Making Better (and Faster) Business Decisions with BI Dashboards

Every sale you make, visit to your website, damaged shipment, or email conversion is a data point that means something to your company.

Data is coming in every moment, even while we’re asleep. So much data is coming in that most companies look at just the basics, often missing out on the deeper insights that mountains of data from various sources can bring when connected in a comprehensive reporting mechanism.

The age of using only spreadsheets for data analysis is long gone if you really want to dive deep into the points of information being generated each business day. Today’s data rich business environment has brought about the need for the BI (business intelligence) dashboards to help companies harness, understand, and act upon their data to improve business processes.

It’s projected that in 2020, every person on earth will be creating 1.7 MB of data each second.

Being able to correlate different data points that you might not have initially put together is one of the things that make BI dashboards so effective at helping companies truly understand what makes their business tick.

For example, if you’re only looking at two data points; 1) Customer sales, and 2) Cost of advertising, you might just see a correlation that shows the more you spend on Facebook advertising, the higher your sales are.

But if you add a few other data points such as; 3) Email campaigns that have gone out, 4) Time of day, and 5) Amount of individual sale, you might find that it’s your email marketing campaigns being sent at 8AM that are generating the most revenue for you and assisting those FB ad conversations, which alone only bring in the smaller sales.

That deeper understanding of your data points can keep you from moving your budget from your email marketing to FB ads, and potentially making a decision that would cost you sales, not improve them.

The Advantages of Using Business Intelligence Dashboards

There are several different types of BI dashboards, but they all have the basics in common. They’re designed to aggregate all the data your company collects and generates and help you make sense of it.

Here are several ways that using BI dashboard can help you make better, faster business decisions.

Easy to Read Charts & Graphs

BI dashboards, like Microsoft Power BI (pictured below), come with preset or customizable charts and graphs that help you make sense of the data you’re seeing.

Dashboards are generally easier to read than long reports or spreadsheets and can fit onto a single view, as well as be clicked to gain more detail. This allows you to see important metrics at a glance across multiple areas of your operations.

Aggregate Several Data Points

In the world of data analytics, the more data, the better. If you’re relying on hand-created spreadsheets, your ability to bring in multiple data sources is going to be extremely hampered.

BI dashboards are designed to connect to multiple areas of your operations so you can gain insights from cross comparison of those data sources. For example, you could compare your number of website conversions from Google Analytics with the dollar amount of your quotes entered into QuickBooks online.

Make Faster Decisions with Real-Time Reporting

Your BI dashboard is pulling data in real-time from your connected data sources, which means you can check on metrics in the morning and see any changes that may have happened between then and the afternoon. That real-time dashboard view of your data allows you to make timely decisions.

For instance, if you’ve noticed an unusual drop in both website visitors and webform leads from earlier in the day, you can alert your team, who may realize that your website just went offline, and address the issue quickly to mitigate the loss of business.

That type of real-time reaction isn’t possible if you’re reading reports on a weekly basis.

Easy to Share and Collaborate

Cloud-based business intelligence dashboards give you the ability to see your data from anywhere, collaborate with your team, and share reports at the click of a button.

It’s simple to set up custom dashboards that can be shared automatically with different parts of your team, such as one with sales KPIs for your sales team and one with customer engagement metrics for your customer support team.

Eliminate Cumbersome Reporting

It’s easy to get report overload when you have different employees sending in different types of reports via spreadsheet from various areas of your company. After all while, all those rows and columns start to look the same. Plus, doing reporting by manual entry can take up hours per week.

BI dashboards automate the entire reporting process by pulling in the data automatically and presenting it in pre-built charts and graphs that are both easier to digest and much less time consuming.

Request a Business Intelligence Consultation Today!

Would you like to make faster and more informed business decisions with the help of BI dashboards, but aren’t sure where to start? Genuine Technology Group can help you find the perfect tool for your needs and budget and get you set up to start using it in no time.

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