Imagine your business is your car for a moment. Would you get in your car and start a journey without a functioning dashboard? How would you know when your petrol was low and needed topping up? You would check the dashboard, just as you would check a business dashboard to assess the level of cash flow. What about speed? You can easily judge how fast your car is travelling from a glance at the dashboard, but are you aware of the pace your business is travelling at? The data on your business dashboard will tell you if your business is progressing as quickly as you’d like it to, and if it’s headed in the right direction. It’s a basic principle - you need the correct tools and knowledge to run both a car and a business effectively.
What is a business dashboard?
A business dashboard is an information management tool that is used to track key data points relevant to your business. Through the use of data visualisations, a business dashboard will simplify complex data sets to provide users with at-a-glance awareness of current performance.
The benefits of using a business dashboard
Saving Time: Having all the data you need in one place will save precious hours searching for the info you need. Business dashboards can automatically run reports, saving you from compiling all the data yourself!
Visibility: Great visibility and insight, and knowing exactly what’s going on in all aspects of your business, allows for better management. Allowing your staff to see how the business is performing will also push them in the right direction. They can see where they need to improve and what they are already doing well.
Improvements: Business dashboards allow you to measure your performance throughout your organisation and thus improve it. You can easily see where you’re doing well and where you’re lagging behind and need to improve.
Check If Your Business Plan Is Working: As a business owner, it’s more than likely you, and your employees, follow a business plan. How can you be sure you’re sticking to this plan and achieving your expectations from it? Business dashboards automatically show your goals from your business plan versus your actual, real-time results.
Employee Performance Improvements: When employees know their performance is being judged in a dashboard, and can see their results, they innately start to improve their work. There will be no hiding!
Who does it well?
Call centres are a great example of businesses that use business dashboards effectively. They can monitor a variety of KPIs, including call abandon rates, average speed of answer, first call resolution, average handle time, and much more. All businesses should be target-driven, so why deny yourself easy access to how your targets are being achieved?
I use this throughout with any project and any business however I am most proud of our dahboard for our industrial kitchen cleaning company ‘Pathway Cleaning’ and have found it to be extremely beneficial. We judge new business and assess the business’s efficiency from our dashboard. From my personal experience, I would highly recommend using a business dashboard in your business if you want to travel onwards.
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