Books Every Accountant Must Read: From Data to Stories

Books Every Accountant Must Read: Book No. Twenty-One

Book: From Data to Stories

Author: Richie Lionell V and Ramya Mylavarapu

4th March 2025, India entered into final of ICC Champions Trophy 2025 beating a strong opponent team Australia in semi-final. A proud moment for every Indian. But if you was the one of cricket lovers who was watching match live, must have noticed, Commentators Mentioning Old Matches, specially painful memories of the 2023 ODI World Cup final in Ahmedabad, where Australia triumphed by six wickets, and the 2015 World Cup semi-final loss in Sydney, adding context to India’s redemption narrative. They were talking about many past matches, records of individual players, players against countries, players against players (Who was bold by whom), No of sixes, fours, half centuries, full centuries. It reminded me about very advance data matrix. There is flow of Data, just pick the piece and put it where it is needed. Sidhu Paji's and Harbhajan funny Conversations, commentary in regional languages makes matches more interesting but thing amazed me was the big volume of data related to cricket used in these matches. 

Not about Sports, but also in Business World, The success of companies today is increasingly tied to their ability to collect, analyze, and act on data. Data serves as a foundation for decision-making, strategy, and operational efficiency and create value in ways that were unimaginable a few decades ago.

Data may be of different forms e.g. Structured Data (Organized and easily searchable), Unstructured Data (that lacks a predefined format like emails, social media posts, videos, images, and PDFs), Semi-Structured Data (A hybrid of the two like XML files), Quantitative Data (Numerical that can be measured, such as revenue, website traffic, or temperature readings), Qualitative Data (Descriptive, non-numerical like customer reviews, interview transcripts, or employee feedback), Real-Time Data (Generated and processed instantly, such as stock prices or live user activity on an app), Historical Data (Past data used for trend analysis, like sales records from previous years).

Companies often combine these types. For instance, a retailer might use structured sales data (quantitative) and unstructured customer reviews (qualitative) to improve its offerings.

The Book that I am recommending toady, is a unique and innovative book that combines data visualization, storytelling, and comics to make data more engaging and accessible. The authors, both data storytellers at Gramener Inc., aim to transform dry analytical reports into compelling narratives using a "data comic stories" approach, particularly appealing to beginners in data storytelling, visualization enthusiasts, cricket fans, and comic lovers.

The book is divided into two  parts:

1. Part 1: Graphic Novel
   This section presents a fictional story set during the 2019 Cricket World Cup, following characters like Ringo, Priya and Dey, as they experience the tournament's ups and downs. The narrative integrates real cricket match data, visualized ball-by-ball through histograms, charts, and comic panels. Each game India played in the tournament is condensed into insightful, one-page graphical summaries paired with the characters' reactions, making complex data relatable and entertaining. This blend of fiction, cricket, and data visualization demonstrates how numbers can come alive through storytelling.
2. Part 2: Tutorial
   The second part is a practical guide for creating data comic stories, designed for beginners with no prior expertise. It offers step-by-step instructions, primarily using Microsoft Excel, to help readers craft their own data comics. The tutorial covers finding story arcs, deriving insights from data, and combining them with comic-style visuals. The authors also introduce tools like Comicgen, an open-source comic-making library developed by Gramener, to simplify the process for non-artists.

The book’s overarching goal is to address a common challenge faced by analysts, data scientists, journalists, and marketers: communicating insights effectively to a broader audience. By merging the art of storytelling with the science of data visualization, it provides a fresh, humanized approach to presenting data, making it memorable and enjoyable.

Since there is big gap in mindsets of Data Creators/Managers (MIS or Accounts Executives) and Final Users (CxOs and Board), and due to the busy schedule of the Top Leaders they fail to share/explain exact information they need, have to waste lots of time in summarizing information, to maintain the dash board and supply the right information at right time is a very crucial task. Generating Information from the Ocean of Data is Science, but presenting the same in most useable form is an Art. And I hope, who so ever wants to understand the true nature of Data, this book would be a great help. Keep Reading, Keep Learning, Keep Growing. Thanks.