Business dashboards: turning data into useful information
A useful dashboard shows a few up-to-date indicators linked to decisions. Here is how to design one starting from the data your company already has.
Every company produces a vast amount of data every day: orders, invoices, stock movements, hours worked, production progress. The problem is rarely a lack of data, but being able to see it at the right moment and in the right form. That is where dashboards come in.
What is a business dashboard?
A dashboard is a screen that summarises the most important indicators for a department or for the whole company, with up-to-date charts and figures. Unlike a report, which is opened at the end of the month, a dashboard is checked every day to understand how things are going and where action is needed.
What makes a dashboard useful
- A few well-chosen indicators: five KPIs linked to decisions are better than thirty charts nobody looks at.
- Automatically updated data from the management software and other systems, with no manual exports.
- A clear audience: management, sales and production need different views.
- Drill-down capability: from an aggregate figure you should be able to reach the customer, item or order behind it.
- Comparisons against budget, the same period last year or a target.
Practical examples
A sales dashboard might show turnover, orders won, margin by customer and open quotes. A production dashboard might show order progress, department efficiency and scrap. A finance dashboard might summarise collections, overdue receivables and cash-flow forecasts. In every case, the value lies in spotting an anomaly immediately rather than discovering it weeks later.
Start with the data you already have
You do not need a large project to get started. The management software often already contains everything you need: simply connect it to an analytics tool and agree with the decision-makers which figures matter. Labinf Sistemi delivers Business Intelligence solutions integrated with ERP and other business systems and, with Dashboard IA, also lets you query your data by asking questions in natural language.
Want to give shape to your company's data? Let's talk.
