Business Case: Unifying Reporting Across a Multinational Organization - The Information Lab Nederland

Client Overview

The client is a multinational organisation operating across several European countries. As part of a strategic migration effort, the organisation aimed to standardise its fragmented reporting practices. 

Previously, each business unit had relied on separate tools (Tableau or Qlik) and locally managed data sources. This led to inconsistent reporting. The objective was therefore to move towards a centralised data warehouse and adopt a consistent reporting structure and style in Tableau.

This effort was led by an international data and analytics hub, with the BI team responsible for developing dashboards to support standardised reporting across the organisation. 

My Role

As an external BI Consultant specialised in Tableau, I was responsible for the following:

• Designing new dashboards and re-creating existing dashboards in Tableau
• Collaborating with both internal and external developers on visualisation and data engineering tasks
• Participating in refinement sessions to define dashboard requirements and target audiences
• Supporting data quality assurance and visualisation troubleshooting

Project Scope

The BI team operated within a designated area / reporting layer in Snowflake. This included responsibilities for both data ingestion and transformations (using Flyway/GitLab and Matillion), as well as final visualisation products in Tableau. The aim was to deliver business-ready dashboards that aligned with the overarching goal of unifying analytics across the organisation.

Alongside the group-wide reporting initiative, I also worked on other dashboards for internal and external use. One of the key deliverables was a Churn Experiments dashboard, created to visualise and monitor the impact of loyalty and retention initiatives across multiple business units. By providing clear and accessible insights into customer churn behaviours, this dashboard enabled business teams to better evaluate the effectiveness of experimental campaigns and make data-driven adjustments to them. 

Challenges

Although the main reporting project had a clear purpose, several key challenges emerged during its early phases:

• Stakeholder engagement was inconsistent, with evolving expectations
• Several dashboards lacked defined purposes, audiences, or data specifications
• Quarterly planning was siloed, leading to misaligned priorities and inefficiencies
• The centralised data warehouse was under development for an extended period, limiting access to enriched, aggregated data

Due to these challenges, the initiative was paused in the fourth quarter of 2024, with plans to resume in 2025.

Contributions

My time at the client resulted in several key contributions:

• Developed Tableau dashboards (e.g. Pipeline Monitoring, Data Completeness, Churn Experiments) using data available within the BI team’s own reporting layer in Snowflake
• Identified and documented key data quality and availability issues
• Supported the adoption of internal refinement sessions, enhancing clarity and alignment within the BI team
• Contributed to knowledge sharing and the establishment of visualisation design practices

Lessons Learned

This project provided significant insight into the realities of BI delivery within complex, multinational organisations. Key takeaways included:

• The importance of early and consistent stakeholder engagement to align expectations
• The necessity of clearly defined scopes, audiences, and data definitions before initiating development
• The value of cross-functional collaboration and joint refinement sessions to avoid inefficiencies
• The need to pair technical tools and skills with well-structured communication

Conclusion

Although the project did not reach full implementation, it served as a valuable diagnostic phase for both the BI and Analytics teams. My contributions helped lay the groundwork for improved communication and planning, supporting the foundation for the anticipated relaunch of the reporting initiative in 2025. 

In parallel with the central initiative, I also delivered several internal and business-facing dashboards. These included impactful use cases such as the Churn Experiments dashboard, which aimed to support data-driven decision-making within the marketing and retention domains. 

My successes at the organisation demonstrated my ability to navigate ambiguity and generate tangible business value, even within the constraints of evolving programmes and incomplete infrastructure.