In the internet age, there are two famous phrases that are more relevant to business than ever. The first is, “knowledge is power” and the second is, “time is money”.
Consider both of these phrases the key to your success. Knowledge gives you power, and it allows you to spend your time – and your money – more wisely.
But how do you get such knowledge? Well, that’s what dashboards are for.
What is a Dashboard?
A business dashboard is similar to the dashboard in your car. It displays all the stats you need, in a simple and concise manner. A quick glance can tell you if you need to slow down, fill gas, or fix your tyres.
A business dashboard relies on the same concept; it combines available information, clearly and concisely, in a single place and analyzes it in a way that’s relevant to your business. As a business owner, this allows you to react to business trends and make informed decisions.
What is the Value of a Business Dashboard?
Be it an online store, a client-side scheduling application, or a simple informational website, business owners understand the power of having an online presence. It doesn’t take a corporate guru to understand that having insight into what users do on your site(s) can help increase sales. A dashboard does this for you and much more:
- Increases Visibility – Using your dashboard to view analytics, you can monitor traffic on your site, keep an eye on inventories, and monitor employee performance.
- Continuous Improvement – When you see trends, whether upward or downward, you’re able to drive the business forward, in a way that takes advantage of upward movements, or compensates for downward ones.
- Saves Time – Rather than spending hours logging into different systems and running reports individually, all of your data and related reports are available right in front of you.
- Employee Performance – When you can see the performance of individual employees (and they know you can), you’ll likely see an increase in performance.
- Monitor Trajectories and Goals – When a plan is made, it pays to be able to easily take your current position and compare it to where you expect to be. A business dashboard can show you both at the same time, so you can make sure you’re still on target.
Of course, you may ask yourself if this translates to real-world gains. In practice, does this data make a difference? According to 55% of executives polled, using analytics resulted in either a fair or significant improvement in business growth.
What Data Should you Have on your Dashboard?
Of course, the value of a business dashboard is only there if it presents the right data. What is the right data though? What should you have on your dashboard?
Determining which information to track takes a bit of consideration. First, you need to figure out which metric (or trackable statistic) is the most important to your company. Which data or statistic is the clearest indicator of your business’s health? It could be web traffic, sales, or something less obvious, such as employee time tracking.
Once you determine that, figure out which metrics influence that first metric. If your key metric is net income, then perhaps sales or revenue could be influencers. If your key metric is backlinks or ad clicks, then it could be new or repeat visitors.
Now, go even further. What factors have an impact on those influencers? These are the metrics that should be tracked in your dashboard. Understanding this will give you insight into what you can change, in order to increase revenue.
Some example metrics you could track are:
- Financial Performance – This metric could show profits, profit margins, and current stock prices.
- Revenue and Sales – Tracking sales per period (day, week, month), as well as your top sellers.
- Call-To-Action (CTA) Engagement – How many people are actually responding to your CTA? Do they fall off at any point in your conversion funnel?
- Advertising – What kind of ROI are you getting for your advertising dollars? Which campaigns have the best results?
- Email Marketing – What kind of response do you get from your email campaigns? Do certain types of campaigns get better results?
- Employee Performance – How are individual divisions and employees performing compared to others?
- Upsells – Which upsell techniques get results?
Having the right data can show you how to best allocate your budget. But you also need to be able to see it clearly, and that is what our experts at 88Ninety can do for you.
Where to Start?
Creating your own dashboard can be daunting. Just because you have the data, it doesn’t mean you know the best and most meaningful way to display it. There are a few options when it comes to creating your dashboard:
1. Create Your Own
It’s entirely possible to create your own analytics dashboard. If your reports are currently in a series of Excel spreadsheets, it’s relatively simple to convert them to a dashboard. While this may be a quick solution, it’s not a comprehensive one. You’re still required to input the data into the spreadsheets, and they’re not as dynamic as they could be.
2. Use a Third Party Client
Third party dashboards are a step in the right direction. Simply plug in your data sources and you’re ready to go with dynamic charts.
That said, they are prebuilt, standard solutions designed with one business or another in mind. If they don’t support a particular metric you’d like to track, you could be missing out on a valuable perspective.
3. Connect with a Software Solutions Company
Connecting with a software solutions company can result in the most comprehensive solution. They can work with you and your team, to determine the best way to display your chosen metrics, but also the best way to interact with them dynamically.
At 88Ninety, we help you with the actual data mining required to gather the business intelligence you want to display.
Being able to see and process your business intelligence quickly enhances your ability to react quickly and guide your business into the future. Because, if knowledge is power, and time is money, using a well-designed business dashboard could mean you’ll end up with more of both.
