What Are Dashboards and Why Do You Need Them?

A Business Dashboard is quite a powerful tool that is beneficial to both you and your company.

Your business generates a massive amount of data, from simple things such as who is logging hours to more complex items such as project tracking. This information is important when it comes to decision making, but trying to sort all this data can be quite an overwhelming task. This is where a business dashboard comes in.

A business dashboard is a management tool that combines all your business data into one location. It provides you with insights into key data points relevant to the running of your business, whether it’s an overall view or specific processes or departments. Having this information allows you to make informed decisions and can greatly improve the performance of your executives and employees.

The goal of a business dashboard is to answer business questions and provide a quick analysis of your data.  Examples of common questions to ask are:

• What are the projects/clients we spend the most time on?
• What are our overall sales goals and have we reached them for the past 6 months?
• What percentage of our overall revenue comes from which customers?
• What are our top product lines and what opportunities are there for growing others?

Dashboards also help by streamlining the reporting process and pulling all the data your business generates on a daily basis from multiple sources, and compiling it into a single location. This can save you hours of manually sorting through and monitoring data and will help you get a better understanding of the bigger picture of your business. Focusing on specific detail will be the most beneficial for you and your business, allowing you to pick out key concerns and points of interest. Dashboards can help you understand what works, what doesn’t, and what needs improvement. This enables you to make real-time adjustments to your processes.

If you’re interested in making the most out of your data, Spud Software can help. We will define what metrics are most important to your company, then design a solution that meets your specific needs. With the right business dashboard.