Unavailable indicator
An indicator that missing data prevents from being calculated, declared as such together with the data that would unlock it, rather than estimated.
What it changes for the executive
A figure produced from absent data is not a useful approximation, it is an error with decimals, and its falseness is invisible because it looks like the others. A rule of conduct follows for any executive who commissions an analysis: a report that produces a figure for every question asked is suspect; a report that declares certain indicators unavailable, naming the missing data, behaves correctly.
Example
Profitability per client requires a job code on time sheets and purchases; seasonality requires intra-year figures; staff turnover requires entry and exit dates. Without that data, the firm writes "unavailable" and says what it would take to unlock it.
A term that is missing?
Describe the situation in a few lines; the reply is personal.