In this article
- Why the quarterly review takes so much time for so few new questions.
- The definition the agent had pinned down before computing anything.
- Digging deeper in conversation: segments, year-on-year change, month by month.
- The frozen report for the committee, then the dashboard and the alert for the next quarter.
The situation
Nordica, a fictional B2B distribution company, sells to four customer segments: key accounts, mid-sized companies, SMBs and micro-businesses. At the end of September, its head of sales is preparing the third-quarter review with the executive committee.
The work is familiar, and it comes back every quarter. Extract revenue from the sales database, split it by segment in a spreadsheet, find last year’s figure to compare, rebuild last quarter’s chart, check that the total matches finance’s. None of it is hard. All of it takes time, and leaves little room for the only part that matters: understanding what moved.
The questions every review brings back
They are rarely exotic. They are the same ones, with this quarter’s figures:
- What is our revenue by customer segment over the last six months, and how does it compare with last year?
- Which customers cut their orders by more than 20% in a year?
- What margin does each product line deliver this quarter?
- Which sales reps are beating their target this month?
Asking them is not the hard part. The trouble is that half the interesting questions come up during the committee itself, once the figures are on screen, when nobody has time left to fetch the answer. So they go back into the queue, and return the following quarter.
A definition settled once and for all
A review’s figures are only as good as their definitions. When the sales database was connected, the agent read the documents the team provided, explored the tables and inferred what it could. Then it asked the questions it could not settle on its own, like this one.
Column annotated: customers.segment
Azul
In the customers table, some accounts have no segment. How should they be classified in segment analyses?
- By their revenue over the last twelve months
- In an “Unclassified” segment, shown separately
- Leave them out of segment analyses
Kept for the whole workspace
The answer is now part of the workspace’s business context. Whether the question comes from the head of sales, a regional manager or financial control, an account without a segment is classified the same way. The same definitions give the same figures, which spares the committee that familiar moment when two tables show two different totals.
The first question
The head of sales starts with the overall picture. She writes her question in plain language, without knowing which tables hold the invoices or how they link to customers.
What is our revenue by customer segment over the last 6 months?
AzulI compute invoiced revenue from April to September 2026 by segment, and compare it with the same period in 2025.
- Sales databaseinvoices, customers
Over the last 6 months, revenue reached €3.2M, up +8.4% year on year. Key accounts carry 42% of it, ahead of mid-sized companies (27%).
The agent states what it computes before answering: invoiced revenue from April to September, compared with the same period in 2025. If that assumption does not fit, she corrects it in one sentence, and the correction is kept for what follows. The chart comes with the answer.
Digging deeper in the same conversation
The overall picture raises questions. Is the 8.4% growth shared, or carried by a single segment? The next question follows on, without restating the period or the scope.
And by segment, how much growth compared with 2025?
Every segment grows. Growth comes first from key accounts (+11.7%), ahead of mid-sized companies (+7.5%).
| Segment | Apr–Sep 2025 | Apr–Sep 2026 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Key accounts | €1.20M | €1.34M | +11.7% |
| Mid-sized | €0.80M | €0.86M | +7.5% |
| SMB | €0.59M | €0.61M | +3.4% |
| Micro | €0.37M | €0.39M | +5.4% |
The answer is clear: every segment grows, but growth comes first from key accounts. That is the review’s main message, and it now has numbers behind it. What remains is how the quarter unfolded month by month.
In €M
September, at €0.62M, is the best month of the period; August, at €0.47M, the weakest. The third quarter totals €1.62M, against €1.58M in the second. Every figure is computed by the sales database itself, and the query behind it stays available: an analyst can review it before the number goes to the committee.
Preparing the review is no longer about producing the figures, but about understanding them.
The report for the committee
For the committee, the head of sales asks the agent to write the summary. The report brings together the charts from the conversation, an analysis and the key indicators. Its figures are frozen on the runs it was written from: it is a dated snapshot you can share, reread in six months and compare with the next quarter without it having moved in the meantime.
Sales review, third quarter 2026
The figures below are frozen on the runs this report was written from. They are never refreshed.
Summary
From April to September, revenue grew 8.4% year on year. Growth comes first from key accounts, which now make up 42% of the total.
Questions that come up during the committee no longer go back into the queue. Which customers cut their orders? Which product line carries the margin? They are asked in the conversation, there and then, on today’s data.
The next quarter, as it happens
A quarterly review only makes sense if what it decided is followed up. The charts from the conversation are pinned to a “Sales performance” dashboard refreshed every day at 7 am. This is not a copy of the data to reload: every refresh queries the database, and the figures shown are the morning’s.
On the indicator that matters most for the coming quarter, key-account revenue, an alert completes the set-up. When the segment’s weekly revenue drops below 90% of target, Azul e-mails the key-account manager. Nobody needs to open the dashboard to notice.
Threshold crossed: weekly key-account revenue
- Measured
- 86%
- Threshold
- 90%
Weekly key-account revenue fell below 90% of target at the latest refresh of the “Sales performance” dashboard.
Open the dashboardWhat changes for the team
- The review is prepared from the data. No more exports to piece together: figures, charts and summary come out of the same conversation.
- One figure per indicator. Definitions are gathered once and shared by everyone, finance included.
- The committee’s questions are answered in the room. A new question is no longer a ticket.
- Follow-up is continuous. The dashboard refreshes itself, and the alert says when to look.
Where to start
Start from the question your last review left unanswered. Read-only access to the sales database is enough, or an export if you would rather begin with a file. Your teams then ask their own questions on their own data, and you judge on the evidence.