Departments across companies of every size have been screaming out for better ways to visualise the data they have into real actionable insight. However, until today, the IT teams have struggled to help each line of business to deliver their own dashboards easily. Now with advanced, yet low-cost tools like Microsoft PowerBI it has never been easier to build interactive dashboards and finally deliver timely management information that is helping companies to deliver real-time insight for Sales, Marketing, Finance, HR, Operations and IT Management.
Making data more engaging, internally and externally.
At Software Solved, we are called upon by the smallest and the largest organisations to help them not only bring their data to life internally, but to also make this highly engaging data available via customer portals so their customers, resellers, partners and suppliers can build much closer and interactive relationships. It is based on this increasing demand, and the fact that these tools are becoming increasingly easy to use and cost are rapidly lowering that I predict that 2018 will be the year for Data Visualisation across every department.
In a recent survey that Software Solved undertook in the Insurance Industry, we found that 78 of insurance companies stated that sharing real-time data with customers and brokers was either Important or Very Important, and yet when asked how advanced these Insurers are today with delivering real-time data, only 22 felt they were Good or Very Good.
Increasingly, sharing real-time data internally across your Sales, Marketing, Finance, HR, Operations and IT, and externally with your customers, resellers and suppliers is becoming a huge competitive edge that I believe no business will be able to afford to ignore in 2018.
So, who should be looking into Data Visualisation in your company?
Head of Finance
Finance usually get good data from their accounts systems, but have lots of departments requesting data and PowerBI would be a great tool for them to make the departments have self-service (drawing on data from multiple systems / spreadsheets)
Head of Sales
No matter which CRM system you use, sales management very rarely have good dashboards showing leads, pipeline funnels, proposals sent, targets, performance and upsell/cross-sell opportunities. Therefore, PowerBI will be a great tool for you to overlay on Salesforce, Dynamics, Sugar or whatever the CRM or sales tools
Head of Marketing
Marketing would kill to be able to demonstrate the ROI from marketing campaigns and also to control sales and ensure all their wonderful leads are properly followed up and the results into pipeline can be tracked.
They also would kill to know which campaign, to which industry, hit with which target demographic, so that in future you can target your campaigns better and manage the marketing budget more effectively. Tools like Microsoft PowerBI are ideal for this.
Head of Operations
Tracking manufacturing, stock levels, spares and workshop activities involves so many different supply chain and operations systems. The ability to get visibility across all these processes and then to deliver increased operational efficiency and greater customer service, should make Data Visualisation a must for Operations team.
Head of IT
IT not only needs dashboards for themselves, to be able to track server up-times, system patches, security vulnerabilities and roster staff, but also are key influencers in delivering systems and dashboards for every other department. Therefore, Data Visualisation should become a key tool for IT teams in every industry.
Head of HR
Tracking employee sickness, holidays, training as well as issues and advancement is key to HR management and is an ideal opportunity for using Data Visualisation. Delivering dashboards of recruitment campaigns to each line manager as well as tracking the effectiveness of university undergrad recruitment programmes and apprenticeships will deliver increased efficiency and effectiveness to the HR function and can be delivered quickly and inexpensively with tools like Microsoft PowerBI.
If you’d like to know more about Data Visualisation, and PowerBI in particular, you can find out more by talking to us today.
