Information is not free. It has to be gathered, stored and analyzed. If nothing else, there is the "lost opportunity cost." The staff time spent preparing the data could be spent on other projects. Don't gather info if you can't or won't act on it. Asking for a report just because you are curious is not a good way to run a business.
The dilemma is how do you know what facts can be acted on and which will just be a waste of an analysts time? You can find out that more orders for blue widgets come in on Monday than on Tuesday. If you only ship once a week, this information only satisfies idle curiosity. Are you ready to restructure your shipping operation? If so then this information is absolutely necessary before making any changes.
Once the data is summarized into a usable form, trends can be spotted and business direction can be changed. The role of a manager is to prepare for the future. The best way to predict the future is to know the past. Every business is different but one thing they have in common is change. The information is less useful the farther the past gets from the future. Knowing the buying preferences of customers 30 years ago is not very useful for planning this years marketing campaign.
You also need to be concerned about the quality of your data. Many companies use surveys to gather information. I'm sure you've all been asked questions such as "on a scale of 1 to 10, indicate if you would buy our product again, with 1 being would not buy again and 10 being definitely would buy again." These are known as Likert scales. Studies have shown that a 3 or 5-point scale is the most useful. A 3 point scale would be 1=disagree 2=no opinion 3=agree. The more points you have the less useful the information becomes. On a 10-point scale what is the difference between a 7 or an 8? Even if you gave definitions to each point, did each person taking the survey read and understand the definitions?
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