How valuable is your reporting system?

I often encounter companies that boast with the reporting systems put in place to check various aspects of their systems. Some are free, but some can reach significant costs. And, typically, they are all shiny.

To go beyond the appearance, I am asking only one question:

When was the last you took a significant decision based on the output of the report, and acted upon it?

If the answer does not spring to mind easily, the tool is probably useless. Data is easy to produce. It is more difficult to make it teach us something useful. And you know when it did, when you feel informed enough to take action. Ultimately, action is the only relevant measure.