Arne-Kristian Schulz

As Associate Partner at Blueforte, Arne acts as a Project Lead and Lead Designer for data-driven reporting solutions – strongly focusing on use cases and effectiveness.

About

Arne is Associate Partner and Senior Head of Analytics & Insights at Blueforte GmbH, a consulting firm specialized in Data Analytics & AI. He is responsible for the Analytics & Insights business unit and leads a team in designing reporting solutions that – where needed, powered by AI – enable faster, secure, and easily scalable data-driven decisions and insights.

His approach: translating use cases into user-centric, understandable dashboards and reports through a Data Design Thinking process. This process consistently aligns with both the business logic of end users and the technical constraints, resulting in solutions that make insights tangible and actively promote data-driven communication.

Arne advises organizations on building sustainable reporting architectures. He is a frequent speaker at industry conferences, a lecturer, and a thought leader on topics such as User-Centric Design, Choice Architecture, Visual Business Analytics, and IBCS.

His vision

  • Developing scalable reporting and analytics concepts based on the actual decision-making logic of business users

  • Integrating UX principles into the information architecture of data & AI analytics systems

  • Promoting data-driven decision-making through visual standards and design systems

IBCS® Certified Consultant

Arne-Kristian Schulz has successfully completed the IBCS® certification for successful design of reports and presentations at the IBCS Institute in April 2014.

Work samples

As part of his IBCS® certification, Arne-Kristian Schulz submitted several practical examples that demonstrate what effective visual reporting can look like—when user needs, design principles, and information logic go hand in hand.

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  • ProSiebenSat.1mediaFACTS landing page Users enter mediaFACTS and the reports via the landing page shown here. A highlighting function allows them to mark those reports that are suitable for their current analytical questions. The reports are clustered into specific topical families such as slot, channel or competitor analyses.

  • ProSiebenSat.1 mediaFACTS slot analysis This report shows a slot analysis for the channel ProSieben. For a pre-selected target group (here adults between 14-49 years), users can visually compare the market shares of a channel in six time slots. Frequently used functions such as time jumps of 1 year or 3 months into the past can be carried out with a single click using the "quick jumps" offered next to the date menu.

  • ProSiebenSat.1 mediaFACTS structural comparison Users can use this report to make a structural comparison across the entire channel landscape for the current day, month-to-date and year-to-date. The channels are structured hierarchically into channel networks.

  • Segment earnings 2014 The EBIT margin and turnover for the company as well as for the four business segments are displayed by quarter. The EBIT margin is shown for both quarters of the year as well as the forecast for the following quarters. The EBIT margin is visualized as a line with the percentage value of the segment revenues in the same chart. The trend in turnover of the company and its business segments is visualized in the charts below. Each of the four quarter values are compared with the value for the previous quarter. The absolute and relative deviations from the previous year are displayed above the charts.

  • Waterfall income statement 2013 The upper chart is a waterfall chart on the consolidated financial statements. A subtotal is derived from the expenses (Total Operating Expenses). Moreover, the chart shows the absolute and relative deviations from the previous year. The trend in earnings per share for the previous year, the current year, and the budget value for the following year as well as the corresponding percentage deviations are displayed on the left below the waterfall chart. In addition, the viewer also sees the employee count as a total number as well as a value for the individual regions. A pin chart without pin heads is used since this does not involve financial indicators.

  • Book: "Mehr als nur ein Standard" Arne and his team worked together on a scientific study which analyzed the extent to which an IBCS-compliant design of reports facilitates the analysis. The study was carried out in the research laboratory of the TU Munich (the experimenTUM). Here, the participants analyzed different reports on the computers. The study examines both the IBCS as a whole and the individual SUCCESS rules. The complete study (in German) is available on Amazon as paperback and eBook.