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Chapter 4 • Business Reporting, Visual Analytics, and Business Performance Management 209

Factory). In the case of the customer satisfaction As an added benefit, the data in the system sup-
group, these include customer surveys, CRM port not only the customer satisfaction group, but also
systems, interactive voice response systems, and other business units in the company. For example, a
other customer-service systems. The data in the DSS frontline manager can analyze airline expenditures
Factory are loaded on a daily basis into several data on a market-by-market basis to evaluate negoti-
marts and multidimensional cubes. Users can access ated contract performance or determine the savings
the data in a variety of ways that are relevant to their potential for consolidating spending with a single
particular business needs. carrier. A travel manager can leverage the business
intelligence to discover areas with high volumes of
benefits unused tickets or offline bookings and devise strate-
gies to adjust behavior and increase overall savings.
Ultimately, the customer satisfaction group came
up with 10 to 12 objectives that linked directly to
Expedia’s corporate initiatives. These objectives Questions for Discussion
were, in turn, linked to more than 200 KPIs within 1. Who are the customers for Expedia.com? Why
the customer satisfaction group. KPI owners can is customer satisfaction a very important part of
build, manage, and consume their own scorecards, their business?
and managers and executives have a transpar- 2. How did Expedia.com improve customer satis-
ent view of how well actions are aligning with the faction with scorecards?
strategy. The scorecard also provides the customer 3. What were the challenges, the proposed solu-
satisfaction group with the ability to drill down tion, and the obtained results?
into the data underlying any of the trends or pat-
terns observed. In the past, all of this would have
taken weeks or months to do, if it was done at all. Sources: Based on Microsoft, “Expedia: Scorecard Solution
With the scorecard, the Customer Service group can Helps Online Travel Company Measure the Road to
immediately see how well it is doing with respect to Greatness,” download.microsoft.com/documents/customer
evidence/22483_expedia_case_study.doc (accessed January
the KPIs, which, in turn, are reflected in the group’s 2013); and R. Smith, “Expedia-5 Team Blog: Technology,” April 5,
objectives and the company’s objectives. 2007, expedia-team5.blogspot.com (accessed September 2010).

sectiOn 4.10 revieW QuestiOns
1. What is Six Sigma? How is it used as a performance measurement system?
2. What is DMAIC? List and briefly describe the steps involved in DMAIC.
3. Compare BSC and Six Sigma as two competing performance measurement systems.
4. What are the ingredients for an effective performance management system?

Chapter Highlights

• A report is any communication artifact prepared • Perhaps the most notable information graphic
with the specific intention of conveying informa- of the past was developed by Charles J. Minard,
tion in a presentable form. who graphically portrayed the losses suffered by
• A business report is a written document that Napoleon’s army in the Russian campaign of 1812.
contains information regarding business matters. • Basic chart types include line, bar, and pie chart.
• The key to any successful business report is • Specialized charts are often derived from the
clarity, brevity, completeness, and correctness. basic charts as exceptional cases.
• Data visualization is the use of visual represen- • Data visualization techniques and tools make the
tations to explore, make sense of, and commu- users of business analytics and business intelli-
nicate data. gence systems better information consumers.

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