Using Business Intelligence Dashboards to better understand your data

September 4, 2019

Business Intelligence (BI) Dashboards are a great step up from traditional reporting tools when it comes to visualising and interpreting business data.

Having a clear outlay of information and visual elements makes it notably easier to find blockages or impact points in important workflows like revenue streams, inventory levels, productivity rates and more.

Plus, having this clear insight into a business makes it easy for owners and operators to ensure a consistent level of sustainable growth and ongoing success.

Let's take a closer look at the features of this tool, how it can be used, and how it can benefit businesses.

What is a Business Intelligence (BI) Dashboard?

A BI Dashboard is a graphical user interface, shown on a single screen, that allows its reader to review, compare and contrast information.

When used in a business setting, it provides an at-a-glance view of key performance indicators that are relevant to the objectives throughout a company.

This oversight means the reader/s can easily check in on the success of their business, and ensure that they are on track to achieve their targets.

The dashboard itself is most often displayed on a webpage and linked back to a database. This link is what allows the reporting on the dashboard to be regularly updated.

Why should you have a BI Dashboard in your business?

When it comes to BI Dashboards, the key thing to remember is awareness and oversight.

BI Dashboards give chosen members of a business a high-level insight into their workflows that they otherwise would not have.

Being able to easily visualise and interpret business data in a single screen makes it easier to identify the path to being in the black. It helps you stick to your goals and objectives and identify any threats to them.

More than that, however, there is a range of other smaller-scale benefits that users of BI dashboards have sighted, including:

  • The ability to review specific information without sifting through raw data or reports.
  • Increased accessibility and interest in data as a result of visual representations.
  • Reduced time to source and communicate data as a result of a dashboard's online location.
  • Easy to interpret and organised information due to visual elements like graphs and charts.
  • Better trend awareness and understanding, as well as more insightful analytics

Can there be different types of BI Dashboards?

Most definitely. The customisable aspect of these dashboards is perhaps the best part!

Thanks to a customisable interface and level of interactivity, BI Dashboards can have an array of features, it all depends on what information the reader wants to receive reports on, and why.

Alternatively, a Sales KPIs dashboard can be good for monitoring a business' success in hitting sales targets. This dashboard can include a range of relevant information, like costs, revenue, profits and incremental sales, for readers to review and pinpoint any issues arising.

For the back end, a Supply Chain dashboard is a great tool for managing the moving parts of a workflow. It can show information relating to inventory stock levels, logistics functions and warehouse operations - an awareness of which can improve the efficiency of this workflow, inventory controls and day-to-day operations.

A BI Dashboard is useful to a business of any size.

Digital dashboards allow for monitoring of the contributions of various departments in an organisation - no matter the size.

This tool is paramount in helping businesses stick strongly to their chosen path and ensure they do not fall off it.

To learn more about Simpro BI Dashboard options, contact our team on +1 855 338 6041.