Professional Content Design

In Chap. 3, the special relation of the professional and content-related design to the corporate strategy and to the value-creating factors of the business model of a company is presented at the beginning. These are the most important drivers for good reporting and planning. Subsequently, important hints and practical design suggestions are given for the structuring, navigation and analysis paths in planning and reporting. An overview of the planning objects and report types serves as an introduction for the presentation of the most important basic forms of reporting, such as the target-actual comparison and the ABC analysis. In the context of report design, besides general recommendations, especially the filter and selection functions, the layout and the main components of reports, the tables, various chart types and the comments are discussed in detail. Particularly noteworthy is the developed controlling cockpit example for the management (operational and strategic controlling), the sales, the production, the purchasing and the project management. The controlling cockpit contains over 85 report suggestions with about 30 top indicators and over 100 control variables. Here, the readers can get many suggestions and tips for the individual report design. Finally, the peculiarities of planning forms and the coordination of planning and reporting contents are addressed.