In a recent article (What is a Digital/Executive Dashboard) I discussed the concept of dashboards. By implementing dashboards you can find an overall view of your business. Four major benefits stood out: customization, drill-down to details, visibility of trends, and data freshness.
1. Customizable to different management levels
Many times reports contain either too much or too little information for different roles to complete their tasks. Dashboards can built in a way that will allow them to be custom focused and the individual user. The executive user may see a high level graph of department productivity, while the department manager could see the specifics by employee, and the department employee would see their specific details for the month. This allows each person to see the level of detail that they need in order to get their job done and meet their goals. They are not overloaded by too much detail and they are not limited by a lack of information.
Even though the dashboards are custom they also allow the information to be drilled into…
2. Ability to drill into details
It is important to consider the ability to drill into information when building dashboards. If the executive sees a high level diagram of the amount of recurring business that the company is generating they should then be able to drill down and see which clients are generating that business. This gives them the ability to see the details behind the summary information if they wish to but keeps that detail from the standard view unless it is deemed necessary.
In addition to seeing the details the business will have a significant opportunity to see trends occurring.
3. Trending visibility
When the summary information is displayed the user will be able to see the trending of data over a period of time. This allows people to make decisions and react to issues before they become problems. For instance, if a call center manager sees that the wait period for incoming calls is rising each week or month, they can begin to explore the issue to find out why before an angry customer is created.
Trending becomes an invaluable tool for watching the data in a real-time system with constant data flow.
4. Constant data flow
Because dashboards are driven off of current data in a real-time or near real-time structure the dashboards should be an accurate reflection of the current data. People don’t have to wait for the weekly or monthly reports in order to see what’s going on. They should be able to see at any given time what the business is doing and what the trends are looking like.
All In All
The dashboard method of reviewing details and viewing the status of operations provides a significant opportunity to make your business more efficient and quick to respond to issues and opportunities. This will allow your business to operate more effectively and service your clients better. Through the use of business intelligence you can provide a leg up to your business and resources.
Did you enjoy this article? Please subscribe to Refocusing Technology to receive all the FREE updates!
Twitter
Facebook
Buzz
LinkedIn
RSS