Single Source of Truth

One of the more common issues for businesses today is reporting on business activity. Reporting issues and the reasons for these issues are endless. If you are in business, you most likely have reporting issues.

Why do companies need reporting? To help the people in charge of running the company, run the company as efficiently and as effectively has possible. Every decision that is made has an effect on the bottom line. Decisions have a better chance of having a positive affect to the bottom line when the business has more accurate information about its activity.

Growth through acquisitions creates a lot of challenges. When one company acquires another, a lot of duplication is introduced. Not all duplication can be eliminated immediately, and some duplication may exist for years beyond the original acquisition date. This holds true especially with the IT solutions that handle, track, record, and report business activity.

Most of the IT solutions for each of the acquired companies are most likely different from the other companies’ solutions. These differences will range from systems that record business activity, to the nomenclature that each of the individual business use to describe their business activity.

Because of the differences between the acquired companies, multiple challenges exist when trying to report overall business activity.

Accurate reporting is essential for a company to be and remain successful. It is through reporting that informed decisions can be made.

The answer for this need for accurate reporting is something I call: The Single Source of Truth.