Most projects at work involve lengthy and jumbled data, wherefore well-structured analytical reports are particularly important. This article shows you all the major topics that you care about in analytical reporting: 

• What is Analytical Report?
• Analysis Report Examples
• How to Write Analytical Reports Effectively?

What is Analytical Report?

An analytical report is a type of data analysis report that provides information, analysis, and opinions on particular business processes issues. So, despite the different reporting situations, the analysis’s final goal is to identify and respond to specific problems and opportunities.

Besides providing explanations and opinions with appropriate written content, it is necessary to reflect the data patterns, relationships, and trends through charts and graphs. Accordingly, we tend to use qualitative and quantitative data analysis methods jointly.

Above all, the analysis report should focus on several key pointers under a certain business scenario.

Let’s see here in examples.

Analysis Report Examples

All templates on this page are built-in FineRport. Don’t hesitate to Try Our Demo on the website or Free Download the FineReport.

Analytical Reporting for Sales

Let’s take these sales analytical reports made by FineReport as examples. The first sales analysis report, which is a dashboard, is apparently targeted to the top managers. You are wondering why?

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Look, for enterprises’ executives, the analysis report should deliver the most core, most summarized, and most important data. The data should be clear and focused. Don’t expect C-suites will spend 2 hours reading an analysis report over 50 pages. They can only spare you a limited time. Therefore you need to focus on what you want them to take away most from the meeting.

Let’s move to the second example. It is a detailed sales analysis report. If written in Excel, these detailed tables may take up a lot of your time to enter and update data. However, using the built-in templates in FineReport, you can directly apply them and automate the process.

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When designing reports, the main users of such reports that we presume are middle managers, such as department heads. Consequently, the main task of this level of information is to analyze data and find possible problems. What’s more, with the help of functions such as drilling down, report analysts and viewers can find out business problems and trace the roots.

How to Write Analytical Reports Effectively?

Let’s look at three steps to draft your analytical reports effectively.

1. Identify Targeted Audience of the Report Analytics

Like what I wrote in A Complete Guide to Creating Stunning Data Reports, it is necessary to identify the targeted readers and their needs before you kick off any report analysis project.

As we have noted before, the senior managers may have different expectations on your analytical reports from middle managers. This difference may be greater in various departments at the individual contributor and entry level.

After taking it in mind, you can find different people’s needs and requirements for data analytics reports from the graphic below.

2. Develop Analytical Report Framework

When we face a business problem, it is impossible to find the reasons behind the problem all at once. We need to use various ideas or models to pull the problem into pieces of sub-problems. Then solve the sub-problems one by one until we reach a final conclusion.

In the article Top 5 Methods of Thinking in Data Analysis, I mentioned several typical analysis frameworks that can help you quickly develop the report. They are:

(1) Formula Method

By formula method, you can use the formula to decompose the influencing factors for a certain indicator.

For instance, when I want to analyze reasons for a product’s low sales, I will consider:

• Product sales = Sales volume * Unit price
• Sales volume = Channel A sales volume + Channel B sales volume + Channel C sales volume + …
• Channel sales volume = Number of users * Order rate
• Number of users = Exposure * Clicks ratio

(2) Comparison Method

As the name suggests, we compare two or more data sets, which is the most common method. Depending on what to underline, you can compare time, geographical location, product categories, personnel department, etc.

(3) Funnel Analysis

The funnel model splits the entire purchase process into steps and then uses the conversion rate to measure each step’s performance. Finally, we may find some moves likely with defect or abnormality.

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3. Design Graphics and Visual Experience

Precise and clear charts can effectively enhance the viewing efficiency and experience of the audience. After all, humans are visual creatures. 

I guess most people are familiar with PowerPoint and Excel. They are both common data visualization tools, but today I hope to talk about something different. So how to display the analysis concludes with a more novel form? Here, I recommend more efficient BI (Business Intelligence) tools to develop your analytical reports. 

Let’s take a look at the excellent effects they can deliver.

The colors, elements, and dynamic effects of these charts are all included in FineReport’s built-in templates, so users can directly make use of them to achieve the outcomes they want.

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Conclusions

In this article, we introduce the definition and importance of an analytical report. Then, with examples, we clarify further how to create a report analysis effectively. 

To sum up, when drafting an analytical report, you need to define clearly with a target audience and apply a corresponding analytics framework based on their expectations. 

Last but not least, visualization experience is something we should never forget. Audience will only read your report when it looks attractive. To make your analytical report more remarkable, we suggest BI tools such as FineReport.

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Also, please feel free to make an appointment for a live demo with our product experts. We will be more clear about your needs and see how FineReport can help you and your organization to transform data into value.

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