What is a Business Intelligence (BI) Dashboard?

As companies seek to compete in an ever-growing global market, becoming more efficient is essential to gain a competitive advantage. One way that businesses are enhancing their ability to stay competitive is by harnessing the power of data to analyze the past, forecast the future, and offer innovative services.

With companies collecting a greater amount of data than ever before, it is critical to find a way to accurately understand the data. Data without context is useless, and with the growing amount of information, it is difficult for businesses to transform the data into understanding.

Luckily, there are tools that have been developed to help translate this big data into actionable insights that can be used to operate efficiently and drive success within an organization — business intelligence dashboards.

BI Tools and Dashboards

Before we can see the benefits of a business intelligence dashboard, it’s important to understand what business intelligence itself is.

Business intelligence (BI) is a process that involves using a collection of tools to create a wide range of reports and charts which can be used to analyze past performance and also predict future outcomes.

Business intelligence tools and tactics offer a variety of benefits, allowing you to make data-driven decisions, enhance your company’s decision-making process, and provide the ability to optimize existing business processes.

Business intelligence dashboards offer one of the best solutions for businesses that are looking to gain key insights into their organization to stay ahead of the competition. These dashboards serve as a platform that gathers information from a multitude of sources, computes the data, and presents it to be analyzed.

In many cases, these dashboards can include tools that allow you to perform predictive modeling on the data being presented so that you can forecast what is likely to happen in the future.

With a business intelligence dashboard at their fingertips, companies can quickly gain insights into their company’s spending habits, market trends, and other key areas of concern. The best dashboard tools also present a high-quality reporting toolset that is presented via a user-friendly interface.

What Features Does a Business Intelligence Dashboard Include?

There are several different features that business intelligence dashboards can include to help companies get the most out of their data.

• Real-Time Data Collection and Data Points
• User-Friendly Interfaces with Data Visualization
• Predictive Modeling for Business Users
• Customized Dashboards
• Forecasting Tools
• Historical Data

How Business Intelligence Dashboards Can Help Companies Compete

Since many companies compete in today’s market with a wide range of similar products and services, it has become more important than ever to differentiate one company from another.

Business intelligence dashboards can be used as a way for your business to see how you are performing compared to the rest of the industry. Here are some of the benefits that BI Dashboards offer to help your company compete in today’s market:

1. Improve Productivity by Gaining Actionable Insights

Utilizing a business intelligence dashboard allows your employees to see company data clearly and concisely. This, in turn, can help teams make more informed decisions that lead to increased productivity and improve the quality of work being done within your organization.

For example, if a sales team is not meeting its goals, it can be difficult for managers to provide insight on what they need to do to improve without having access to comprehensive data.

With a BI dashboard, teams can pull reports which show where they are falling behind and how this affects company revenue as well as set goals that are more achievable. In the long run, this can help improve sales and productivity for a business.

2. Gain Access to Key Insights and Reach Key Performance Indicators

With business intelligence dashboards, your company’s data is readily available from anywhere there is an internet connection. This makes it easy for employees to access critical information at any time of the day, including information that can help with reaching key performance indicators.

Having access to data from anywhere allows these remote team members to quickly pull reports and gain insights into how their specific projects are performing without having to wait until they return to the office.

3. Reduce the Time Needed to Analyze Data and Creating Reports

Business intelligence dashboards allow employees to spend less time gathering data and building reports, which can take a significant amount of time in traditional BI solutions.

Instead, all team members need to do is log into their account and immediately start monitoring everything from one place in real-time. This leaves employees with more time to focus on other areas of the business that are important to the company’s success.

4. Improve Decision Making by Accessing Data Instantly

One major benefit of business intelligence dashboards is that managers have access to data faster than ever before which can lead to better decisions being made since there is more up-to-date information.

For example, say you are the manager of a sales team and have an employee who needs to make an important decision about whether they should bid on a certain job.

By always having this information readily available to them through a business intelligence dashboard, they can make a better decision about whether to pursue a particular project.

5. Increase Data Accuracy by Eliminating Manual Data Entry

Data entry can be extremely time-consuming and one of the main benefits of business intelligence dashboards is that you, as a manager, don’t experience this annoyance since all data is displayed in an easy-to-read format.

BI Dashboards help you spend less time doing menial tasks and more time using your skills to make important decisions for the company without worrying about entering data into a spreadsheet.

6. Allows for Greater Collaboration

Business intelligence dashboards eliminate the issue of not being able to see what others are working on within your company by providing every team member with access to relevant information for their projects.

This allows for teams to work together more effectively than ever before which can lead to increased productivity, stronger company morale, and most importantly, higher company profits.

7. Enable More Accurate Predictions

Business intelligence dashboards make it possible for managers to make better predictions about things like future revenue by providing up-to-date information on how current projects are doing.

Without this information, a manager would likely make less accurate predictions about future success which could be detrimental to the company’s bottom line.

8. Make Recurring Tasks Quick and Easy

Business intelligence dashboards streamline recurring tasks like publishing reports or checking in on inventory levels by allowing users to quickly log in and make changes to these reports in one easy step.

This ultimately saves employees time, reduces mistakes, and makes it much easier for managers to track the performance of ongoing projects.

9. Gain Access to Personalized Views for Every Team Member

Business intelligence dashboards include customizable views that provide each user with a unique outlook into how their projects are doing.

This not only ensures that every team member has access to the information they need but also allows for customization based on an individual’s job responsibilities. This is essential for setting key performance indicators and more.

10. Make Decision Making Easier with the Ability to See the “Bigger Picture”

A business intelligence dashboard provides managers with access to all important data that allows them to make more informed decisions than ever before.

Without this information, managers would have a difficult time determining the best course of action for upcoming projects. The ability to see all relevant data in one place allows users to make better decisions and ultimately improve company sales figures.

Bring the Power of a Business Intelligence Dashboard to Your Company Today

Business intelligence dashboards are a great tool for any business owner or manager because it makes it possible to monitor performance within your company without having to dedicate large amounts of time and energy.

As data is always being updated in real-time, it can be beneficial to create automated notifications and reports that alert users anytime data is added or changed.

With a business intelligence dashboard, you can track your progress as a company over time, make accurate forecasts, and see the bigger picture at a glance!