Apart from being an important analysis lever, time trending is also core to performance management. One always wants to see on how much needle is moving over time.
Period Analysis - Beginning OR End of Period
This is 'balance-sheet' kind of analysis, where you find out the status of various measures (for example the account balances, the number of offices, number of customers, number of defaults, number of patients in admission…) at the end OR beginning of a period (say end of month, beginning of quarter..)
During the period activity
This is a 'profit & loss' kind of analysis, where you find out the extent of activity done within a period. For example-- Sales Revenue measure, Number of patients admitted, number of festival package flat screen TVs. sold…….in given month, quarter, week…
Time Trending through Period to Period Comparison
This is typical business performance parameter. For example --the comparison of sales in the first quarter compared to first quarter last year OR the sales in the New Year season this year vs. last year
Time-Trending across a fixed vs. rolling period range
When you see the time-trend across the periods in the fixed time range. For example the revenue figures across twelve months in the calendar year (OR business performance year) OR when you do YTD (year to date) and MTD (month-to-date) analysis, where the starting point for your reference is beginning of the period.
The investment analysis typically uses the rolling period range, where the stock movement across last twelve months on the rolling basis is tracked. You can refer Time Dimension, to understand more facets of Time related analysis. |
