Performance Report

What is a Performance Report?

Performance Report is a report showing business results, activities and performances over defined time period such as month, quarter or year. The Performance Report is generally compared to some internal or external benchmark. Comparing your Performance Report with an internal benchmark might be comparing the actual results with the forecasts of your business plan or budget. In this case the Performance Report will compare the actual performance with the projected performances. On the other hand the actual business results in the Performance Report might be compared to external benchmarks such as competitors’ performances or industry averages. Example for external benchmarks are competitors’ sales, margins, marketing budget, market share, number of new products, industry standards, etc.

Performance Reports are used for performing business gap analysis where management can identify areas that deserve actions for improvement as well as the business strengths of the company. Performance Report is sometimes called executive report or business summary report showing business performance metrics and indicators.

Effective Business Reporting deals with finding solutions for presenting business results into easy to understand Performance Reports such as business scorecards and business dashboard reports. The overall objective of effective business reporting is preparing Performance Reports which are easy to understand where Performance Report users can identify performance trends fast.