If you keep hearing about companies and organizations using business intelligence dashboards to their advantage, but haven’t yet grasped the importance and value of this concept, it is high time to learn more about BI dashboards and the ways they can help you.
Just in case you are still considering whether this will only add a new layer of complexity to your day to day operation, you should know that the business intelligence dashboard is called a dashboard for a very good reason - it is the central display for all pertinent information relating to how things are going at a particular time, just like your vehicle’s dashboard is a helpful tool to know about low gas or deflated tires without having to physically check them and before the problems lead to serious consequences.
Your BI dashboard takes the data that you tell it to take, such your key performance indicators (KPIs), and displays them in a clear, logical and visually appealing fashion. You get straight to the figures and graphs that assist you and your team in making important decisions instead of having to sort and sift through data in order to come to the same conclusions.
What information does a business intelligence dashboard display?
The business intelligence dashboard does not take control of running your business - it only simplifies the data mining and data analysis segment of your business operations, and thus the information that is displayed on your BI dashboard is only what you have chosen.
Of course, trying to display every single bit of aggregated or analyzed information on the same screen would negate all the positives of the dashboard concept, thus it is up to you to select only those key performance indicators and other values that are truly useful, especially when viewed periodically throughout the day or in relation to each other.
Importantly, while a professional business intelligence package has the capacity to process and display millions of data sets at the same time, not everyone at every level of your organization needs to see the full scope of information. Instead, the sales department manager can only be given the info pertinent to them, while the shareholders can be given easy access to the highest level of figures in order to not have them making assumptions based on numerical data alone without seeing the work behind these numbers.
Interrelation between KPIs and the dashboard
If your organization has a rigid and well-designed system of key performance indicators, the dashboard can play a vital role in ensuring that these are visible, persistent, constant and valued. One of the uses of your business intelligence dashboard is serving as a benchmarking tool that goes beyond looking at data at a particular moment in time but also analyzes historical progress towards a set goal or adherence to a certain level of achievement represented by the KPI.
An employee, department or project consistently unable to meet the required targets on their key performance indicators would thus be more closely monitored by those trying to resolve the issue, and decisions regarding intervention or disciplinary action, for example, would be made in a much more ‘live’ mode than ever before. In the same fashion, your BI dashboard can serve as the tool for positive reinforcement and the build-up of strong morale in a successful team.