successful software implementation goes hand in hand with robust assistance. Thus, it ensures that users have the support they need to harness the full potential of the platform. These include:
- Video Library
- Getting started with Cascade Guide
- Support documentation
- Live webinars
- Customer success & implementation team
💡For more customer success stories, read the case studies that explain how Cascade effectively addressed their needs.
Choose The Best Management Reporting Software For CSOs
Cascade is the world’s #1 strategy execution platform for companies prioritizing profitability, growth, and fast adaptability. While this claim might sound biased, customer reviews back it up with 4.8-star ratings.
This all-in-one platform combines the most powerful elements of a performance management system, strategic planning, and reporting. It’s a highly customizable strategy execution platform that can be tailored to support teams of all sizes.
Are you ready to simplify your management reporting and have better control of the strategy’s performance? Get a live demo today!
If you want more suggestions on cloud-based reporting tools, check out this article covering the 13 best reporting tools to drive strategy execution (2024 Guide). It includes an overview of key features for Zoho Analytics, Power BI, and eleven other tools.
