Why every CEO needs a Dashboard

Do you know what a Visual Dashboard is?

Are you aware of the positive impacts a Dashboard can create?

Do you know how to make a Visual Dashboard?

Introduction

More often we think that to create a successful marketing and sales campaign, we require a big fat budget or an extremely huge series of events for it to be successful. However, most of us fail to understand that a good strategy and it’s correct implementation is the key ingredient here. To create an impactful strategy, a vast amount of data is required to analyze and plan for the near future as well as for the long run. It can get overwhelming to handle such complex data all at once. Also, it is important to use the data wisely so that you don’t lose sight of the future. A sure shot solution to this is The Dashboard.

What is a Dashboard?

A dashboard is a visual representation of all of your data. The main motive of a dashboard is to display all the relevant data at a glance in a very systematic manner. A dashboard is the simplest way of displaying various types of data in one place. The best feature of dashboards are that they are highly customizable as per your requirements. A dashboard helps to convey different yet related information in an easy-to-digest form.

Dashboards enable CEOs to highlight the key areas to digest essential information and dig deeper to gather necessary details to take quick, accurate and action oriented decisions.

Most organizations prefer to build their own dashboards whereas a few others tend to acquire them from outsources. Whether a dashboard is build or bought, doesn’t matter. What matters is that you attain what is needed of it. In many cases it’s configurable, allowing you the ability to choose which data you want to see and whether you want to include charts or graphs to visualize the numbers.

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Why Are Dashboards Trending?

Dashboards may be a new concept but it is the new talk of the town and in no time they will be all over the place and an absolute essential for every business. Dashboards are trending because they have multiple uses and help to –

·???????Monitor individual and team performances

·???????Generate detailed Reports and Analytics

·???????Identify new Trends

·???????Set future targets

·???????Measure efficiency of team and business

·???????Plan upcoming strategies

·???????Make informed and effective business decisions

·???????Attain visibility on implementation of actions

·???????Identify faults and problems in data

The most crucial part of creating a Dashboard is finding the most important data and formatting it in a way that’s easy to understand for your audience. The data needs to be picked depending on who will view and analyze the data. Say for example, an industry expert or higher level management personals may find complex data easier to understand. If you’re presenting data to less well-versed stakeholders or employees at your company, you may need to simplify it before sharing it so that they don’t have a difficulty in understanding the data. Make sure to avoid using highly technical terms in your dashboard if your targeted audience is not well versed with such concepts.

Dashboards are useful for monitoring, measuring, and analyzing relevant data in key areas. They take raw data from various sources and present it in a way that’s highly tailored to the viewer’s needs giving them a clear view of the data. Dashboards are dynamic, interactive and show near real-time data. They help you get a more precise, in-the-moment understanding of what’s happening in the world around you and navigate rapid and sometimes crucial changes for betterment of performances and outputs.

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Things to keep in mind while building a Dashboard

Here are a few important factors that shall help you build a dashboard:

1.????Know your Audience:?The most important factor is the Audience you will be creating the Dashboard for. Ask yourself who you are building the dashboard for? Accordingly, build a dashboard in a pattern that they will find easy to evaluate and understand.

2.????Filter relevant data: A business will have ample of different data from multiple sources. You must understand to filter out data that is extremely essential for the dashboard. Filling the dashboard with unnecessary data will make it complex to read and will lose it’s purpose.

3.????Proof read your data:?Ensure that your data is clean and correct before you build a dashboard. Your Audience would like to believe that the data you’re showcasing on the dashboard is accurate. You may lose trust of your Audience and your clients if they later find out that the data your showcased is inaccurate.

4.????Use Visuals: The whole point of creating a dashboard is that you need to portray your data in an easy to understand format visually. Your audience should be able to understand and grasp the data at one visual glance. You can make use of different types of visuals depending upon the amount and quality of data such as –

·???????Graphs

·???????Charts

·???????Pie diagrams

·???????Maps

·???????Bar diagrams?

Ensure that the data does not get overwhelming to the reader otherwise the sole purpose of the visual data will get compromised.

5.????Adapt to improve:?A dashboard will be a success only when the Targeted Audience will be able to understand the data without you having to explain it to them. Once you feel that you Dashboard has started falling in place make sure to show it to a few people from your Audience to understand if the dashboard data makes sense to them. Constructive Feedback from them will help you improve your dashboard.

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Dashboards aggregate data from multiple data sources. A dashboard just doesn’t help save time but also helps you to see all of your data collectively in one place. Dashboards are valuable because help to make sense of data and act on it immediately.

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Conclusion

·???????Remember that a dashboard is just a tool to portray your data in an easy manner.

·???????Your Audience should be convinced with data they are reading from your Dashboard.

·???????Ensure that your data is clean and clear.

·???????This will positively impact your business and attract new clients.

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Share your ideas and thoughts about Dashboards in the comments or write to me at [email protected].

Cheers,

Jagmohan Rishi Singh