Having a well-designed corporate dashboard helps save time across an organization. It reduces the back-and-forth between employees and executives by making it easier to access and interpret data.
Before creating a new dashboard, it’s important to consider who the end consumer is. This helps you tailor metrics to their needs.
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Real-Time Dashboards
Real-time dashboards monitor a range of business needs. They act as tools for assessing the company’s short- and long-term strategies, displaying the progress of key success factors. This includes identifying negative trends and taking corrective action where necessary.
The effectiveness of corporate dashboards depends on the collection, processing, and machine learning methods it is based upon. If these are flawed, then the data displayed on a dashboard will be inaccurate or irrelevant.
Unlike traditional business reports, which are static information retrieved at one point in time, real-time dashboards are updated automatically. This saves time, improves reporting and provides clear information that can be used for strategic decision-making. The user can control how fast the dashboard updates — for example, they can choose to update it every 30 seconds or at a more custom interval.
Transparency
Like a car dashboard instantaneously identifies issues and offers feedback, business reporting tools are used to help identify current/historical progress or outcomes. These reporting tools are typically geared toward different audiences and goals.
Analytical dashboards are often built by analysts or line management and include more data and deeper analysis to support root cause discovery. They can also be more interactive.
For example, this analytical dashboard of a procurement KPI shows the company’s cost savings, ROI, and overall expenditure over a certain period to help identify underlying factors that may have contributed to the increase or decrease in metrics. These insights can be used to refine strategies and improve efficiency. They can also help companies avoid costly overspending and find new avenues for saving money.
Visualization
A dashboard helps you visualize data in a way that’s easily understood. This can help you pinpoint problems and opportunities for improvement quickly. It can also motivate employees to work together to achieve company goals.
Specialized dashboards can track a variety of different business functions, including sales, human resources, management, finance, and marketing. They can also provide a snapshot of an entire organization in one location.
When choosing a dashboard tool, make sure it offers the features that are important to your business. For example, you may want a dashboard that is easy to use and can be accessed on multiple devices. Many tools offer backup options in case your data is lost. Some also feature single sign-on for ease of access and collaboration.
Efficiency
Business dashboards provide a variety of visualizations that can succinctly sum up complex information. For example, using visuals like meters and charts can help a company to monitor procurement-related metrics and trends at a glance.
A well-designed business dashboard can help companies save time by providing at-a-glance access to updated information. This eliminates the need to log into systems, request data from developers and wait to receive reports.
It also helps to customize the dashboards for each department or stakeholder. This ensures that stakeholders are only seeing the most important information, avoiding distractions and making it easier to digest information. In turn, this can inspire action and accountability. For instance, an executive who sees that a department is losing ground in a particular region could assign resources to refocus efforts.
Accessibility
When constructing digital dashboards, consider your audience. It’s one of the most crucial business intelligence best practices, and it helps you shape your efforts for success. This includes defining who will use the dashboard and what they need to know.
For example, you may want to create a dashboard to monitor daily operations and specific day-to-day processes. This will help your teams take immediate action or make short-term decisions to optimize performance.
You can also embed your dashboards in popular tools, so your coworkers can access data without leaving the tool they’re using. This allows you to boost accessibility without asking your team members to do more work. For example, you can embed a dashboard directly into Salesforce to give sales development reps quick access to important data about warming up a lead.
